Wollongong Order of Really Dedicated Scrabblers

Local Stories

Fantastic WORDS Club Game‏

Jean Balmer was due to start and held AEIORTS in her rack. She took a minute before risking OARIEST, admitting that she wasn't sure about it. Of course, I didn't bother challenging. A few turns later, she was able to get down HEATiNG and I needed a bingo very soon.
 
My rack was AEIUCMS which caused alarm bells to ring in my head. After trying -ISE, -IES and -IC endings, I placed -IUM at the end so that the word CAESIUM (a metallic element) fell out. But where would such a difficult-to-hook word fit? I started my C above the E of HEATiNG to form CEL vertically and voila*, the next 5 letters formed 2-letter words - how fortunate was that! It was the only bingo possible in the only possible spot for it.
 
I was still around 50 points behind, however, as we both tried to land the killer blow with a bingo. After dumping IO from the previous rack, I now held IEODRTT , with a blank and 2 S's unseen. On what turned out to be her penultimate move, Jean risked a triple-triple by dumping OON so that the N rested one square below the top right-hand corner square. Without spinning the board, it took me around 5 seconds to dump my tiles on the board for the sweet 140-point play of INTORTED. I emptied the bag with my pickup of SVKLETD. Never mind - I could play SEKT or DESK or whatever to achieve a momentous win from behind.
 
As luck would have it, Jean took less than a minute to play OARiEST so that the first 4 letters formed 4 2-letter words alongside the RTED ending of my INTORTED, and stopping just short of the M of my horizontally-played CAESIUM.
 
I lost after my heavy rack was acccounted for, but I was still elated at the poetry of this game, bookended by Jean's OARIEST bingos and containing three bingos that fitted the space immaculately. This was a once-in-a-decade game!