by August222
The SettingI teach on the same campus as C, my math buddy. I have more words memorized than he does, but he has the mind for Scrabble, the math mind. He is spatially intelligent; I am socially intelligent. He usually beats me at Scrabble, and I can quickly identify the distraught person in the room.
We got together yesterday for our early-semester game. C mentioned that it had been a few months since his last game and that he did not have time during his morning to review the twos. Perfect—my superior opponent might slip on the twos.
Highlights
C goes first and immediately exchanges six tiles. Does this mean he has a blank? Strong start if he does. I pull GHRTTVW and immediately know I must exchange as well. I throw back six, hanging on to the T for a possible TISANE bingo stem. I pull HFRLIK. Ugh. C plays LUE*, opening with a phony. C does not know his threes, and I may know only a few more than he does. I let it stay as I can hook FLIRT off of it. So there is a brutal start to the game—I am equipped for some situations and racks in Scrabble, but not ones like this. I play FLIRT and FLUE and go back for more tiles.
A few plays later, C plays STAINING through FLIRT; I pull ABEINTS, and this is where knowing a few good bingo stems comes in handy: there is no place on the board to play BANTIES, but I can play BASINETS by hooking onto the S in STAINING.
Searching for two more bingos ate up much of the clock for both of us. I finally found ExPLORE but could not hook it anywhere. The fun thing about playing with C is this: when we both have only a few minutes left on our clocks, the phonies start flying. And sometimes we need to pause the clock for laughter, especially when we are hooking phonies on phonies.
C plays IL*; I play UNO* (allowing me to play AGOG for 38)
C plays OL*; I play VOL*
And there are probably others…
Final Score:
C 324
Me 303
