Volume 2, Issue 21 Mission: Take the Lake

Volume 2, Issue 21

Mission: Take the Lake October 22-29, 2019

Worcester Scrabble Club News

Grinding out a win

at Worcester

Fresh off her tournament win, Carol McDonald notched two quality wins Tuesday, beating both Chris Kulig and Chris Sinacola. Her win over Chris S. is shown above. Her early GRITTED was answered by HASTING, but (G)RINDINg gave her the lead again. Chris fought back with TETRONA(L) but had to play QATs for 42 pts. and had too many vowels for the endgame. Carol wisely forewent playing GIBES, correctly thinking GRINDINGS# would be unacceptable in OWL. Her play of BIG(g)IE left Chris with LOUIE, and gave her a 433-410 victory. With these wins, Carol moved past Chris S. into fourth overall in the club standings, just .003 behind Chris K. Carol played NAV twice in this game.

One of the highlights of Scrabble in the Northeast is the annual tournament in Lake George, N.Y. There are few spots more picturesque for playing our favorite game, and the Worcester Scrabble Club was very well represented at Lake George this year. Six of our regular or semiregular club attendees participated in the two Early Birds. Carol McDonald, Richard Buck, Chris Kulig, Beth Mix, Don Finkey, and former longtime member James Krycka combined for an overall mark of 25-40 in the two events. Given the talent those six have, and the under .500 overall record, it

should be clear that Lake George attracts a very strong field. The weekend's main event, 15 games, featured nine of our club members. In addition to those already mentioned, Seth Lipkin, Joel Horn, Judy Horn, Bob Becker, and Judi Boviard competed. Overall, the "Worcesters" went 68-66 There was one bye in Division 4, where James K. went 10-4 and finished second. But the best performance among our entrants belongs to Carol, for whom Operation Take the Lake was a success, as she won Division B with a record of 12-3, +246 on spread, and a performance rating of 1874. The victory is Carol's 16th career first place in 116 tournament events. Interestingly, while 22 of those 116 have taken place in Massachusetts, only one of Carol's wins has come in the Bay State. Of the 16 firsts, she has had eight in New York, six in Vermont, and one each in Connecticut and Massachusetts. Congratulations to Carol on a great performance, and to all our club members who competed. A couple images from the region are included here, along with the end-oftournament cash shuffle to make sure Carol got U.S. currency for her win.

Five straight bingos sets Worcester Scrabble Club record

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Congratulations to Chris Kulig, who played five consecutive bingos in a 576-377 win over Mike Wolfberg. The plays -- SILENCES, VERMEILs, IgUANIAN, CASEATED, and TITRATE -- are the first time any player has achieved that feat at our club, and is just one shy of the record of six straight bingos for a club game, set by Jamie Ryan at the Lexington Scrabble Club in February 2014. The OWL tournament record is also six straight. It is very rare to play five (or more) straight bingos. Good tiles are obviously needed, along with an open board, strong word knowledge, and enough luck so that your opponent doesn't block your opportunities. Five straight of anything is tough. Just ask baseball legend Ty Cobb (well, he's dead), who had more batting titles than anyone, including five from 1911-1915. There is dispute as to who won the 1910 title. If Cobb did, his streak is still longer.

The misuse of WARISON

In his win over Judi Boviard on Tuesday, Mike Wolfberg played the word WARISON for 70 points, en route to a 427-302 victory. If you look in the Scrabble dictionary, you find the definition "a bugle call to attack" and the note that the word is obsolete. But while this definition is now accepted -- if hardly in widespread use outside Scrabble -- it is not really correct. The OED notes that the word is from the Old French warison, a variation of g(u)arison, meaning wealth or possessions. A second definition listed is "to have in full possession," used in the sense of "to give in warison," or give a woman in marriage. From there, the word was also sometimes used to refer to an immaterial "treasure," esp. a young woman's honor. Other meanings in the OED are "a gift bestowed by a superior," and "preservation or defense." Why then a bugle call?

Well, the last definition in the entry in the OED clarifies the matter, noting "Misused by Scott for: A note of assault. The source of the mistake is prob. the line `Mynstrells, play up for your waryson,' in The Battle of Otterbourne, a Scottish ballad that offers an account of a Scottish victory over the English in 1388. Merriam-Webster online (See, they DID win the dictionary wars!) reports: "When Sir Walter Scott first encountered the word warison around the beginning of the 19th century, it was a rare word that had been around for six centuries, occasionally used to mean either `wealth or possessions' or `reward.' In his 1805 poem The Lay of the Last Minstrel, Scott used the word to refer to a bugle call ordering soldiers to attack, probably because he misinterpreted what the word meant

when he read it in `The Battle of Otterbourne'..."

And there, I daresay, is more information that you will even need about WARISON. WARRISON# is good too, but only in Collins.

The heavy artillery of October 22

Something like Big Bertha (the famous German artillery piece from World War I, shown above) was on display Tuesday night, as all 11 of the games had a winning score of 400+ points. In fact, Carol M. and Chris S. shared the low wins at 408, and the average winning score was a very healthy 454.6. This is probably the first time all wins have been 400+ in a sample of 10+ games in a club session. Another measure of success? There were 42 bingos in the 11 games, working out to 3.8 per game, or 1.9 per player per game. Chris S. recorded scores of 407 and 410 in losing efforts, Chris K. scored 465 points and lost to Seth's 469! That game totaled 934 points, but was exceeded by the 953 points that Chris K. and Mike W. put up in the five-consecutive bingo game featured above. And while six games were decided by 100+ points, three were settled by under 10 points. There were two bingos of 100+ points, and two more of 90+ points. A lively club session!

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