The Zlín Qualification Tourn 2010
I was looking forward to this one. In spite of Zlín being some 300 kms away, I planned on taking a trip there and see my dearest friend ©árka who'd gladly put me up for the nights before nad after the tourn. So unlike in Kadaň – if I get a dusting this time, I don't care a hoot. It's gonna be a beautiful trip to a beautiful town to see a beautiful friend – hopefully not crowned by a beautiful kick in the ass.
Although I had made a deal with ©árka and her mom to meet at the Zlín-Louky train station in the evening, I decided to leave as early as by the 10.40 AM train, intending to take a two-hour break on the way in Olomouc where I appointed to meet two scrabble site buddies of mine, a mother and her 13-year-old son. They even invited me to have dinner with them, saying that they counted on me with it.
They had chicken and it was real delicious. We crowned the meeting by a couple of scrabble games: in spite of them being both rather low-rated players, I had the lowest score in the first game of the three of us.
"Whadya say, would we manage a rematch before I have to leave for the train?"
We did, and this time I won.
A friend of Jakub's mom appointed a meeting with her, and on asking where they would meet, she suggested the Olomouc train station.
"That's ideal." Then turning to me, she told me they would take me along in their car when going to pick up the friend.
Having thanked them for a good dinner and two good games, I asked the dispatcher which of the trains was going to Zlín, there being no signs indicating that.
"To Zlín? There's never been a train going to Zlín," he grinned. Like, what?! One of the biggest Czech towns – 11th biggest, to be exact, excluding Prague which is not to be considered a "town" – and you say no train goes there...?
"I mean there's no train on the route of which Zlín would be the terminal," he feigned to explain when getting enough of my surprised expression. "Trains go through Zlín and stop over in it, but never to Zlín."
I called ©árka's mom – not to confirm I was going to be there at the time we had agreed on, but of course to tell her the train was going to be delayed. Like, what else would you expect from the Czech railroad company, eh? No wonder people like to nickname it in irony Času dost – Take Your Time, or Lots of Time [on your hands] according to its the company's initials ČD standing for České dráhy, Czech Railroads.
Walking through the car of the train, I saw a known face.
"Where are ya goin' to?" he sneers. He was Martin Hrubý, a scrabble player from Duchcov, West Bohemia, who always carries a tent along, preferring to spend nights for free in it rather than pay for a bed.
"To Zlín – what a surprise, eh?" I cracked, expecting a similar response. "And you?"
"To Vizovice," he triumphs me with a totally unexpected answer.
"Kiddin' me, eh?"
"Nope. Vizovice offers better conditions for setting up a tent."
"Oh, I see. Good luck." Which he's gonna need indeed – rain has been forecast for the night.
"Thanks. If I don't arrive at the tourn – you know I've been flooded."
I met ©árka's mom at the train stop on the outskirts of Zlín as agreed and she lead me to her home.
"©árka's still got some seminar," she told me.
"Yeah – I know."
I counted on taking ©árka out for supper but her mom insisted that we stay in her place for it.
Sure something not to regret! Her supper was awesome. I brought her the unique Giant Mountain herb liqueur called Krakonoąova bylinná (Krakonoą's Herb Liqueur, Krakonoą being the ghost of the Giant Mts. after whom they are called in Czech). The three of us drank it up together halfway through, spending time talking until it was time to go to bed. I'd have loved to stay up longer but I was going to have to get up at seven in the morning to get to the tourn in time. When going to sleep, I didn't know at all I was going to have a "mascot" along.
When my cell phone alarm went off at 7am, it was one of those few mornings I don't mind to get up early. Especially if the first thing I see is the smile of my dearest friend, and the reason of the early rise is a scrabble tourn. ©árka and her mom had breakfast and I had a hard time explaining I wasn't really hungry. The two are used to having breakfast right after getting up but I ain't the kind.
"Thank you very much, but I'm gonna have breakfast at the tourn – you don't need to worry," I said with a smile.
"Are you sure?"
"Yeah. Thanks again." One thing you can be sure as hell about – you can lose your pants at the tourn but you sure are gonna enjoy a lot of yummies.
©árka couldn't accompany me to the church canteen where the tourn was held but her younger brother was eager to do so. I didn't know what impression I was going to make on him at the tourn.
When I first read the tourn announcement, I thought she was kidding. A tourn at a church? Like, will we be supposed to say a prayer at the beginning of each round, and is it gonna be cold as hell there like it always is at churches...?
I asked ©árka as soon as I had learnt that and she wrote me back, like, nope, it's a modern church, a silesian one, so don't worry about being cold. Moreover, it's more like a cultural center, so even non-believers find they way into it.
As I said, there was a sort of a "cube" attached right next to the church serving as a canteen and this is where the tourn was to be held. I signed the participation sheet and said to ©árka's brother, "I wonder who I'm gonna get for my first opponent."
Which I really am – it's always a surprise, although mostly not a nice one.
This time it was nice. Jirka Kracík. Come and get a dusting, old Parnas friend.
"Do you happen to have a scrap of paper to spare?" I asked Jirka. It's just like me – I had bought a brand new exercise book from that beautie at the copyshop next door solely for the purpose of recording tourn results, and then left it at home. He did. Thanks – I'm gonna defeat ya as a reward.
Dana rang a little bell to indicate the beginning of the round. "Saint Nicholas is coming, eh?" Jirka cracked. Just wait, bro, in awhile your joking mood's gonna be gone.
Right after the ringing of the bell all the players who were to begin the games simultaneously stuck their hands into the tile bags so it made the one big characteristic noise for the beginning of each round... we're drawing our first rack of seven.
©árka's brother's name is Jirka as well, so to distinguish the two, I'll call him Jiří as ©árka does – Jiří being the "official" and Jirka the "diminutive/domestic" form of one and the same name.
Since the beginning, Jiří was strolling among all the tables, all eyes as he'd never been to such an event before. Which was a shame, cuz I shoved a pure bingo right in my third move. Jiří would have learned straightaway what a pure bingo looks like. But oh well – it's not my last one at this tourn.
Jirka commented my bingo with his usual "for Jesus's sake" and put it down in the notepad like he does all over-40-point moves.
What'd you think – only then did Jiří come back to go on watching. He just saw I was in the lead and that made him satisfied.
However, as he was watching, he saw Jirka getting neck and neck with me in no time and then ahead of me. The letter pool grew thinner and Jiří thought, Tom's gonna lose.
But that's because he didn't know me, let alone me as a scrabble player. I played two about thirty-fivers right before the end of the game, only to make Jirka lose because of the (substantial) leftover he had to deduct. The game ended 311:334 in my favor and Jiří's eyes popped.
"Well then, thanks a lot," said Jirka, shaking my hand: this sentence is sometimes used ironically in Czech when someone does something nasty to you, and this is exactly what he implied – he had this ironical tone in his voice; he mean't that of course. "Congrats," added he so it didn't sound so rough.
"Gaaawwwd awesome," Jiří was at a loss for words. "I really thought you were gonna lose."
"As one of my opponents once said – it's those killer endgames of yours," I sneered. "So this was it – an infamous killer endgame of mine."
Jiří and me walked upstairs to enjoy some refreshment. I made me a cup of well-deserved coffee and had some yummy cakes. Need to wrap my nerves, eh...
"... cuz there's one drawback to winning a game...," I tell Jiří, "You're gonna get a stronger opponent to play against in the next round."
"I see." I wouldn't put it past the little boy he is but he was interested in the details of the pairing system so I explained the basics of it to him as well as I could – not that I fully understand it myself of course, but just the basic principles. "What's your rating?"
"About 1650." I just hope I ain't gonna shove it down by a poor performance at this tourn – but if it goes on like it did in the first round... I sure ain't.
"And what's the top one?"
"About 2000." A "magic ceiling" the top players' ratings always oscillate around.
"Ohhhh nope."
As you might have guessed – I just saw the "verdict" or the pairing schedule of the second round.
"Who are you going to play against?" Jiří still showed lively interest.
"Ivo Hradský," I made a sour grin. "See that red-haired beardo over there?" I threw my head in a direction of where Ivo was standing. "That's him. A top-15 one. I ain't gonna beat that one."
But not that I'd lose confidence. I'll fight him as best as I can just like I do any other opponent.
And I did. After a few moves I threw in a bingo.
"Seventy," I say and whack the clock, and Jiří's eyes pop. He becomes totally absorbed in my game against Ivo which I had said I lost in advance. Ivo becomes desperate and begins with this unrecommended tactics totally untypical of the champ of his kind – he starts playing low-point moves while getting together a bingo, while I get further up and gone with my score so when he finally throws the bingo onboard there still remains a substantial gap between us. So he starts getting together another desperate one at the cost of another string of low-point moves. I just don't recognize the top player he is. He does manage to play this second bingo of his as well, but thanks to the low-point moves he had been making up till then I still stay safely away point-wise. No wonder then he "doesn't catch up any more" and I smash him 450:335, my sum remaining a top ten high score even after the 6th round. And I can't help noting – I didn't need but ONE single bingo.
Jiří had still been watching us with bated breath.
"Wow... awesome," he just fumbled for words. "I really hate to say so but ©árka's just called me for dinner. I gotta go. Bye..."
"Bye, enjoy it..." I later learn that if he could he'd have stayed for the whole tourn.
Third round: table #4. Haven't been this high since I don't know when ... I mean high in numbers, although high I haven't long been as well.
Yvetta Hlubinková, my upcoming opponent, hates playing against me. She says the game is lost in advance – at least someone who's got some respect.
"Attention please before you start," said Dana the IT manager out of the blue JUST before we stuck our hands in the bags. "I want to offer something to you..."
"Quality sex, eh..." cracks someone from the crowd and causes us including Dana to burst out laughing.
"Well, I'm sorry to say so but I'm afraid this is not what I got on my mind... heh... concerning the fall International Mind Sports Olympiad in Prague, we decided not to hold a tourn there as a part of it. It's going to be held elsewhere in Prague. There is going to be a tourn at the Olympiad, but probably not a qualification one."
Yvetta and I enjoy another of our equal fights she's so afraid of. She's expecting a bingo from my side but it kinda doesn't come. And I'm pretty aware of there being this free seven-field string leading to the upper right triple. So with the shit I have I go and block it. (The one and only thing you can do with shit, block, or constipate, I should say, ha...)
"... I'll kill ya," she grins. She probably had a bingo ready right there. Well, I guessed so... !
"Had a bingo there? Well, I thought so... that's why I went there."
Me, for my part, was striving to compose one in the meantime as well, and the combination being "bingo-prone", I just wouldn't let it go.
I did, in the end, but she was too far away. I then had another bingo but it was homeless so I didn't make up for the difference in her favor anymore, and lost 356:327.
Well, okay – at least we'll get a weaker opp now and a better chance of winning.
I did. Ladislav Čevela, a below-1400 player I had noticed was one of the last ones to apply for the tourn. A sure win in advance, I thought – well, it's about time to have another one, eh? Although nothing is sure in advance – not to speak of that being beaten of mine by the 1200-rated Eva Pařízková when a last-move bingo had come to her all by itself. Brrr. But that's a thing of the past.
Ladislav, on the other hand, was an easy prey.
This game being quickly over – well, just like about all my scrabble games, with this blitz tactics of mine – I go and join the crowd at table #18 where a strange theing was being watched happening – Zbyněk Burda losing a neck-and-neck fight against not-even-1400 rated Milan Svrček. Zbyněk lost by one point, but still we wondered how it was possible.
"Well, bad luck today. I've got one win so far – by one point against [1157-rated Josef] Černotík...!"
"Don't worry," he was told and comforted by our 1875-rated Parnas macho Pavel ®ibřid who's currently as high as fourth on the Association chart. "The Little Shrew [Hana Filipová] just beat me ... to death with her tits!"
I had a hard time keeping myself from bursting out laughing. Hana's big breasts are a well-known thing in the Czech scrabble world, but I haven't heard anyone cracking about them so far.
"And y'all know what?" Pavel ®ibřid wernt on cracking. "I don't give a shit about results from now on – gonna focus on the beauty of games."
At table #1, Aleą Horák was playing against Martin Sobala who won the Slovak Championship last year. When throwing an eye over the shoulder of one of them, I couldn't help chuckling: on the score sheets they both had written their fave football clubs next to their names. Aleą Horák – FC Arsenal vs. Martin Sobala – FC Baník Ostrava... something sport laymans like me will never understand. They ended up with awesome score ratio 390:412.
In the fifth round, I get the easy prey Ladislav 395:255, having thrown one bingo and getting both blanks on top of that......only to get 1818-rated Pavel Vojáček, the new scrabble association pres, for my seventh opp, who gets both blanks this time for his part and beats me 371:297 without me having any chance to catch up, in spite of no bingo being played. This pushes me down from 12th to 19th place in the continuous ranking. Gotta get back up.
If I thought I'd get someone easier, I was mistaken again. Věrka Majtánová, who's, again, an every-year Finals participator. She's such a nice woman and a co-addict on Facebook's Zynga Mafia Wars I always enjoy games against no matter whether I win or lose.
She doesn't wait long before throwing her first bingo, a pure one, but I play one of mine, also pure, right back. "Nice," we say almost unisono. A few moves later, these nice pure bingos are complemented by "lame" ones – negative verbs starting with ne- and aided by a blank. 2:2 bingo ratio – well, not bad! The only drawback is that before I composed mine, she got substantially ahead. And so although we had a great sum of scores – 819 – , I ended up losing 376:443.
25th of 48 in the continuous ranking, that doesn't sound much good. I was determined to win in the upcmoing round, but I felt something unpleasant in my bones. There was this beer-bellied drunkard Jindřich Sikora whom I'd long kept in my noplay list on the Czech scrabble site. And I just felt I was going to be made to play against him in the next round. He had the same number of wins and was just below me in the continous ranking of this tourn.
And I was right. I gotta beat him, I say to myself – be it only because he did me last time we played against each other at a tourn.
It was an exhausting fight I felt was to be broken through with a deciding blow. But if I thought the blow was represented by the bingo I had just played, I was mistaken. Jindřich was neck and neck with me in no time and I had to make up another way of making off.
And I did make one up. Four squares above the lower right corner triple, just where my bingo ended, I saw my opportunity. Let's play X on the double square – a tripled word with it could make me some 70 points. So I played exitu – the genitive case of the words exit or exitus – for 70 points, quickly went out in the next move and eked out a win by 13 points. 332:345.
"Congrats," grubled Jindřich, shaking my hands. Hearing congratulations from a web-noplayed player was a real music to my ears – a feeling of sheer satisfaction.
I gather I should share this funny medical experience with Pavel ®ibřid. He being a doc, he'll have fun over it just like I have.
"Exitus saved me," I grin. "This word won me the game."
"Hah! It sure ain't much frequent that exitus saves someone." Sure not, it being the Latin medical term for death.
Moving up to 21st place of 48 in the continuous ranking of the tourn, I thought, just a little upper and I'll be satisfied.
Table #14 – Jiří Kučka, said the schedule. Oh God. Not a piece of cake at all. But at least one piece of good news – I've ended up higher than I was seeded in the beginning and that means a slight leap upwards on the Chart.
Doping me with the rest of my extra-dark chocolate and some candies available upstairs, I thought, I'll get ya. And I fought in the name of what I had just said. He had a feeling like in spite of being the ninth round, I don't even seem tired but a tiny bit. Me getting ahead, he used a blank to catch up with me, which pumped another dose of courage into me. If he had to use a blank, let's get away again, hope for a blank too and not give him any chance.
But what I had hoped for just didn't come. It was him who got the other blank, too, and composed a last-minute lame bingo with it (59 points – phew!). I sought to get rid of the last letters in my rack and I went out, but still, this wasn't enough for a victory. I lost 319:324, but against both blanks – ain't this still good.
Four wins of nine. No big deal, eh? But hey – regarding the fact that most wins of mine were close, I still end up 27th of 48, earn six qualification points and, as I said, leap a little on the Association chart. Hope to do even better in three weeks (or tomorrow as it's already June 4th when I'm finishing the story) in Hradec.
The tourn was won by last year's Slovak champion Martin Sobala who won eight of the nine games. Second was our Náchod doc and Parnas club scrabble macho Pavel ®ibřid. Fourth place was gained by Markéta Gutmanová who came to the tourn in a high stage of pregnancy. It was her last tournament before "retiring" from the tournament scene for a maternity leave. But I bet that regarding her strong qualification position, she's likely to get back as soon as she's able to depart from her baby for at least a while...
When I get out of the church, I see something awesome. In front of the cultural center that the church is, a folklore event is taking place. I saw girls and boys dancing in the traditional Moravian folklore uniforms, which are beautiful by themselves, let alone if their wearers dance. I stood there watching until the end which, unfortunately, didn't take very long. In about five to ten minutes it was over. Otherwise I'd have called ©árka to come and watch with me, which she later said she'd have loved to.
The highest sum of scores of the tourn was attained by the beautiful ®aneta Leová versus Iveta Vondrátová – 857. Iveta won 416:441. Vít Sázavský had the biggest winner score – he piled dreadful 541 of them.
©árka came to pick me up, suggesting that we take a walk around Zlín before coming to her home for dinner. We did, and despite getting tired and our feet hurting, we had a great time, as always when together. The history of Zlín architecture seemed very simple: just about everything was projected by Tomáą Ba»a. I was shocked and grossed out to hear many people around the world think he was American.
We walked up a big hill, supposed there is any in Zlín, from which there was a nice view of the whole town. I learn the plot of the town is untypical – its shape looks like a narrow rectangle.
We crowned the "sightseeing" walk in a coffee room. I wished to invite her for coffee in return for the putting up, and she finally agreed, gathering she'd fancy one after all.
The room was nice and I didn't have the mind to leave yet. The waitress went by and asked whether we'd drink next – just in time.
"I'd fancy a shot of whiskey," I grinned. "What about you?"
"Well, I like whiskey," ©árka said with a sneer, quite taken aback: "But I thought you didn't drink."
"I shouldn't, but... one shot of whiskey keeps the doc away." No rhyme, eh? I don't give a hoot.
Coming home around 9 pm, we had an excellent supper, which we badly needed. We spent the rest of the evening chatting over the Giant Mountain liquor. We even managed to solve ©árka's brother's English homework at which even my eyes popped – I helped him translate it but didn't just get how the teacher can assign them such a difficult thing for homework.
©árka asked if she could borrow my mp3 player – I wondered what she was going to do with it, and to my utter surprise she copied the songs it contained onto her HD drive. Among the copied ones I saw such ones as To Get Me to You by Lila McCann, or Bob Seger's Chances Are, his gorgeous duet with my idol Martina McBride. And speaking of Martina – her Anyway, too. I was like, those are songs you're surely not likely to know, so why copy them.
"Martina McBride... she's that favorite of yours, no? You got your email address at her website..."
"That's right."
"If you love her, she can't sing badly."
"Oh thanks... sure not. She's awesome. And what about this Lila McCann?"
"Her name's nice."
"Heh."
She didn't even omit copying Brina Vogelnik, a Slovenian folklore singer I had once asked her to get me while she was in Slovenia. So we had an arsenal of music for the whole night.
I'll never ever forget this night. Sitting on the bed with her in a warm embrace listening to Lila McCann was going to be a moment to be recalled frequently in times of loneliness. In the morning, I'm going to wake up to her smile again...
On Sunday the first thing I was about to find out was the departure of my train. I was intending to leave early to be able to stop over in Brno to see Katka, a friend of mine from the university times. I hadn't seen her for ages and so I arranged a meeting with her.
©árka, though, was gonna do me a favor of giving me a lift to Brno in her car. She was going there too anyway and it was rainy, so waiting for the train somewhere on the outskirts of Zlín wouldn't sure have sounded much attractive.
As we were driving down the road to Brno, the rain was growing thicker. You were glad to be sitting dry in your dearest friend's car even if the smell of gas wasn't doing too much good to your stomach.
I accompanied ©árka to her Brno apartment and, giving her one last long (long-lasting, too) goodbye hug not giving a chit about the rain in which we were standing, I went to the nearest streetcar station to shelter myself from the rain. I called Katka to agree on a meeting spot. She said I'd best see her right at her home, let alone if I'm so near it. I was there in no time indeed...
I should explain now that the bond I felt toward Katka is ... ahm ... kind of ... special. I first met her at the university canteen some four years ago and started an introducing conversation with her for one single reason: be it caused by the power of her huge magical eyes or just the charisma she radiates, what I got right on looking into her eyes was a merciless hard-on. Such an intensive one it took me all strength I had then to finish my soup. She was the first one ever to make me feel that way and I just didn't know what I was supposed to think about that. I was clear about the fact that she was probably going to become my sexual goddess but I didn't have a clue about the way she was to learn that. Before she left for Belgium on a reasearch fellowship, I kind of lost control over my feelings, and threw my arms around her neck in a sad tight embrace, bursting out crying and covering her cheeks with a shower of kisses. During it she surely must have felt this *m*ucking hard-on of mine she was the reason of. But she kind of took it personally and dropped out of contact with me for about four years... after that she emailed me again. I sent her two university stories I wrote about her – concealing nothing in them – and she said they were ... quite surprising.
She now lives in an apartment with her brother who, apparently having been told what she causes in me, sympathetically left us alone in the apartment and made off.
"So .. do you still have... the problem?" she grinned sitting with me on the sofa over a cup of coffee.
"Yeah," I confessed. "I'm so very busy shutting myself down."
"You'd sure better do so," she said. "I'm the kind to ... even be able to slap you if you didn't."
At about a quarter to five PM it was time to say goodbye. "Can I ... venture an embrace?"
"Yeah, sure," she smiled. I even ventured a kiss on her cheek.
When I arrived at the Brno main train station, I was stopped by an elderly white-bearded man accompanied by a lady of about the same age.
"Do you speak English?"
They were quite at a loss about which train to get on. I said they could follow me as we were traveling by the same one. They were quite right the departure info was confusing – our train info didn't appear until jut a few minutes before its departure. They were lucky I knew the Brno train station pretty well so we could hurry to our platform without being afraid to get on a wrong one.
As I said in the beginning – a beautiful trip to a beautiful place to see a beautiful, dear friend and another one in the end. And no beautiful kick in the ass at the tourn – 27th place of 48 is no big deal but it ain't that bad. Six qualification points gained. Hope I'll do even better in three weeks in Hradec!
linkuj.cz vybrali.sme.sk
poslal scrabblista,
05.06.2010 1:08:00
