Charlotte post-mortem, the big picture

You know how if you're really hungry, whatever you eat tastes extra great?  That's what it felt like to play tournament games again.  The losses, of which there were a whole lot, didn't bug me at all during the event.  It was just so enjoyable to PLAY.  I was starved for it.

But now it's the next day, and there are those losses to consider.  There are some obvious errors that I don't think I would make if I were playing tournaments more regularly, and there are some more subtle ones that I need to go over.

Changes I'm making:  

1.  No more void games for me ever.  Unfortunately, the facebook type games are all void (that I know of).  They give me bad habits, and I'm done with them.

2.  John and I have agreed to play by the 10-point challenge for our kitchen games.  I'm a cautious player and don't phony much -- but I don't challenge enough either.  I need to get more practice at making the nuanced decisions that are involved with 10-point challenge.

3.  We re-upped our mosaic account for ISC.  Anybody want to play against the two of us?

4.  More studying.  That's not really a change.  I just need to keep it up.  I wish there were a collins boggle site.  I wish my son and daughter would make me a collins boggle site for my birthday.

5.  John and I play each other a lot, but I think there's a bubble effect that is happening; we get so that we are used to each other's word knowledge and board play.  It might not be a huge effect, but it's an effect.  We are going to play more ISC games at least, so that we keep bringing in other styles to mitigate that bubble effect a little.

trainwreck

Sometimes our kitchen games are amazing and top-notch.

Not tonight: I missed my opening seven, an easy one. He played his out in two in the wrong order. In response, I played a phony to go out. He did not challenge.

In between, we played terribly.

I love the whole world

Okay, we finally have a tournament on the horizon, the tiny Bethesda Collins division.

Remote possibility we can make it to Charlotte, but probably not at this point. John's new responsibilities conflict with that.

I kind of like where I left TWL. I won the last TWL tournament I played (a club tournament). Close that chapter on a high note! I'm just done with it. (I'll continue to make friendly game exceptions, because I'm very friendly.) So, I'm one that won't go to nationals without a Collins division. I'm not making a statement or anything. I'm not "boycotting". I'm just not playing TWL anymore.

Maybe I'll go jumbletime a bit.

P.S. We have not yet set up a Collins "club" here, but we have some possibilities and very much intend to do so. Don't mind us. We're just slow.

DSL

Current DC SOWPODS League activity is still confined to the Kitchen at John&Marsh's, but it's exciting and mind-expanding. (Honestly, it's partly Simon's recuperation that has us playing more. He's not supposed to jump on furniture for 2 weeks, and the kitchen is really the only room that he can freely hang out in.)

Anyway, we're playing. We noted tonight that we are playing a game using a world dictionary on a custom board with protiles and a samtimer clock, a homemade bag, and 2 blue plastic racks that predate Hasbro. We play a (memorized) version of the tournament rules developed by world organizations, and we use our own self-designed scoresheets. And roller ball pens. We note a lot of things here at DC SOWPODS League headquarters.

We should develop a logo, and a motto! I love mottoes.

I won both games tonight with the help of the magic tile bag fairies.

Two down, 999 to go

The first two games last night. As usually happens when we start playing again after a break, we were both a little more conservative than we normally are. That fades fast. John killed in the first game and almost broke 600; I did NOT break 300. Some of this was tiles, but some of it was me not seeing GIUSTED# and so forth. It may be like riding a bike, but you also have to remember where the road is.

The second game I drew all the great tiles and barely squeaked out a 25 point win.

But look at the record. It just shows a nice clean 1 to 1.

To be fair, John did play nice words like FIREP(L)UG. For many points.

This is important.

We're about to switch over to all collins all the time (again, yes). Should we start a brand new series? Say -- best of 1000? Or should we merely add on to the lifetime championship series?

There's really only room for one record on the fridge.

Is 1000 games really enough to give a true champ?

No easy answers, I'm afraid.

Why not?

Did I mention that we finally joined NASPA? It was spurred mostly by finding out that Collins events would get a NASPA rating. One likes to encourage this kind of behavior.

So I'm back to not trying to keep the word lists separate. Let's face it, it's not like we'll be playing a lot of tourneys any time soon. So why NOT play the version I love? Why NOT try to do it the best I possibly can?

I don't put much time into studying these days, for sure. I should make it efficient.

But ... we joined NASPA!