This has been our 9th meeting overall and the first one this year. Although it's a non-tournament year in Poland I decided to give it a shot as there is still some Scrabble to be played in 2012. In July I'm going to play in a small tournament in Berlin - the German Nationals. And then in October it's time to head to Bucarest, Romania (never been there before) for the first ever Romanian Scrabble Tournament. It is the second in the series of continental European tournaments after Mannheim, Germany in March 2011. And if all goes well, next year Poland will be represented at the 2013 Nations Team Tournament (former Four Nations) which will by then hopefully feature 8 teams including Poland and Romania.
As regards the Romanian Tournament in October it looks like all three of us Poles are going to play there: Wojtek, Rafał and I. This gives us a good chance to compare our strengths before the National Tournament in 2013.
Back to the present though.
Today we met (again after July 2011) in a romantic setting of Ganders Teahouse in Francuska Str. in Warsaw. The weather was awful as usual - rain and cold weather have become a trademark of the Clash of the Titans series. This time it was a mix of torrential rain and sunshine, cosy 20 degrees and chilly 12 degrees.
5 months of lack of match and word studying practise have taken its toll on me and I recorded my worst stats ever. Lowest average score, lowest average number of bingos, you name it. I won only 3 out of 10 games despite getting 50% of the blanks and 55% of the S's. I missed some unmissable bingos like TUNICAE and BASANITE but I guess I could say I was a bit unlucky with my racks, too. Imagine AOOOOTU, AABEEOO, EEEIIKW and FIINNUU on your rack and you'll know how I felt ;)
And yet my best bingo was played with an awkward combination of AEIIIRT. Thanks to Wojtek's R laid on the board I squeezed in (R)ETIARII, which made me a believer again.
All in all I'm content with my performance. I still remember (some of the) the words and my play is very focused.
I'm confident I can only go up from here. My goal is to get back to my Causeway 2011 level of play by the end of year and even improve on that. I only need some practise and the sky will be blue again.
The STATS:
Games won: 3
Games lost: 7
Spread: -332
Average for: 378.5
Average against: 411.7
Blanks: 10/20 = 50%
S's: 22/40 = 55%
Games won:
2 blanks: 1/3 (33%)
1 blank: 1/4 (25%)
0 blanks: 1/3 (33%)
Bingos for: 14 (1.4 per game)
Bingos against: 12 (1.2 per game)
7 letter bingos: 10 (71%)
8 letter bingos: 4 (29%)
Bingos with blanks: 7 (50%)
Bingos without blanks: 7 (50%)
Highest no of bingos in a game: 3
Lowest no of bingos in a game: 0
High game: 446
Low game: 288
Highest combined score: 926 (492-434 for Wojtek)
