Scrabble Competition
Haven't blogged in a long time, but I’m really over the moon today.
6 days ago was the first day of school after the June hols. And it was also my birthday. Thanks to all those who remembered and wished me happy birthday ( O.o I could count them with 1 hand)
Happy birthday to me! :) Today I got the best (belated) present I got in years!
Just a few months back, Mr. Adrian Chan put up a notice about the National Inter-school Scrabble competition. Having participated it for the past 2 years, Kenneth and I decided to form a group and go for it again this year.
We approached our old members from the team last year, Dennis and Thomas. Thomas agreed, but Dennis declined because the prelims were held on the same day as ORA and he has a meeting with a special “somebody”.
Being typical last minute Singaporeans, that day was actually the last day of the registration itself. We desperately needed 5 people to form a team, but we could not get enough members. This was when Kenneth posted the question that changed our entire fate for the next 2 months:
“Do you just want to join for fun or join for real? If you want to join to win something, then we go find all the pro sec 1 Scrabble muggers. But if you want to join for fun, then just pick people like Haiwei and Xuewen.”
And that was what we did. We entered the competition with the entire thought of playing for fun and fulfill the basic requirement of participating in at least English competition a year. At that time, Haiwei and Xuewen practically knew no nuts about Scrabble. I could easily trash Xuewen by like 300 points in a normal game, and that was with him occasionally choosing his tiles from the bag.
But now is a different case all together. After sweeping through the preliminaries with a 14-1 score line (read the April 17th post for more details), we went to Downtown East for the finals today.
First let me bring in a quote from Haiwei’s blog. “Three months ago, my idea of Scrabble was that of Upwords minus the stacking. I'm so proud of myself. And Xue Wen. We actually bothered to practise and practise and practise and study the two and three lettered words and the bingo stems and THEY ALL PAID OFF!”
Yeah, that was it. The two of them actually started to memorize all the different wordlists and stuffs. Soon, they started surpassing the rest of us, and we actually feel pressured by their overwhelming bingos. So, as a result, the whole team started mugging fervently and now all of us know all the bingos with the SATINE, SATIRE and RETINA leads. Xuewen, Haiwei and Kenneth even went on to memorizing the other ones like SARNIE, SENIOR etc.
So now our Scrabble team is really different from the one 2 months ago. At the finals, we went in and trashed Clementi Town Secondary 5-0 in the first round, with a total game spread (point difference) of 900+. I myself contributed 300+ points to that spread ^.^
In the second round, we trashed Serangoon Secondary 5-0 again, with a total spread of 1k+. Thus, our total spread now is around 2000 points, and we are one of the teams who have won all 10 games.
The competition format is actually something like chess. After the first round, they will place all the teams with 1 win with all the others with 1 win. After the second round, they will place all the teams with 2 wins with all the others with 2 wins and so on. Therefore, after winning twice in a row, we were actually getting rather nervous for the 3rd round.
As the group leader, I gave a very inspiring pep talk (Yes, thank you) and we went on to the 3rd round with Marsling secondary team 2. Marsling secondary is a school that specializes in Scrabble, and it was here where I faced my strongest opposition of the tournament.
Basically my playing style is to play parallel words after the first turn and close up the board as much as possible. As I love playing with closed boards, I can play like around 15 to 20+ points consistently while the opponent can only play like around 10-pointers due to the inability to play long words on the board. That really worked well for the whole tournament, except for this one.
The opening went well for me, but I got stuck with a damn “Q” starting middle game and the board was sooo closed that I cannot discard it anywhere. Not even the 2 letter word “QI” or the 3 letter words “QAT and SUQ” can be played. I really lost a lot of points here, and I traded tiles in the end, only to get back the same tile 2-3 turns later. My opening lead had been lost, and now my opponent is neck to neck with me, leading by a few points too.
This situation went on until the second last turn. There were no more tiles left in the bag and I was still left with a stupid “Q”. Then, I started to open up the board on the top area, and my opponent used it to open up the Triple Word Score with a “D” beside it.
I really had to thank my stars as I played “QUoTED” and the TWS (and with the Q on a double letter). That earned me 72 points. I cleared my rack the next turn, and won that game with a spread of 55 points!!
My other team members all won, with Xuewen winning by like a spread of around 250 pts. The total spread for that round was around 600+, and we had a perfect score of 15-0.
Fourth round, against all the other school with 3 rounds of victories so far too. We were up against Hwa Chong, as our fellow RI team (2) went up against another Hwa Chong team.
This round was really intense also. Twice I played a bingo, and twice my opponent caught up. Similarly, I was stuck with a “Z” in a closed board and with no more tiles left in the bag at the end. After placing the tile on the board, forming “ZOS” and “ZANY”, I really started praying that there is such a word as “ZANY”. The spread at that time was like 10 points, and if I fail to place that tile, I will definitely lose that round.
Once again, I prevailed, and won the game with a spread of +48, after my opponent challenged ZANY and it was accepted :) At this time, everyone else had completed their games and won, except for Haiwei, who was losing by quite a bit.
In this situation, Haiwei’s opponent actually asked the arbiters how much time there was left on the master clock. If the master time ends and the game is not completed, then the game must end and Haiwei will lose. As his opponent had like 6 mins on his clock, and the arbiter told him that there was 4 mins left on the master clock, he started stalling till the game end. Everyone on our team almost had a heart attack there.
But again, luck was on our side :) The master clock went on for 7-8 minutes, and the person got jacked because he went out of time. Haiwei managed to make a comeback with the shittiest of tiles and we continued our perfect score of 20-0 and a overall spread of around 3k points.
As one of the teams with a perfect score of 20-0, the trophy was really in sight. But the last round will definitely not be easy. We went up against Marsling secondary team 1, their strongest team, who had only 4 members. Thus, one of our members had to sit out, and after reviewing the fourth round epic battle, we decided that Haiwei should sit out.
However, Marsling secondary wanted to choose their opponents and didn’t want to play me. Maybe its because I’m the group leader and they think that I’m the strongest guy or may its because I look very smart :) We started behaving like kids and switched places around numerous times as we have decided our opponents. Mr. Austin came to settle the dispute by drawing lots, and I got deprived of a game and almost earned a heart attack in return.
Watching Thomas play Scrabble was better than watching any epic movie. He screwed up his very first move, playing the non-existent word “RA”, giving the opponent 2 turns in a row and have a comfortable 25 point lead. Then his opponent bingo-ed with “SIFTERS” like around 4 turns later and the first heart attack came. Thomas made a lot of dubious plays thereafter, but managed to chase back with another bingo “aWAITING". Then, he started to take the lead for quite some time, until the opponent gave me the second jolt with a “TRAINEe”.
There were no more tiles left in the bag at that time, and Thomas had the rack “ADEKUSS”, as well as a 36 point deficit. I saw how he could have came back by clearing his rack in 3 turns with “(DUKE) 35pts, J(A)/(A)L 11pts, Z(AS) 12 points, leaving the opponent with a screwed up rack that involves a V. However, Thomas tried to be funny and played screwed up words 3 times in a row, “VUK, YESED” and something else, resulting in 3 successful challenges from the opponent and 3 missed turns.
The opponent managed to clear her rack except for the V, and Thomas was stuck with a U in the end. From the score sheet, Thomas was actually down by like 20 points, and that was when I had a 3rd jolt.
The fact is: Thomas – miscounted – his – score – and – he – won – by – 2 – points – in – end!!!!!!!
With Haiwei and Kenneth winning, and me having a walkover, but Xuewen losing to the better opponent, I initially thought that we had a 3-2 result. That would leave us to vie with the RI team 2 and Victoria school, who both won their final game with a 3-2 result too. However, Thomas 2 point lead made the score 4-1, and our final score 24-1!!!
After a suspenseful prize giving ceremony, we were announced as champions!! Yes, and to think we actually wanted to join the competition for FUN! Apart from the trophies, we won ourselves:
Scrabble Deluxe Sets x2
Scene-it DVD Game x1
UNO Attack x5
Scrabble Scramble sets x6
Pocket Scrabble x6
TriBond Quiz Game x6 and
HSM Magic 8-ball x10!
Haha thanks RI team 5: Kenneth, Xuewen, Haiwei, and Thomas. We own! :)
6 days ago was the first day of school after the June hols. And it was also my birthday. Thanks to all those who remembered and wished me happy birthday ( O.o I could count them with 1 hand)
Happy birthday to me! :) Today I got the best (belated) present I got in years!
Just a few months back, Mr. Adrian Chan put up a notice about the National Inter-school Scrabble competition. Having participated it for the past 2 years, Kenneth and I decided to form a group and go for it again this year.
We approached our old members from the team last year, Dennis and Thomas. Thomas agreed, but Dennis declined because the prelims were held on the same day as ORA and he has a meeting with a special “somebody”.
Being typical last minute Singaporeans, that day was actually the last day of the registration itself. We desperately needed 5 people to form a team, but we could not get enough members. This was when Kenneth posted the question that changed our entire fate for the next 2 months:
“Do you just want to join for fun or join for real? If you want to join to win something, then we go find all the pro sec 1 Scrabble muggers. But if you want to join for fun, then just pick people like Haiwei and Xuewen.”
And that was what we did. We entered the competition with the entire thought of playing for fun and fulfill the basic requirement of participating in at least English competition a year. At that time, Haiwei and Xuewen practically knew no nuts about Scrabble. I could easily trash Xuewen by like 300 points in a normal game, and that was with him occasionally choosing his tiles from the bag.
But now is a different case all together. After sweeping through the preliminaries with a 14-1 score line (read the April 17th post for more details), we went to Downtown East for the finals today.
First let me bring in a quote from Haiwei’s blog. “Three months ago, my idea of Scrabble was that of Upwords minus the stacking. I'm so proud of myself. And Xue Wen. We actually bothered to practise and practise and practise and study the two and three lettered words and the bingo stems and THEY ALL PAID OFF!”
Yeah, that was it. The two of them actually started to memorize all the different wordlists and stuffs. Soon, they started surpassing the rest of us, and we actually feel pressured by their overwhelming bingos. So, as a result, the whole team started mugging fervently and now all of us know all the bingos with the SATINE, SATIRE and RETINA leads. Xuewen, Haiwei and Kenneth even went on to memorizing the other ones like SARNIE, SENIOR etc.
So now our Scrabble team is really different from the one 2 months ago. At the finals, we went in and trashed Clementi Town Secondary 5-0 in the first round, with a total game spread (point difference) of 900+. I myself contributed 300+ points to that spread ^.^
In the second round, we trashed Serangoon Secondary 5-0 again, with a total spread of 1k+. Thus, our total spread now is around 2000 points, and we are one of the teams who have won all 10 games.
The competition format is actually something like chess. After the first round, they will place all the teams with 1 win with all the others with 1 win. After the second round, they will place all the teams with 2 wins with all the others with 2 wins and so on. Therefore, after winning twice in a row, we were actually getting rather nervous for the 3rd round.
As the group leader, I gave a very inspiring pep talk (Yes, thank you) and we went on to the 3rd round with Marsling secondary team 2. Marsling secondary is a school that specializes in Scrabble, and it was here where I faced my strongest opposition of the tournament.
Basically my playing style is to play parallel words after the first turn and close up the board as much as possible. As I love playing with closed boards, I can play like around 15 to 20+ points consistently while the opponent can only play like around 10-pointers due to the inability to play long words on the board. That really worked well for the whole tournament, except for this one.
The opening went well for me, but I got stuck with a damn “Q” starting middle game and the board was sooo closed that I cannot discard it anywhere. Not even the 2 letter word “QI” or the 3 letter words “QAT and SUQ” can be played. I really lost a lot of points here, and I traded tiles in the end, only to get back the same tile 2-3 turns later. My opening lead had been lost, and now my opponent is neck to neck with me, leading by a few points too.
This situation went on until the second last turn. There were no more tiles left in the bag and I was still left with a stupid “Q”. Then, I started to open up the board on the top area, and my opponent used it to open up the Triple Word Score with a “D” beside it.
I really had to thank my stars as I played “QUoTED” and the TWS (and with the Q on a double letter). That earned me 72 points. I cleared my rack the next turn, and won that game with a spread of 55 points!!
My other team members all won, with Xuewen winning by like a spread of around 250 pts. The total spread for that round was around 600+, and we had a perfect score of 15-0.
Fourth round, against all the other school with 3 rounds of victories so far too. We were up against Hwa Chong, as our fellow RI team (2) went up against another Hwa Chong team.
This round was really intense also. Twice I played a bingo, and twice my opponent caught up. Similarly, I was stuck with a “Z” in a closed board and with no more tiles left in the bag at the end. After placing the tile on the board, forming “ZOS” and “ZANY”, I really started praying that there is such a word as “ZANY”. The spread at that time was like 10 points, and if I fail to place that tile, I will definitely lose that round.
Once again, I prevailed, and won the game with a spread of +48, after my opponent challenged ZANY and it was accepted :) At this time, everyone else had completed their games and won, except for Haiwei, who was losing by quite a bit.
In this situation, Haiwei’s opponent actually asked the arbiters how much time there was left on the master clock. If the master time ends and the game is not completed, then the game must end and Haiwei will lose. As his opponent had like 6 mins on his clock, and the arbiter told him that there was 4 mins left on the master clock, he started stalling till the game end. Everyone on our team almost had a heart attack there.
But again, luck was on our side :) The master clock went on for 7-8 minutes, and the person got jacked because he went out of time. Haiwei managed to make a comeback with the shittiest of tiles and we continued our perfect score of 20-0 and a overall spread of around 3k points.
As one of the teams with a perfect score of 20-0, the trophy was really in sight. But the last round will definitely not be easy. We went up against Marsling secondary team 1, their strongest team, who had only 4 members. Thus, one of our members had to sit out, and after reviewing the fourth round epic battle, we decided that Haiwei should sit out.
However, Marsling secondary wanted to choose their opponents and didn’t want to play me. Maybe its because I’m the group leader and they think that I’m the strongest guy or may its because I look very smart :) We started behaving like kids and switched places around numerous times as we have decided our opponents. Mr. Austin came to settle the dispute by drawing lots, and I got deprived of a game and almost earned a heart attack in return.
Watching Thomas play Scrabble was better than watching any epic movie. He screwed up his very first move, playing the non-existent word “RA”, giving the opponent 2 turns in a row and have a comfortable 25 point lead. Then his opponent bingo-ed with “SIFTERS” like around 4 turns later and the first heart attack came. Thomas made a lot of dubious plays thereafter, but managed to chase back with another bingo “aWAITING". Then, he started to take the lead for quite some time, until the opponent gave me the second jolt with a “TRAINEe”.
There were no more tiles left in the bag at that time, and Thomas had the rack “ADEKUSS”, as well as a 36 point deficit. I saw how he could have came back by clearing his rack in 3 turns with “(DUKE) 35pts, J(A)/(A)L 11pts, Z(AS) 12 points, leaving the opponent with a screwed up rack that involves a V. However, Thomas tried to be funny and played screwed up words 3 times in a row, “VUK, YESED” and something else, resulting in 3 successful challenges from the opponent and 3 missed turns.
The opponent managed to clear her rack except for the V, and Thomas was stuck with a U in the end. From the score sheet, Thomas was actually down by like 20 points, and that was when I had a 3rd jolt.
The fact is: Thomas – miscounted – his – score – and – he – won – by – 2 – points – in – end!!!!!!!
With Haiwei and Kenneth winning, and me having a walkover, but Xuewen losing to the better opponent, I initially thought that we had a 3-2 result. That would leave us to vie with the RI team 2 and Victoria school, who both won their final game with a 3-2 result too. However, Thomas 2 point lead made the score 4-1, and our final score 24-1!!!
After a suspenseful prize giving ceremony, we were announced as champions!! Yes, and to think we actually wanted to join the competition for FUN! Apart from the trophies, we won ourselves:
Scrabble Deluxe Sets x2
Scene-it DVD Game x1
UNO Attack x5
Scrabble Scramble sets x6
Pocket Scrabble x6
TriBond Quiz Game x6 and
HSM Magic 8-ball x10!
Haha thanks RI team 5: Kenneth, Xuewen, Haiwei, and Thomas. We own! :)
posted by hongrui at
6/29/2008 08:49:00 PM
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