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EOSC 2010 Commentary: Round 9

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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.

We are playing nine rounds today, beginning at 09:00 A.M. (to be precise, 09:08 A.M., but TD Amy Byrne assures us the delay will be made up) on this Mothering Sunday (Mother's Day) here in Malta. I mention the occasion partly out of gratitude to Amy for thereby reminding me to send email greetings to my wife and my mother (with whom I had celebrated a week early, much as we will be celebrating Father's Day a week in advance because of the King's Cup), but because we are advised that the hotel restaurant is fully booked. Players are asked to fill out a takeaway order from the hotel bar during the first round if they wish to eat on-site.

Walking around the room I overhear a challenge, followed by an "Oh crap, I see what I've done", and then a good-natured argument whether ORATINE* (for OTARINE#) really needs to be challenged. It brings back mortifying memories of when my fingers once misplayed a triple-triple ARENOIDS* (for ANEROIDS) against a much weaker player, and had to endure being put on hold for five minutes. Always double-check your words before you hit the clock!

Board 1 sees Helen Gipson (Sco) playing Joanne Craig (AUS) on Helen's actual board, which has displaced Nigel's, while Nigel Richards (MYS) plays Theresa Brousson (MLT) at board 2. Theresa has WSC ambitions and has been studying hard since last year; this should be a good test. Her husband Geoff let slip to Nigel on the ride from the airport that Theresa has learned the top 80% of the seven-letter words. Nigel joked at the time that he was giving up useful intelligence; let's see how many bingoes he tries playing against her from the bottom 20%.

All day today, the top 12 players will be paired against each other in each division. If they can be split into an upper and lower group without increasing repeats, they'll be paired that way. In this round, the split is between the top eight and the next four. In the upper group, each leader will be paired against the lowest-ranked player who can catch up to them. #1 Helen has however played #8 Theresa, #7 Vincent Boyle (Sco), #6 Simon Gillam (Sco), as well as #3 Jackie McLeod (Eng) and #2 Nigel, which is why she's playing #5 Joanne, who is ranked one step below #4 Jojo Delia (MLT).

Nigel beats Theresa and is now at 7-2 +1311. Helen, who began the day at 7-1 +268, needs to beat Joanne to stay in the lead. She does so handily, 632-285, eclipsing Nigel's record so far this tournament for high game (also set against Joanne, 578-313 in round 4). Helen says her score was aided by Joanne's revealing her tiles in the late game through three successive phoneys.

In Division B, the top flight is even more congested, and cannot be split without repeats. #1 Jayne MacKenzie (Eng) is playing #3 Catalin Caba (ROM), but #3 Charles Micallef (MLT) is playing #12 Bronagh Kenny (IRL).

Jayne (now 8-1) and Charles (now 7-2) both win their games, and are followed at 6-3 by Mary Doyle (IRL), Joe Caruana (MLT), Annemarie Holland (MLT) and Catalin.

One pair of players is trying to set a record for number of corrections to a single score slip. What originally came in as 456-3** (+98) was corrected to 456-348 (+98), then 456-348 (+96) before being entirely rewritten as 456-358 (+98).