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Mark my words trip report- conclusion July

#1

The not quite as exciting as the first 10 days Conclusion.

Report was so long it must have exceeded the character limit & got clipped after day 10 was finished.

Here’s the Day 11, Day 12 & Summary:

Day 11 Peppermill

Last full day of this long trip. Thanks for sticking with me.

Late sleep-in again today, til 2:30

4:00 gaming hi lights:

down 1000 on $2 DDB

up 1400 on $1 DD A&F thankss to two bonus quads WITH kickers for 800 each.

omelet at counter counted for all three meals today.

up 100 on the day at 8:00PM

$2 DDB dealt Quad 4, couldn’t draw a kicker, for $820 prog, session down 400

$2 A & F caught 4 quads for 250 each, including one where I held no cards and drew the quad. session +300

$2 DDB down 700

10 x 50c Super Aces Bonus - quad AAAA for 1000, but over two sessions only UP 200.

7 hrs play - DOWN 1000 on the day. which means down 1000 for the trip.

Day 12 Peppermill

Up at 9:00, packed, bags to bell, checked out on the TV, $0 room rate & $0
charges to room. Finished the Baileys, took a mugful with me.

9:30 gaming.

3 x $1 cycle, hit a quad AAAA on DDB for 800. minus 300

$2 DDB hit two Quads and a SF for 500 each. plus 300

Hands like this SF are the One-Offs that make or break a winning trip:
[Held Qs drew 9sTsJsKs for a $500 SF]

"wouda been 8000 with the Ace o’ spades in lieu of the nine.

$2 A&F down 300

$2 DD A&F down 800

$1 Joker wild down 400

3 x $1 cycle down 300

$2 DDB dealt:

Quad 3333 w/2 kicker for $1618… = UP 1000 on the session.

A blast of $2 DD A&F I dropped 1200.

Final 5 minutes on $2 DDB cost me 300 more.

1:00 off to bell to catch limo.

Uneventful travel home…

Summary:

75 hours gaming over 12 days

139 jackpots of $200 or more:

24 x $200

55 x 250

18 x 400

19 x 500

13 x 800

1 x 1000

3 x 1600

3 x 2000

1 x 4000

1 x 4700

1 x 6300

10 tax forms

4 RFs

Down 3000 for the trip.

I’ll be back!

Check out vpFree 2019 Jackpots Pohot Album for my top 4 Jackpot photos.

~MARK

#2

Three things, great report, can’t believe a trip w 4 royals was a losing one ouch and did anyone in Scrabble play that tight short ‘Nigerian’ style?

#3

I’m not familiar with that style of scrabble, called ‘Nigerian’ anyways…

But the occasional tournament game gets mired in what we players call stair-stepping:

typically a diagonal run of 3-letter words, overlapping two letters (or one) and making one quadrant of the board very difficult to extend any of the threes. It creates a staircase of threes that can go right to the corner.

You see this in the lower divisions, where there is a lot of blantant defense, probably when one or both players are scared to give opponent a “bingo lane”, because in a lower scoring game, one bingo might win it.

Very few players in my division play that strategy - me included. it’s just a better game when there’s at least a few openings.

If you wanna see some annotated games from this year’s Nationals, Table 1, click here:

http://event.scrabbleplayers.org/games/nsc2019/

You can go rack by rack and try to guess the play before you go forward one play to see what the best players actually played.

Evey other game is marked CSW, which is a separate division that uses the dictionary that the whole world uses…

The other games are in the TWL division, the dictionary is used in US/Canada only and is smaller than the CSW one.

I DO have a blog showing all MY 31 games & scoresheets plus a little commentary.

But you’ll have to send me a private e-mail to get that Link, I try to be careful who’s my audience.

Have you ever played tournament scrabble?

~MARK

—In vpFREE_R…@…com, <cdgnpc@…> wrote :

Three things, great report, can’t believe a trip w 4 royals was a losing one ouch and did anyone in Scrabble play that tight short ‘Nigerian’ style?

#4

That is pretty much it. Passing on a bingo if you can play something to make the board harder to play. My understanding is that it is just a realy old strategy that works if you are not prepared for it.

I am including a link. I don’t want to get yelled at for being off topic.

https://slate.com/human-interest/2016/05/have-nigerian-players-developed-an-amazing-new-scrabble-strategy-dont-believe-the-hype.html