Dirty Play in Wollongong

After a draining 18 games at the State Challenge it felt comforting to return to the 4-game Monday night routine.

For the first game I was drawn against Jean who opened with PI. I don't believe in two letter opening moves, whether it is for dumping or fishing reasons, because your opponent will usually outscore you and will gain early momentum by turning over more tiles for a better chance at the goodies. I would prefer to exchange tiles and allow my opponent to open and possibly give me an opening for a bingo reply. After all, statistics prove you have a 1 in 5 chance of replying with a bingo and only a 1 in 7 chance of opening with a bingo. I turned over 5 tiles with ALLOY to outscore Jean by 3 points then turned over another 6 tiles with BEANIE before pausing at my rack of AIUGNST. Meanwhile, Jean continued dumping with VOID and EVOE. I could see several 8-letter possibilities in my rack but concentrated on playing through either the B or E of my BEANIE. The E offered the better chance and I soon saw the solution (after the spoiler below). The bingo scored 61 but my inner smile was immediately transmogriphied into a grimace when Jean replied with REZ (Z on a TLS) - the night's highest non-bingo score of 65. "FIE !" - I replied on the board for 34. Jean then blocked a TWS opening with JAR whilst I dumped VAT. Jean exchanged tiles while I contempolated my rack of EILNPS? . My highest scoring move required my S to be in the 2nd last position. I played one of the three possible solutions (see #2 below). This play took me into the lead but after 2 more moves, Jean moved back in front with AeRATED after dumping WNDS through an E. Jean proceeded to build a lead of 40 while I decided to push for a 3rd bingo. Holding the rack of EOLRSTT, I needed the bingo to start with an S and managed to find one (below) to regain the lead that I never relinquished. Apart from her opening move, which obliged her to keep fishing, I thought Jean had played an excellent game.

I drew Rene next and started with dumps of METIF, AUTO, VERVE (setting up a T end-hook), HATE, EOAN, ROLE, WOE, COR and TOW for a woeful average of 15 points per turn. I had been holding a pesky Q and finally got to play it for 37 with QUEY. Meanwhile, Rene was doing only slightly better - dumping a couple of S's that made me very cautious with bingo openings. After several more dumps, I held a blank that offered me several bingo racks. I took nearly 3 minutes to try to fit one of them in an awkward opening that required a parallel play beside 3 letters. Alas there wasn't a solution and my clock time was almost up. I dumped UG and picked up ?G to now hold the rack AIGNS??. The remaining opportunity was through an L and the highest-scoring solution would require my G to be in either the 4th position ending with L or the 5th position starting with L. I settled for the lower-scoring LAGgINgS but there was indeed one solution out of the 209 possible bingos (#4 below). Unfortunately, the time I wasted allowed Rene to sneak a win once time penalty was taken into account :(

Keith was my next opponent. This time he generously avoided the "jinx" comment about me always winning. My opening play was GEODE and Keith used the first E to play ENOUGH. This signalled to me that Keith was ready to play an open game replete with bingo opportunities. He could easily have played a more defensive HONE for more score. I couldn't see a seven in my DORRIES rack and decided to enter into the spirit of things by gambling on using Keith's O to make *ODORISER, reasoning that if you can have deodoriser, you should have *ODORISER. This time my gamble was unrewarded. Similarly, Keith was looking at ABRAISS and gambled with *ABRAISES through the second E of my GEODE. "AIRBASES or ARABISES!" I thought to myself. I then turned nasty by playing ORD underneath the DE of GEODE to quash a second opportunity. This play rewarded me with a lovely EEIMRST rack, from which I played RETIMES (another 5 anagrams are revealed below #5). This gave me a lead that Keith took back by playing StARNIES after more than a minute trying to find a higher scoring play than 59 points. The rest of the game proved to be a dogfight rather than a gunfight. I played CORGI; Keith played MOWED. When I played LOO for 10 points, I didn't see the opening for Keith's QUELL for 48 points that propelled him to a 20 point lead with tiles running out. His Q was placed on the triple word rank and I had neither of the remaining 2 U's. I had an I that I could use to block the opening but I also had NDAR and could play QINDAR for 48 to help ensure my eventual win. There was a twist in the tail though. When the bag was emptied and both of us had a full rack of 7 tiles. Keith needed a bingo to win but played a single H, leaving himself with a clever 6-letter outplay of SALAMI with the S hooked in front of AL. We both joked about the unlikely possibility of finding a bingo in SALAMI + H but in fact there is one. Shame on Keith for not finding it! (#6 below) It was yet another open and exciting game which seems to typify our matches.

Val was to be lucky last this week. She tried a variation of Keith's "jinx" gambit by proclaiming she really didn't want to win - but I wasn't falling for it. Val has one of the best word knowledges in the club alongside Jeff - in knowing the meanings of every strange word she plays. Her opening KORA (I noted that I could hook my I onto it) was answered by my WOF. Her HOG (I noted I could front-hook C or S onto it) was answered by by HAZIER. On the 4th move Val was warning me that she had a dirty word to play next. Of course, I should have taken that cue to block any bingo openings but instead chose to ignore the warning and balance my rack. Val hooked her B onto the end of FA and then placed a U next to it so I thought the next letter would be M. However, it was a G followed by another G then ERs, with the s placed one square under a TWS square. Seeing as she was now 115 points in front, I knew I had to find a bingo immediately. My rack was a AIUNNRS which didn't at first look like it would yield a bingo but I managed to find one through Val's bingo (see #7 below). Four moves later, Val attempted *EXToLES with her S hooked in front of HOG. Of course, those tiles could make LaTEXES or TELEXeS so I increased the level of difficulty by using up my S to play US and SHOG. She would have to hook something in front of U to score a bingo. It proved to be a wise move (for once!) as Val was unable to play any bingo for the rest of the game. She then made a tempting opening with OWL (see #8 for the 10 front hook letters). Fortunately, I found myself with the lovely rack of AEEMRTS and selected RETEAMS as the highest scoring play, hooking my S in front of OWL (see #9 for the other anagrams). Again there was a twist in the tail when, Val held IIS? in her final rack and needed an outplay for 30 points to grab the win. She gambled with *ISIs and I assessed that ISIt would have won it for her. The extra move allowed me a winning margin even if Val were to play ISIt next. So once again, I was let off the hook.

In the scratchie award ceremony, when everyone is asked to nominate their highest scoring words, Val nominated SHITAKE and cheekily pronounced it as a compound "dirty" word to accompany her other "dirty" effort against me. Unfortunately for Val, we don't award scratchies for such accomplishments :(

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SAUTEING (also can be spelt SAUTEEING)
PLENISt (a believer in the doctrine that space is filled by matter); also PLENISm and PLENISh
SLOTTER, also SETTLOR
ISoGoNAL
MEISTER, METIERS, REEMITS, TREMIES, TRISEME
SHIMAAL
ANEURINS
B C D F G H J N S Y
TEAMERS, REMATES, STEAMER