So in one of my games, I am down by 80 after my opponent's play that has left one in the bag. I have tracked correctly, and I know that there is a blank still unseen to me, along with some other pretty stuff.

Here's where my opponent does something unusual. He shows me the tiles he drew, deliberately, one of which is the blank. He says something like "I was SURE you had it."

Now I'm looking at the situation. In the unseen pool are many outbingos. He's perfectly capable of finding any of them. If I don't KNOW he has the blank... ergh. I go through several iterations of "if I play this, he does this." Finally I just decide to be pragmatic and take out the lines. Spread matters, neh?

He says, after my play, "nice, you did block my bingo." The thing is -- I can't see what he's talking about. I mean, of all the possible combos, he has the one for which I couldn't find a solution. "See, I must suck," I say to myself. He plays, I play out, we tally up.

"You blocked ________," he says. "Hrm," I think. "I don't think that's a word," I think. "No one thinks that's a word," I think.

Later it occurs to me that if I had played without knowing he had the blank, I would have had a better spread than before I started the pragmatic sequence.

Even later I'm reminded that in my deliberations I had seen NO one-tile play that gave me anything remotely winnable. (Lexpert later confirms this.) So the pragmatic play was right anyway.

We are home from Baltimore. I had a great time. I wish I had won more games, to say the least, but I'm very glad we went, very glad to see friends we hadn't seen in a long time, glad to play real players in real games. I made mistakes, some excruciatingly crucial ones. I let several phony bingos stay on the board and didn't try any of my own. (In other words, I played a bit hesitantly, I think.) I have to risk more.

In the very first game against John O'Laughlin, I missed a couple of key plays, one of which would have blocked his very lovely SYNKARYA, which I had to learn the hard way (at the laptop judge) but which I will never forget! He smashed me by 300 points and went on to win the whole thing. Congrats to him, for sure. Somehow John (my John) and I BOTH missed the announcements that Saturday's start time had changed by an hour and forfeited our first games of the day. That was very horrible.

John (my John) had a very nice tournament after worrying that he didn't belong in that division. Sheesh, I say.

I got to play Kenji for the first time and didn't totally embarrass myself (although John came up after the game and pointed out the bingo I missed at the end).

I did totally embarrass myself against Sammy (in fact, I swore him to secrecy about it), but I will admit that the hideous error was basically blowing a C-stick. I could trot out the old "I was short on time and tired" blah blah blah, but I deserved to lose that one, pure and simple.

So I had a great time.

We're considering starting a DC SOWPODS League. Doesn't that sound like a superhero organization? Like tights and a cape should be required? Yes, I think so.

If I had to have this rack, I'm VERY glad the board looked like this.

My opponent (at club) had just kindly played YIP, which made the play possible.

109 points, baby!

I'm convinced that our play connects us with our true selves -- both whatever passes for our souls and our animal selves, our valiant and base instincts at once, our pride and our despair.

When I was little, I played pretend, mostly with my sister.  We were, in play, exotic and strong, full of power to save the universe.  Wonder twin power!  We did puzzles on our bellies on the floor of the church while the grownups chatted, and we ran around howling like banshees through the "woods".  Two trees standing kinda close together could be woods.  We played word games, spelling games, school work games, shoot-em-up games, and we were freed by our play.

The forty-year-old me plays, a lot.  Word games, of course, like Scrabble and Boggle, and -- yes, pretend games!  Pretend games when you are forty can be writing stories, if you are lucky enough to be a writer.  They can also be role-playing games like Diablo or WoW, and I do so love those games.  (Note to 14-year-old boys:  that "guy" that just pwned you might be somebody's mom.  Ha ha ha!)

So part of my quest to be whole includes stuff that is the very opposite of wasting time.  It's digging deep into the things that thrill me and feed me, and somehow I end up doing better "work" in the time that is left over.  And THAT stuff is the authentic me, all of it, playing working truly Marsh.

Three and one at club on Sunday.  This was our second club visit in several months.  In other words, I'm continuing my regimen of not studying and not thinking about Scrabble and then drawing very well.  I have to say that this takes less effort than some other methods, although the tile gods can be very demanding.

My time management was fairly horrible -- over time in one, plus-2 seconds in another, and the others nearly as bad.  I also played with a peculiar mix of nervousness about word knowledge (mostly re: challenges) and aggression in board position and control.  I think this works better than the reverse, to be honest.

Bingoes, mostly so I can brag about the first one on the list... PSOrIAS[IS], FEMINIE, ELATIVE, nAIADES, FINnIER, NOYADES, pLEATED, LION[I]ZEd, and PEA[R]LING.

Mistakes (major -- there were plenty of minor):  Didn't challenge off feminies*, although I did mutter about it.  Played elative instead of elatives to an S.  I think I was affected by the feminies debacle.  Missed farside on my rack, although there would not have been a place to play it.  This is extra major, as this is the second time I have missed it recently.  Disastrous time management.

I think it would be funny to...

Make a tee-shirt with a fake anamonic on it and wear it to a tournament.

"Push, pull, untuck, crunch:  Lunch!"

"Poor boy, no book, no snow."

The lamer the better.  Nonamonics.

3-2 again

First the bingos:

CLE[A]NSED
ATONIES
QUAYL[I]kE
SNORERS
VENTA[I]LS
WEENIER
READ[O]UTS
PaLFREY
RENAILS

Yeah, ATONIES again.

The first rack, the first game, my opponent plays JAWER* for 46, and I have a 94 point double double through and no sevens if I challenge it off.  I moaned (really!) and thought for about half a second that perhaps it was new and then said, to myself, "the hell with it" and played the double double.  I NEVER know what to do in that situation.

Statistical anomaly:  I have gone first once in the last 10 games.

I like this club.  Quirky, bright people, good games.  There's one person I can have difficulty getting along with, but I'm learning skillz what with the basenjis and positive reinforcement, and I'm hoping to learn patience, at the very least.  I do a lot of self-talk when I deal with that person.  "It's not who they are; it's their disorders, whatever they may be."  This is not a foolproof method.

I'm learning more about the holes in my game these days.  So look out.