2013 CNSC

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Commentary: Round 13

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Go to: Before the Tournament, Round 1, Round 2, Round 3, Round 4, Round 5, Round 6, Round 7, Round 8, Round 9, Round 10, Round 11, Round 12, Round 13, Round 14, Round 15, Round 16, Round 17, Round 18, Award Ceremony, Final Round 1, Final Round 2, Final Round 3, After the Tournament.

Round 13

I think I see the catering crew setting up for tea. My table is aromatically fragrant with the tea roses from Lilla's garden. Chris continues to find the naughty words on the boards and this report will later on contain some tidbits of such. Surprisingly, I stumbled upon a naughty board, too. Details to follow.

FOURC?EE stumps us. I get Jason Broersma (Caledon ON) to look it up. Ah.... an H, but of course.... So, on a Jason Ubeika (Mississauga ON) vs. Ross Brown (Ottawa ON) board, I see FOURChEE, AVAILERS, and ANeROID.

Chris Williams (Vancouver BC) opens his game with CHEZ, appropriate for a bilingual country, I say. Morris Greenberg (Brookline, MA) replied with SHITTINg through the H. Chris then played OUTFLAnk, tossing in a blank of his own. It was Chris' win and I think Morris is slightly bummed.

Happy Anniversary to Sary Karanofsky (Cote Saint-Luc QC) and her husband: 39 years and counting! Nice to see how some couples have their SCRABBLE priorities straight: SCRABBLE first, major life moments with spouse in the province of Quebec later!

Bernard Gotlieb (Montréal QC) bs. Lou Cornelis (Stoney Creek ON). Holding what he thought was a bunch of drek, Bernard was delighted to see Lou hang an I out there. ATTAINER went down! Lou played TOUCHEs and Bernard later "lucked" into UNDREST. IAMBI, GHAZIS, and JELLO are other fun plays. ernard's win.

Jeremy Hildebrand (Ottawa ON) vs. Dielle Saldanha (Richmond BC): I see an opening bingo of ADIPOUs for her and then a bingo challenged off on her next turn. I can't quite read the slip from where I'm peering, but later am told is MUDSLING*. I see Jeremy's HEPATICS for 75 and ORALISTS for 68. Phonys do not determine much and Dielle went on to win the game.

Due to the room's structure, tables 3 and 2 have been swapped. Table 3 is now behind a pillar and table 2 has a bit more room to breathe for the addition of three annotators. This round, Christopher Sykes (Cambridge ON) is going "unabomber" with his hood not only pulled up over his head, but with his hands up on either side of the hood flanking his face. He looked almost like a character in Edvard Munch's The Scream. He later said he was trying to sleep. I do not think so. Perhaps all that womanly energy at the table scared him. Shelly Ubeika was on laptop, Maya was annotating Chris and we tossed Mad in to annotate Max Panitch (Toronto ON).

At table 3, Adam Logan (Ottawa ON) played John Stardom (Ottawa ON). The word that jumped out was John's sLEEKIt, but Adam's INTRIGUE and other intangibles earned him the win, 368-348.

Shan Abbasi (Mississauga ON) is standing over his board shaking his head. I see AAAAUL splayed out in front of him at the completed board's edge. He says, "Yeah, it cost me the game. As if having some of it wasn't enough, my last draw was AU. I thought I had it, but it slipped away." I agreed it was a pretty heavy vowel mess. He talks in shorthand, I get about 50% of it. He gets down DOcENTS and PEDANTS and at one point he played RETINENE and then got in a late-game CIVIE to take a 29-point lead. But that clever James Leong (Vancouver BC) played REJOiNED and from the rack of CLIOBRR nestled BRR/SHRi/URN for 24 at a necessary late-game point in the game. Shan lost by 6 and as I was walking away I heard him mutter to himself, "I still don't know how I lost this game..."

Matthew Tunnicliffe (Ottawa ON) opened his game with Jason Broersma (Caledon ON) with LUNTED then later got down DAINTIES for 86. Jason played ALIENORS for 62 and CADaVEr for 84. Of this last bingo Jason said we could look at those tiles all day and find different plays. This was the Muffin With Tentacle's turn to win.

Chris Lipe writes:

Jackson Smylie (Toronto ON) is wearing a very nice shirt today. It's a blue, button-up shirt with a bit of texturing to the fabric, and it is genteel and refined while still being young, fresh, and edgy. It is also slightly darker than, but elsewise exactly the same as, the shirt I am wearing.

There is a hoodlum, in the truest sense of the word, hunched over across the table from Max Panitch (Toronto ON) at Board Three. There is a sea of annotators and a flurry of writing and computer activity while Max and this mystery player sit motionless, deep in thought. For a moment this person reminds me of David Eldar, hoodied and insouciant. After some acrobatics on my part, I am able to see past the shroud of mystery and identify the face of Christopher Sykes (Cambridge ON).

Confusion at Board One! Who is going first? Eric Tran (Calgary AB) or Robin Pollock Daniel (Toronto ON)? Master Annotator Risa Horowitz comes out, and asks John Chew for clarification. She returns to board one, points at Robin and says, "You're second." Robin asks, "Me? I'm second? Does that mean he's first?"

Andy Saunders (Guelph ON) and Tony Leah (Ajax ON) are playing, and both of them are CSW players trying to play the TWL this weekend, and, well, it has been mostly successful, but I must report, one of them played ENSEALS# this round, and the other of them accepted it.

Sue Tremblay (Carlsbad Springs ON) is holding SATANIC against Jim Nanavati (Burlington ON), but Jim has just blocked the only place it will play. Dag nabbit!

A few cool things on the board this round -- notably Roger Cullman (Toronto ON) played JEEPNEY against Joel Wapnick (Montreal QC) and Ross Brown (Ottawa ON) played FOURChEE against Jason Ubeika (Mississauga ON). Oh, and Zev Kaufman (Toronto ON) motions to me as I pass by -- Mark Edelson (Toronto ON) played VIBE, putting a V in the second position, and Zev, holding a blank, hit EVEnTIDE for 149. Two 3x3s played in two consecutive rounds!

Andy played a double-blank TEETOTAL against Tony Leah, which, really, I think is the best theme word for this tournament. None of us here at CNSC 2013 would even entertain the notion of imbibing the demon drink.

Joel Wapnick (Montreal QC) leads the way to the challenge computer, with Roger Cullman (Toronto ON) in tow. There's something about his demeanor -- and okay I'm probably making this up -- that says, "In a just world, I would pick up the tiles and throw them back at you, because what you have played is not a word. But, for some reason, our rule book dictates that I have to pretend for a moment that maybe your play is an actual word, and ask this computer to tell me what I, and frankly, you already know -- that you just made that play up, you will get your tiles back, and now it is my turn." This isn't even one of Roger's most entertaining phonies -- RINGTIDE* is not acceptable, says Zyzzyva. One of my favorite Roger plays was when he played HIFI* against me -- this was years ago -- and I was so flabbergasted that I very nearly forgot to say "HOLD".

The dictionary is a great thing, full of beautiful words, full of words that inform our culture and our history and the ways that we live our lives. Language is first and foremost a tale of people, and their lives, their loves, their trials and triumphs, their sadness, and their frustration. It is a hyperreal reflection of life, with no corners cut nor quarter given. It is chock full of poetry and vulgarity and all of the things that come with a life fully lived. It pleases me even more when the language as captured by the dictionary is expanded, grown, forcibly rent as to make room for new words and expressions that are true and accurate to the lives we all lead. Imagine my joy, then, as I walk by Priya Fernando (Mississauga ON) and Barbara Bultz (Dollard-des-Ormeaux QC) and see that Priya has played SHITTERS*

Now, it is teatime, and not a moment too soon. Peace out, homies.