A Scrabblin’ Spy News from the Independent Worcester Scrabble Club Vol. 3, No. 22 | Nov. 3-10, 2020

Returns keep trickling in

While the U.S. presidential election may be over, the opening round robin in the latest club championship for the Independent Worcester Scrabble Club is reaching what may be its most exciting phase. As of Saturday night at 10 p.m., 110 of the 120 games have been played, and seven players have secured either a bye or a shot at the four-person “play in” round that will be held among those finishing 7th-10th. Congrats to Jamie Logan, who has surged to an 8-5 record, defeating Megan McMahon, Carol McDonald, Nicole Kazarian, and Joel Horn to secure a spot among the top 10. A look at the chart below shows that six other players remain in the hunt. It will take at least seven wins to make it, so Megan and Judy Horn have

little or no room for error. Beth Mix needs at least three wins in her final four matches, and possibly a sweep. Ella Sobel controls her destiny with one game to go and could get to 8-7. Joel and Carol are each at 7-8 and could make it. We may well know more by the time Tuesday night arrives. Nicole helped her cause very nicely with a decisive win over Chris Sinacola this week. Some of the fun words played this week include Seth Lipkin’s DALTONIC (anagram is ANTICOLD); Chris’s fIREDOG, which is another word for an ANDIRON (the play allowed Joel to hook HOAXES for lots of points, but was still a critical play in a hard-fought match; Megan’s BONESET, or Eupatorium perfoliatum, a member of the aster family that has a long history of use in medicine; and Ella’s SUBTONE, which is more interesting that it sounds (no pun) — an advanced method of producing tones on woodwind instruments, particularly the saxophone and clarinet.

A critical match Carol McDonald and Ella Sobel squared off November 2 in what was a critical round-robin match for both. In the top image, Carol has just played GANG, a nice play from a tough rack, and leads by 31. But Ella has BENOSTU and replies with SUBTONE, as shown in the next image, to go up 338-298. Carol has the rack ACILRSU. Her play of (G)ARLIC was answered by YOKEL at F15, forming BY, TO, OK, NE, and EL, securing the win for Ella. Carol does have a bingo in that second situation, but do you know it? Would you find it? It was a great game to watch — and surely harder to play, as is always the case.