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PC 2007 Commentary: Round 10

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Go to: Before the Tournament, Round 1, Round 2, Round 3, Round 4, Round 5, Round 6, Round 7, Round 8, Round 9, Round 10, Round 11, Round 12, Round 13, Round 14, Round 15, Round 16, Round 17, Round 18, Round 19, Round 20, Round 21, Round 22, Round 23, Round 24, Round 25, Round 26, Round 27, Round 28, Round 29, Round 30, Round 31, After the Tournament, Award Ceremony.

This round's annotated game featured: Joe Edley vs. Nathan Benedict.

Round 10

Dee Seegrest walks over to tell me that for the second time so far, players have left a tile in the bag. It was a Joe Edley (Coram, NY) vs. Nathan Benedict (Tucson, AZ) game. It probably wouldn't have made much of difference as it was a 535-337 blowout in Nathan's favor. Their game had three bingos, all Nathan's: TANrECS for 80, BEANIEs for 65, and IDEALIST for 80.

Andy Saunders (Guelph ON) had a big win this round against Jane Whitmore (South Burlington, VT), 596-317. He opened with PIQUETs for 104, then on turn 2, he played DIAPERED through the last E for 68. A few turns later, he found sTATIONS for 74, from the first S, and then in the endgame played EXERCISE from the E for 100. Jane got down INERTIA for 69. He compliments her endgame by saying that she blocked him from having a 600 game but playing LIGAtE blocking his play of OVOLO, which had put him over the magic number.

I took a gander by the merchant tables and took photos of each vendor I could find (except for Sam Kantimathi, as I already photographed his stuff). There is some fun merchandise here this year: earrings, books, guides, trinkets, T-shirts, etc. Check it out in this round's photo section. Anyway, while there, Sam was playing with Bob Lipton (kinda strange to have experts here the whole event long who aren't actually participating in the event, but are playing non-stop on the sidelines!). Sam pointed out soemthing significant. Since this was just a "practice" game, he was using a mere SMALL yellow pad for his scoresheet and NOT that aircraft carrier of a clipboard he ususally uses.

Well, it hasn't been a fun last two games for Julia Bogle (Indianapolis, IN). She fell this round to Andrew Gaertner (Glenwood City, WI), 336-465. I could tell she was frustrated and I reminded her of the old maxim: Sometimes you are the pigeon, sometimes you are the statue. She is in a statue phase, that is all. On a more serious note, Julia did play ANErOID for 76 in their game. I see Andrew's 131- point triple-triple, LAMIStER played through the S. He also got down SANTERA, PESTIEr for 74.

I see the word FALDEROl on a board. Lester Schonbrun (Oakland, CA) explains he played FALDERO and his opponent, Ron Hoekstra (Kentwood, MI), later played perpendicular and hooked the blank L there, which was a good find. They were in pretty intense endgame chat, so I gleaned that Lester won, 483-385, and left them to noodle.

Orry Swift (Dayton, TX) defeated Brian Cappelletto (Chicago, IL), 434-405. The board was needed for the next round's players, but I eked out of Orry that he played HITLESS at one point and Brian played perpendicular, hooking a blank s on the front. The game was quite tense toward the end and Orry managed to stick Brian with the V. Masterful.

Okay, so when we got here, John and I got some padded chairs at the Internet table, but there weren't enough to go around for everyone in the room. So that said chairs didn't up and disappear, I attached signs to them so that they would stay where we needed them. This has been cause for days of interest for Robert Kahn (Plantation, FL), who never misses a chance to make some sort of comment about our "special" chairs. His most recent inquiry was if we thought that our chairs, due to their special status, when they returned to the pack of their kind, did we think they might be considered for a promotion due to their celebrity status in other realms. Would they be seen the same by their peers or would their lives now be different? This of course is, in my opinion, WAY TOO MUCH time spent on the welfare of chairs, but perhaps I'm missing something. Stay tuned for the next installment of the existential dilemma of "special chairs."