Facebook Scrabble ( Andrew Fisher vs Adrian Tamas)

Andrew is one of those player who usually beats the living sushi out of me at Scrabble. A player who cowrote the book "How to Win at Scrabble" definitely knows how to do it.For a while, I was considering writing a book called "How to Lose at Scrabble". I`m sure it would have been extremely popular among the Scrabble players. It usually takes me four or five games to beat Andrew once. After rereading "How to Win at Scrabble" though, I must tell you that I`m 4-1 against him. I "blame" it on the good tiles, but also on the better rack balance. Andrew and I shared the blanks, but I had a better flow of the tiles. I don`t if it`s just a coincidence, but before rereading Andrew`s book, I was on a six loss streak against him!
My bonuses: SOZINES, ADJURES, TABOURIN, LEGALISE, OBELISE, DECANTS, ELUVIATE,WRONGERS, NIMMERS, LAUREATE, SUNDIALS
ANdrew`s bonuses: CANOPIED, FUMETTES, ARROGATE, TOASTED, SARCENET, LEPROTIC, SYNERGIA

Anagrams

Today we played eight games. After the games, Mihai and I taught my father how to play Anagrams. Then, my father and Mihai teamed up against me. Unfortunately for them, I managed to steal their finds, so they finished on zero.

Scrabble in Romania

After Christmas, I went to Cluj Napoca to meet my Romanian Scrabble mates. My father was there too. I was pleased to meet Septimiu Crivei, the National Scrabble Champion en titre in Romanian and the guy who supported me the most for the last couple of years. Even though, we often ecxhange emails, it was the first time for us tu meet. And because we couldn't stay away from Scrabble, we decided to play team Scrabble. It was Septimiu and I versus Mihai and my father. As our opponents said, we were extremely lucky to win both games. Here are some photos from Cluj:


Septimiu Crivei, Ovidiu Tamas, Mihai Pantis, Adrian Tamas



Septimiu & Adrian 511 Mihai & Ovidiu 394


Septimiu & Adrian 433 Mihai & Ovidiu 409

The End of the Road

To avoid misunderstandings, this is the wife speaking. I have just seen the standings on the WSC official website. Not exactly what I would have expected, so I thought I should count the positive and negative aspects, to see whether I should mourn or rejoice.

Minuses:

1. Romania is (I think) back to the one-player team.
2. The very supportive people back home (Septimiu and the U Cluj club, for example) may be disappointed.
3. I'm afraid my husband would get drunk if he drank alcohol. Honestly, I'm sorry he doesn't. As I mentioned before, I'm a terribly sorry loser, so I'd probably be suicidal were I in his shoes.
4. The surprise breakfast (pancakes!) I had planned for him is off. That was the breakfast for champions.

Pluses:

1. Our house has been very clean and neat for the past seven days.
2. I can eat my favourite cereal every morning because the bag stays miraculously full during the night.
3. I don't have to watch TV wearing headphones anymore (Adrian doesn't watch TV).
4. The strange ringing in my husband's ears (it sounds something like: "How many times have I told you not to leave your dirty socks on the floor?" "Take your feet off the desk!" "Dry the dishes and put them back in the cupboard after you've washed them!" and other such endearing words) has completely disappeared.

Another minus: all the pluses enumerated above will magically disappear as soon as Adrian is back from Malaysia.
Another plus: pending on the Causeway Challenge results, the pancake breakfast might be back on schedule.

Congratulations to all the players, good luck tomorrow to the two Lords on top and, as the Japanese put it, お疲れ様でした (otsukare sama deshita = your efforts during the day are much appreciated).
Carmen

World Scrabble Championship (I)

I have just found these photos on the official site of the championship and I thought I'd share them with you. Together with the news that my husband finished the day on position 14. I could burst with pride!

Singapore ( day 1)

ADRIAN TAMAS 385 RICKY PURNUOMO 533

I arrived in Singapore, where Ricky Purnuomo, another Scrabble freako*, was waiting for me. We ate something and then we went back to his place to play Scrabble. Since it was getting late and tomorrow we have a tournament to attend, we stopped after two games. I am staying at his place, so I had to let him win both games.Ricky's bonuses were RECOUNT, GLAIKET, INHALES, DIAMIDES, CARIERES, UNITING and CENOTES, while my bonuses were CRESTED, ERODENT and NASALIZE.



RICKY PURNUOMO 510 ADRIAN TAMAS 384

Tokyo Scrabble (3)

One of the three Scrabbleoke* games Jason and I played


The third and last part of my Scrabble trip to Tokyo is a " word report". Here are a few words Jason and I played:

PENULTS = the next to last syllable in a word (ADRIAN)
BIVIA(no-S) BIVIUM* = part of a starfish (ADRIAN)
VISCID (no-S) = thick and adhesive (JASON)
EUTEXIA+S = the property of being easily melted (JASON)
HAIKAI(no -S) = a type of Japanese poem (ADRIAN)
ORIBI+S = an African antelope (ADRIAN)
TITTUP+S,Y = to move in a lively manner (JASON)
MASTITIS = inflammation of the breast (ADRIAN)
SHIRALEE+S = a swagman's bundle (JASON)
AZYGIES = an unpaired biological element (ADRIAN)
DOVECOTS = a roost for domesticated pigeons (JASON)
AMILDAR+S = an Indian manager (ADRIAN)
OXEYE+S = a flowering plant (ADRIAN)



The game Jason and I played on the train

XEROMAS = a dry lustreless condition of the conjunctiva (JASON)
DRUMLIN+S = a long hill of glacial drift (ADRIAN)
SEMEION (no-S) SEMEIA* = a unit of time (ADRIAN)
CRUZIE+S also CRUIZIE+S = an oil lamp( ADRIAN)
FAQUIRS = a religious ascetic in India, also FAQIR FAKIR (JASON)
DIANOIAS = a lower mode of knowledge from perception and experience(ADRIAN)
VAGROM (no-S) = wandering (JASON)

Playing so many games against Jason (who is rated 14th in the world at the moment)was exactly the kind of training I needed for the World Scrabble Championship 2009 and the Causeway Challenge (both held in Malaysia). I'm counting the days!

Tokyo Scrabble (2)

The Odyssey continued on the train. If you don’t believe me, look at the photos. Nothing better to shock the locals than two weird looking foreigners doing strange and suspicious things with a colorful board and some white tiles.




Next stop, an ant-infested park. Like real heroes, we kept on playing, paying in blood our devotion to the god of Scrabble. At least Carmen has nothing to comment here: park, lake, summer night, ME… all the ingredients for a perfect romantic… salad.




My quest for the Holy Scrabble ended (tragically, I must say, because two weeks of parties, walks around temples and Takarazuka plays were awaiting me) at the Shinjuku station. We stopped in a stinky corner, where people gathered to pollute the atmosphere with their cigarettes, and played Blitz Scrabble: 3-minute games. People stopped by and cast curious glances at our boards, but we were so absorbed in the game that I almost missed my bus. I realized I had to go only 15 minutes before the bus was scheduled to depart for Osaka, so I ran to the bus stop. I know, I know, I was running to meet love. I made it there in the nick of time, only to be told by the driver that there was one hour left until departure. No, they were not late and they hadn’t changed the schedule either. I was simply one hour too early. Now, you know about my adventure on the bus, so I’ll end my tale here. Carmen made me promise to give the game report in a separate post, as not to bore all of her friends out of their wits. Enjoy the photos and I’ll be back (for Scrabble players only).

Tokyo Scrabble (1)

A few weeks ago I told you about my clandestine trip to Tokyo. A little late, maybe, but I’m back with the news (no longer quite so new) report. The specialists know what I did there—played Scrabble—but the question is when and where.
Jason and I started in a businesslike manner at the Google Japan headquarters, surrounded by hundreds of computers. Of course, we played the real thing, using a board. Yet the adrenaline rush was missing, so we went to a karaoke place. Nothing to get your blood pumping like having to play the lyrics of a song! Carmen says there was no mystery, no charm to the whole thing—half amused, half angry, she says she’s haunted by the image of her husband peacefully reading Scrabble lists on some stone steps, while she was in ecstasy at the magnificent Hindu temples in Khajuraho. I don’t dare contradict her (if you’re married, you know what I mean), but I have to remind her that men would rather choose fun over… well, over a lot of things. And karaoke Scrabble IS fun.


The Scrabble marathon continued with a couple of hours at a family restaurant, where we played until 5 in the morning. Unfortunately, even legendary heroes need a break (if Achilles hadn’t gone to sleep, Patrocles wouldn’t have had time to steal his armour and… my apologies, it seems that my wife planted a mythology bug in my computer), so we started again the next day around noon. At a Chinese restaurant that served authentic Chinese food (not the Japanese-style Chinese food that is so common here) and where Jason and I could brag about our linguistic skills. The only inconvenient was the size of the tables: they were too small for the board. I guess it had been done on purpose: overwhelmed by the hordes of Scrabble players, the owners of the restaurant had adjusted the tables to an unsuitable size. Tactics similar to the burning of the fields and poisoning of the wells used by Romanian peasants in the Middle Ages when threatened by the Turks. World, beware, the Scrabble freaks are coming!

To be continued...