I drove down to Fort Collins today to play a woman 3 games of Scrabble. We're part of a "marathon" Scrabble tournament consisting of 10 women. Over the course of 3 months we meet to play each other 3 games, individually, and after everyone has played everyone else, we'll get together to award prizes.
It's an informal tournament, not a sanctioned one, just a group of friends and Scrabble lovers getting together in a semi-structured environment to add a little spice to the games.
I won the first game, lost the second by six points because I didn't find the bingo that I referenced in my title, and won the third because I found two bingos, that time.
My opponent played the word PIERCE vertically. If I could play a word with a D or R below that, that was a bingo, I'd win.
In addition, there was a D in another part of the board, that also had enough room so that if I could play a bingo through it, I'd also win the game.
I could not find the bingo.
I had
U N T A E D ?
I saw the bingo UNTAMED, but what wouldn't do me any good.What I did not see was NATURED, which was the word with the "R" in just the right spot for me to get a bingo and spell PIERCER.
(There are 21 other bingos that I also didn't see, but I wasn't looking for them, either. I was desperate to find a word with the third letter from the left being an"R" or a "D."
I then shifted my attention to that free D, trying to find an 8 letter word with that extra D.
And there were two.
I never would have guessed DENUDATE in a month of Sundays, but I should have at least seen ADDUCENT and wondered if it could be a word. But I didn't see it, either!
I don't feel too bad about not seeing either of those 2 words but I really should have seen NATURED.
What other bingos did I get?
In the first game, RAVINES, spelling STET where TET had been.
In the second game, not only did I miss NATURED when I really needed it, but earlier on, in two subsequent turns, I missed
DOATERS which anagrammed to ROASTED
and
STARLED which anagrammed to DARTLES. I have never heard of DARTLES so don't mind missing that!
DARTLES is to "dart repeatedly." Pish, tosh, I say.
But I'm really embarrassed about not seeing that DOATERS would anagram to ROASTED. I usually do pretty good finding the -ED and -ER bingos if I know the word to begin with.
In our third and final game, I had:
MEWLERS.... I think the R was a blank but unfortunately I didn't write down the letters I had, I guess I must have anagrammed it without hesitation. I placed the S on top of CARING for SCARING.
And FEATURES (playing through an E already on the board) as well.
On Monday, May 28, I'll be playing a few games in Wellington, CO with a woman who is ranked considerably higher than I am. She's in B division.
I've never played her before and it's not part of the "marathon" tournament, I just saw her at the May 19, 2018 tournament (in which I took 3rd place in Division C with a 5-3 record and a spread better than my opponent who also had a 5-3 record at the end, with me having defeated her in the position round) and someone had told me that this woman didn't work and liked to play Scrabble even with those in lesser divisions, so I asked her.
(I've never played her, but I talked to her at a previous tournament, and she has an interesting family. Her father was a diplomat in the 1970s and was in Vietnam just before everyone pulled out before the war...)
My next "marathon" set of games will be on May 30.
