Go to: Commentary Games Players tsh Reports Scoreboard A Scoreboard B Standings Photos Prizes

Back to EOSC 2010 Live Coverage

EOSC 2010 Commentary: Round 21

[ ]

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.

Division A

It's the last of four rounds before lunch. The room is warm, players and staff are getting drowsy and hungry. At Board 1, David Webb (Eng) returns to face Nigel Richards (MYS). David beat Nigel 437-365 yesterday in Round 13. Can he do it again? He gets off to a good start, opening with FUB (16), keeping ANTI to draw TSARINA (76), then WAZIRS (36) keeping ?N to draw EQuINES (89) and he's ahead 217-60. The mid-game proceeds without high-scoring plays on either side, David frantically turning over tiles to try to get to the endgame with non-bingo plays like HEALEES# and BINIOUS#. With nine tiles left in the bag, David has a comfortable 326-197 lead.

Nigel bingoes OCTAPoDY# (98) to a Y. The score is now 326-295.

David has DEEGMTY and not much to do with it, so he kills a bingo lane with GAMED (22): 348-295.

Nigel has FOLKIER but no place to bingo (it plays through Kenji Matsumoto's anamonic GO COOK MOM'S COWS), and David has only EITVY on his rack. Nigel sets up a place for his K with FIR (25): 348-320.

David plays as many tiles as he can with STIVY# (19): 367-320; apparently missing a winning parallel blocking play (YETI/FEY/IDE#) to block Nigel's next play.

Nigel plays out with KOEL/FIRK# with the K at o12 for 55 points and the win.

He's now 17-4 +3134, ahead of Helen Gipson (Sco), whose 466-374 win over Harshan Lamabadusuriya (Eng) whittles away at the spread gap and brings her to +1355.

Harshan drops to four games behind the leaders, at 13-8 +1143. Also at 13-8 is Joanne Craig (AUS), -357, who just beat David Delicata (MLT) 427-327.

Sam Kantimathi (USA) drops by to thank me for reporting on the WILTERS* phoney earlier; it helped him challenge off WILTER today.

Alison Pollard (AUS) scored the low win for the tournament so far, with a 289-276 over John Barker (AUS).

Division B

Jayne MacKenzie (Eng) beats Nicky Huitson (Eng) 430-349, Charles Micallef (MLT) loses to Carmen Toscano (Eng) 427-385, falling behind by one more game. Jayne, now at 19-2, has a four-game lead over Charles. In third place, alone at 14-7 a game behind Charles, is Annemarie Holland (MLT), who lost 444-364 to Mary Doyle (IRL).