European Open Scrabble Championship Malta 2010 Day 4)

Day 4 was extremely good for Cata Caba, who managed to finish on the podium. 3rd place in B division is a very good result. Well done, Cata! I`m looking forward to seeing Cata play in A division in a year or two, and why not, even take some scalps.
Both Mihai and Dan had a quiet last day. They didn`t have to meet any "bullies", so I was hoping they would make the top 10. Mihai had a tougher schedule than Dan, and unfortunately, he lost 3 out of the 4 games against opponents who had pretty much his level of play. Dan only had one tough game, which he also lost. He also lost 2 "easy" ones. I`m guessing Dan suffers from the same disease as I do. It`s called playing at your opponent`s level. I don`t even wanna remember how many games I lost because of that! Both Mihai (12th place) and Dan (15th place) finished where I thought they would. That means they didn`t impress, but they didn`t disappoint either.
Dan had 9 impossible games ( against opponents much better than him 4W-5L), 12difficult games (against opponents who had the same level or who were a bit better 5W-7L ) and 11 "easy games" ( against weaker opponents 6W-5L!)
Mihai had 8 impossible games ( against much stronger opponents 2W- 6L ), 10 difficult games ( against opponents who had the same level or who were a bit better than him 2w-8L) and 14 "easy games" ( against weaker opponents 10W-4L!) I guess you could say that Mihai is also a "bully"...
Considering Dan`s tougher field, I`d say Dan`s 15th place is as good as Mihai`s 12th place. Great effort! The two days break will be followed by another international tournament: Malta International Scrabble Open. Good luck to everybody, when they`re not playing the....Romanians!

Final standings:
1
Nigel Richards

Malaysia

27.0-5.0
+4106

2
Helen Gipson

Scotland

24.0-8.0
+1319

3
Joanne Craig

Australia

21.0-11.0
+175

4
Harshan Lamabadusuriya

England

20.0-12.0
+1479

5
Theresa Brousson

Malta

19.0-13.0
+445

6
Cecil Muscat

Malta

17.0-15.0
+1393

7
David Webb

England

17.0-15.0
+646

8
Craig Beevers

England

17.0-15.0
+634

9
Simon Gillam

Scotland

17.0-15.0
-157

10
Vincent Boyle

Scotland

17.0-15.0
-447

11
Terry Kirk

England

16.0-16.0
+198

12
Mihai Pantis

Romania

16.0-16.0
+93

13
David Delicata

Malta

16.0-16.0
-51

14
Jackie McLeod

England

16.0-16.0
-265

15
Dan Sandu

Romania

16.0-16.0
-325

16
Nicky Vella-Laurenti

Malta

16.0-16.0
-462

17
Sam Kantimathi

United States

15.5-16.5
+216

18
Karen Richards

Australia

15.0-17.0
+381

19
Kevin Synnott

England

15.0-17.0
-282

20
Eileen Meghen

Ireland

15.0-17.0
-1225

21
Raymond Tate

Scotland

14.5-17.5
-451

22
John Barker

Australia

14.0-18.0
-62

23
Jojo Delia

Malta

14.0-18.0
-504

24
Mario Saliba

Malta

13.0-19.0
-945

25
Evelyn Wallace

England

12.0-20.0
-1881

26
Alison Pollard

Australia

10.0-22.0
-1321

27
Christine Strawbridge

Malta

9.0-23.0
-1102

28
Gary Pollard

Australia

9.0-23.0
-1605

European Open Scrabble Championship Malta 2010 Day 3)

Unfortunately, not a very good day for the Romanian team. Mihai`s performance reminded me of mine at the UK Open. He lost all the tough matches and won 4 out of the last 5, against lower rated opponents, as expected. Dan`s performance was a bit better than Mihai`s. If you look at his matches, he had 8 tough games and an easier one. Ironically, he lost the "easy" one and beat Craig Beevers again! He also won his games agains Simon Gillam (expert), Jackie McLeod (expert) and David Delicata ( expert from Malta). He got to play Nigel Richards and Helen Gipson. Dan lost both games as expected, but considering the tough field he played yesterday, his result was not bad at all. In B division, Cata still has a shot at the second place. he is 7th at the moment, but I think he is better than that! Tomorrow is the last day of the European Open Scrabble Championship. All 3 players can finish top 10. Good luck!

European Open Scrabble Championship Malta 2010 Day 2)

Day 2 was without doubt Mihai`s day. The win against Helen, really pleased me. I remember Mihai started his WSC campaign with a win against Helen, one of the best scrabble players in the world.Mihai also beat the UK National Champion en titre, Craig Beevers, and lost to Theresa Brousson, even though he scored 443 points. Dan lost most of the tough games today, and won the "easy ones". We all know that there are no easy games in Scrabble. Luck has its 30% contribution.Dan also beat David Delicata, the favourite of the home crowd. Both Mihai and Dan are on 9 wins and 8 losses, which is really not bad at all. It pleases me to see that with a bit of luck, we can beat anybody in the world, when 5 years ago we couldn`t hurt a fly!
Cata is doing well in the B division and I really think he can finish second if he focuses enough.He had an amazing find, any of the A division players would be proud of: HEXEREI, which means witchcraft. Good luck to the 3 musketeers for tomorrow!

European Open Scrabble Championship Malta 2010 Day 1)

I must say that I was more than impressed by Dan`s start. Wins to Harshan Lambadusuriya( master), Craig Beevers (master), Theresa Brousson (expert) and Jojo Delia (represented Malta at the World Scrabble Championship). Losses to Karen Richard(I`ve never beaten Karen), Sam Kantimathi( an expert player from America, once the winner of the famous King`s Cup, and Simon Gillam ( expert )
Dan also played Vella Laurenti-Nicky, but I don`t know much about this player.
At the end of the day, Dan`s 4-4 is an amazing result. If he keeps beating the "eagles" and focuses more against the "lowriders", he can finish again in top 10.
And tomorrow, first thing in the morning, he has to play David Webb, another master from UK.
Mihai managed to avoid all of my favourites for the top 10 today. He did have 3
fairly difficult games against Delia Jojo, Gillam Simon and Vincent Boyle.Unfortunately he lost all of them. But the good news is he won 4 games against lower rated opponents.
A win is a win, and now Mihai is 12th while Dan is 17th, both on 4-4. If this was a boxing game between Mihai and Dan, I`d give this round to Dan.
In Division B Cata Caba is on 5 wins and 3 losses. I know he is a good player.If he stops playing scared, he can even win the division.Good luck to the three musketeers tomorrow. In the meanwhile, I`ll pay my first visit to the Osaka Scrabble Club in 2 years. I`m hoping to get a couple of games. I haven`t studied any words in 4 months, so I feel a bit rusty.

Where We Live II: Romania

We told you all about our home in Japan, so we thought it was time to tell you about our home back home. Romania, our country. We guiltily admit to not knowing very much about our own country, but we are trying to fix the problem with the help of two much more knowledgeable friends who explore Romania and write about it. Since they only write in Romanian (for the moment, we hope), we have borrowed some photos from their website and here they are.



Pacuiul lui Soare, an island 150 km southeast of Bucharest, where, according to our friends, you can feel like an explorer in the Amazonian jungle.



I must say that these photos made me want to fly straight there, right now, although it seems that Romania is buried under snow and blessed with a gentle Siberian breeze. However, if you feel like escaping towards an yet unexplored paradise, this is our recommendation. And yes, dear Scrabble players, it seems peaceful enough, so you can study your word lists there.

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!