Saturday morning, I packed Bella, Edie, Eric, and Lisa into the van. (The kids were fine but Eric and Lisa resisted getting into the trunk.) So our destination was Stop 3 on my 2008 Whirlwind Scrabble Tour: Hudson, Ohio (between Akron and Cleveland).
Lisa is a fellow Scrabbler from our club here in Charleston, WV and a co-contributor to our club's Scrabble blog. Our original plan was to travel together and room together at this, her second official Scrabble tournament. Eric and the girls decided to come along, hang out at the hotel pool, go to the Cleveland Zoo, and so on. That was good for me because, even though I was out-of-town in a tournament, I got to have dinner with them and spend a little time with them.
As for the tournament itself, it was an "open-rated" one, meaning that, regardless of your rating, you could potentially be in a match against any other player. The upside to this type of tournament is that if you have a good game, your NSA Scrabble rating will go up quite a bit. The downside, if you're in the lower rankings like me, is that it's hard to get one of those wins.
There were some highlights...I managed a solid win against an opponent who has thrashed me each of the three times we've played each other in the past. Lisa pulled out a win against one of the top-rated players there.
In the end, Lisa and I did pretty well. I came out with a win-loss record of 4-and-7 (even though Cross-Tables only predicted 1.4 winning games for me. Lisa did even better with a win-loss of 5-and-6 when Cross-Tables had predicted she would win 1.1 games. We'll both get a boost in our ratings and I'll agree that, even though my goal was to come out with maybe 5 victories, a rating increase is so much better than a rating loss. (Duh.)
I remain undeterred. Okay...well, I was deterred for about 18 hours after the tournament, during which time I had resolved to never, ever play Scrabble again. Now...I'm undeterred again. I've got at least four more tournaments before the end of the year. Actually, since Eric's work scheduled has been changed around and he and the kids can travel a little more, I may add one or two other tournaments.
And donate generously to help me keep this tour going!
All the cool kids are doin it!!
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3 comments:
You are kickin' ass and takin' names, Ms. Totten King! Woo hoo!
Hell Yes...you are my Scrabble hero. When you cancelled due to exhaustion, I could barely get out of bed - sympathy snores, I guess. I would like to contribute to your Scrabble Tour. I have a plan. What if I pay for your gas on one of those trips that gets you dangerously close to Toledo/Detroit?? It could be win-win, with my Scrabble score climbing because you would be quizzing me in the van. We should talk dates...
Thanks, DA! You're a huge support to me.
And, BITO, that's a rockin plan! I'm heading that way on 10/10 and after that it won't be until after the first of the year. You let me know and I'll drive instead of fly and bask in the glow of your amazing company and energy.
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