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EOSC 2010 Commentary: Round 14

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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, Round 32, After the Tournament.

The top of the A division is unusually congested: the top 12 players (as of round 12) have played each other so much that there is no way to pair them together without repeats. Accordingly, repeat pairings are permitted this round, only among those players.

Nigel Richards (MYS) plays Jojo Delia (MLT) for the first time, Helen Gipson (Sco) plays Vincent Boyle (Sco) for the second time.

Peggy Fehily (DEU) spent her bye keeping me company as I worked through my checklist. I don't know if she was amused or horrified at the sight. Peggy has been publicizing her next big tournament, the German Open, to be held in March 2010, which unfortunately for me will be on the same weekend as the Dallas Open. We need to have more weekends each year for Scrabble.

This round, it was Helen Gipson (Sco) that lost, 403-423 to Vincent Boyle (Sco), and Nigel Richards (MYS) who won, 503-369 (another 500 game), over Jojo Delia (MLT). That puts them back together at 11-3, followed by Vincent Boyle (Sco) and Joanne Craig (AUS) at 10-4.

Charles Micallef (MLT) and Jayne MacKenzie (Eng) continue their long unbeaten streaks, defeating Ian Kendall (Eng) and Alfred Xuereb (MLT).

Completion of this round's online game will be deferred until the annotators have had a chance to go over it with the players, after the round 15 game completes. The annotators missed recording an endgame play, and it's impossible to reconstruct it without further information.

It's the third game of the afternoon, the sixth of the day, to be followed by a tea break, two more games, and dinner. No games after dinner today, thank goodness. The room is heating up from the collective mental activity, enough so that no one is objecting to the balcony doors being left open to let in the occasional breeze.