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 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.