Wednesday, December 12, 2012

Prague 2012

 I decided to go to Prague for the MSI Mindsports Festival after doing well (placing 6th and winning 100 EUR) in the 1st Romanian Open Scrabble Tournament (ROST) in October earlier this year.
[sorry for the lack of report on that tournament - it looks like my second hobby (dancing) is taking up all of my free time ;) ]

What I saw in Prague was a world-class tournament featuring the former world champion Adam Logan and the current champion Nigel Richards. The field was very international with top-class players from Australia, Singapore, UK, Canada and the United States.

I really enoyed the magnificent setting of the 5-star Corinthia Hotel playing Scrabble on the 24th floor with a nice view over the beautiful city of Prague. And I also witnessed the premiere of the first ever RFID Scrabble board worth 30 000 USD (http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/view/10192/) which is capable of broadcasting the Scrabble games live on the internet (almost) without any human intervention.

The tournament itself turned out a bit unlucky for me - I placed 31st out of 41 recording a record of 11-13 and -199. I'll blame this performance on 40% of the blanks I got and an extreme tiredeness on the 1st day when after a sleepless night on the bus from Lodz, PL (9 hours) I played 12 Scrabble games from 9 AM until 11 PM.

Despite this mediocre performance I still had my happy moments like winning a game by 537-504 and recording the highest combined score (1041) of the tournament:













This tournament will also go into records for me as the one with most 8-letter words played - 67% of my bingos were 8-letters-long.

Some nice words I have played during the tournament:
SIGNORIA, DIAZINES (124), AUTOCUES, DEGAUSS, FOUNTAIN, FAVICONS, GNASHERS, EGLATERE, GAUNTREE, CYANISE, UILLEANN, AUDITION, KALINITE and ICESTONE :)


And finally some great piece of news regarding the two other Polish players who played in Prague, too.
Wojtek won 300 EUR for finishing as the top player in group E.
But the greatest surprize was an outstanding performance by a new Polish player Ewa, who won the "overseed" category by finishing in 26th place despite being ranked only as 40th. Ewa won 500 EUR.

Congratulations to both Polish players!

The next tournament of the Mindsports Festival series is taking place in Vienna on 16-18 February 2013.

Although this is very tempting I guess I'll need to pass on it, as I already have some dancing plans on the same weekend in Poznan, PL.

And I need to save money for the possible World Championship appearance in 2013... :)


The STATS:
Games won: 11
Games lost: 13
Spread: -199

Average for: 402.2
Average against: 415.3

Blanks: 19/48 = 40%
S's: 50/96 = 52%

Games won:
2 blanks: 3/3 (100%)
1 blank: 6/13 (46%)
0 blanks: 2/8 (25%)

Bingos for: 43 (1.8 per game)
Bingos against: 43 (1.8 per game)

7 letter bingos: 14 (33%)
8 letter bingos: 29 (67%)

Bingos with blanks: 14 (33%)
Bingos without blanks: 29 (67%)

Highest no of bingos in a game: 4
Lowest no of bingos in a game: 0

High game: 537
Low game: 296

Highest combined score: 1041 (537-504 for me)

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