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The Brno Fall Team League 2010

The Brno Fall Team League

Brno, CZ, Sun Sep 19^th, 2010

 

Well now, for the first time in my life, a story I have to force myself to start writing at all.A story of failure which, luckily, didn't influence the position of my team in the end at all.

I have already gotten used to the fact that, if you shine on a Saturday qualification tourn followed by a Sunday team league, your performance at the latter is usually not shit. But it still gets me every time it proves to be so.

Jirka Kracík reminds me of how I did the day before – I finished as high as fourth, losing the bronze due to one stupid mistake – and tells me I'd better keep up the good work. I don't think I will, though. I've been feeling sort of unwell since I had gotten up, and had I not asked Pavel Žibřid for a headache and fever pill, I don't know how I'd have held on. Thank God he had some along and that I had realized he's the right one, being a doc, to ask for such a thing.

As a nice surprise I meet Katka Rusá here who hasn't played the team league for ages. “I officially belong to the Paluba team,” she laughs. “So I had to prove my belonging.”

So-so do I manage to make me a cuppa coffee when Pavel Vojáček, the new Association pres and organizer of the team league, shouts out we're about to start.

He skips from one row of tables to another yelling the schedule of team pairs of that are going to confront each other in the first round.

We Parnas guys get Poškoláci, the winners of last year's team league – a blow right in the first round. At least we have the right to choose the opponent pairs. Of course I take on Věra Majtánová – I hadn't forgotten the stupid loss against her right the day before as she sneaked an invalid bingo past me and won thanks to it. So I wanted to retaliate.

Pushing it from the beginning, Right in the fifth move, I tried a quadrupled pure bingo for 95; unfortunately it got challenged off.

“What a shame. I believed it could have been good.” Not showing any signs of it, the blood was boiling in me at that. As the word got challenged off, me I got pissed off. What is it that makes logical words invalid and vice versa? Fuck. To my irritation, I get a blank in the next move, and the other on top of that in the yet next move, and so I play a two-blank bingo in the end instead of the pure one.

Three turns later, though, she ate up the A1 triple, making 43 points on it, and that move practically decided the game. Fuck. Losing a game in spite of having two blanks sucks, indeed.

Jirka and Zbyněk have lost too – at least a “comfort” for the loss which I'm not alone in. Pavel became the only Parnas team winner for this round, which does not prevent our team from losing the round as a whole.

If I thought I'd take it out on my next opp, my elan was gone as soon as I learned who it was gonna be.

The opposing team – the recently-formed Ýáčci – had the best scrabble player in our eyes Martin Kuča as their biggest booster. Who d'ya think chose me?

Yeah. Downright him.

“You haven't forgotten, eh?” I referred to the dusting I have him back then at the Pardubice tourn.

So this is going to be a relax game, eh? One you don't even hope to win – so one you can actually have a rest during.

His play, though, didn't seem like one of a fivetupled Championship silver holder and a former national champ. He swapped letters, then again, and in the fifth turn he played a primitive bingo I couldn't help chuckling over (and he himself had to acknowledge it was lame). Luckily, I level it up with a (pure and far better) bingo of mine and manage to run neck and neck with this scrabble devil.

Just for awhile though, of course. Doesn't take long though till he gets in the lead and iron again and my defense starts to deteriorate. He manages to pile up 441 points against my 315. Jirka and Zbyněk lose too so the only winning member of our team was Pavel again. Second team loss of ours – well, not a good start, eh.

When it came to the third round, in which we were to fight Túzy a múzy – Deuces and Muses – , my team co-players took the opponents they wished and I got the one who was left, which was Pavel Chaloupka. Again, I composed a bingo against this every-year finals participator as soon as in the fifth turn – which he answered right away with one of his – and played one more against him in the 13^th, a pure one this time. Even these two bingos didn't prevent me from a loss, though. He won 363 – 427, which pissed me off the more when I took my consideration the two bingos I played and the two blanks I got. Not even Pavel Žibřid won this time, so our team got its ass kicked 0 – 4. Neither me, nor Jirka or Zbyněk had won a game so far today so we hoped for the tables to turn at last – guess it's about time they did!

For our fourth opposing team we get Sirotci, The Orphans, and I get chosen by the new director of the Czech Scrabble Association – Pavel Vojáček.

Even against him I throw a pure bingo as soon as in my second move – as if I'm almost supposed to take it for a bad sign. He got a blank and composed a bingo with it, too. We raced forward like insane, squeezing the shit out of premium squares, and one would be surprised if feeling the bag around the tenth turn – we both have crossed 300 but there was still a lot of letters left in the pool. This is gonna be a hell of a game.

A few turns later, an occasional spectator's eyes would have popped: we both have crossed 400 ... and race on. Most of Pavel's team co-players had already finished their games and so sneaked behind our backs to watch ours. Amazement could be clearly read from some of these faces as they watched Pavel's play for awhile and then switched sides to watch mine.

Here they stayed longer. I just knew it was my time, and so I sunk deep into my chair and X-rayed my rack with my eyes. I worked up two possible plans: play three good-scoring moves in a row and hope for him not to go out in the meantime; or – play off a tile now, then go out with the word nevpec and make him lose “thanks” (from my point of view, duh) to the tiles he would have had to deduct.

Nevpec being a hell of a bookish imperative of vpéci , “to implement [into] by baking”, hardly anyone but scrabble players might ever have heard, I wasn't the hell sure of it at all. I knew it's good in its positive form, but does it allow the negative, too?

A catch-22 like I haven't been through for long. But I thought, if I'm not sure about the word – which I'm not – , I'd better go for the other plan, play something I am sure of and hope he doesn't go out before me, rather than risk losing a turn, which would have been fatal now before the end of the game.

Of course he did.

Of course he did go out. I lose 432 – 421: ain't that a hell of a losing score! But duh, every losing score sucks, no matter how high it is (or you are).

Now, what do you expect the spectators say?

“If he [like, that's me] had played nevpec, he would have won,” says Jindra Voráčková.

“Yeah duh,” Jarda Buksa, her yokemate and a scrabble tourn veteran himself too, agrees. “You could have won, Tom.”

“I know. I just wasn't sure about the word.”

Thanks to this stupid loss of mine, the round is not a winning one for our team – just a tie. But oh well, it's not going to change anything anyway.

Against the Záškoláci or The Detainees team I got my scrabble site buddy Josef Pustka for my opponent. I was determined to break the bad luck strike and started off hard, throwing an 88-point pure bingo moruším, a plural genitive genitive of moruše – mulberry. I don't enjoy my lead for long – it's actually unhealthy, eh, it's a poisonous metal after all. That's to say, he gets a blank and composes a bingo of his for a change four turns later. The other blank doesn't seem to be about to come so I work on another pure bingo. Using a T on the H15 square, I play avisovat – an infinitive of “to give notice” or “to advise” – , raising good 77 points. Josef, though, doesn't get intimidated. He gets neck and neck with me, while towards the end I start getting those shitty “sediments” from the bottom of the bag. These shits, deduced from my total score in the end (including the blank which I got towards the very end only to “deduce” it with the leftover), finally make me lose – 399 – 374. Luckily I was the only one of the team to have lost in this round. Zbyněk ties with Petr Kuča, the father of last year's Champ and husband of Dana the IT manager, although Petr himself is a rather weak player – so the final score for this round is 2.5:1.5 in favor of my team.

In the sixth round we get Paluba – The Shipboard. Not only a scrabble club but a big organization for board games in general which also organizes the Mind Sports Olympiad in Prague which I'm going to participate midway through October too. Who chooses me for his opponent is the western Bohemian freak Martin Hrubý who travels around just about all available tourns throughout the year with a tent packed in his backpack that he sleeps in.

Hoping that the bad luck streak is already over, I start composing a pure bingo and throw it onboard – to use this terminology against The Shipboard team member ... – for 68 points. He, though, counterblows right away with a pure bingo too – for 80. He ain't let me enjoy my lead for long, eh, I thought. Luckily, I drew a blank after the pure bingo and started composing another one right away. Two turns later I come up with honosíte, a second person plural present tense of “to boast”, for 76, which practically won me the game as Martin can't seem to catch up. I win 394 – 334, but this time for a change I save us a tie: Pavel Žibřid beats Martin Vacek but that's all for the winners. Jirka Kracík gets beaten by my dear champion friend Katka Rusá who came just to “prove her belonging to the team at all” and Martin Tancer beats Zbyněk Burda closely, by 12 points.

At least my presence has been worth something here. And it is gonna be yet – in the following round against Nerobité. As is my bad habit, I go and wash my hands after the game, spend the whole break in the bathroom and so I miss choosing the opponent pairs. So I get who's left of the opposing team and whom nobody wants – the scrabble site noplayed Jindřich Sikora.

“Well hello,” he grumbles. But he shakes my hand at least, probably remembering the favor I did him last time we had played when he was “a bit tired” (i.e., hungover) and asked me whether I'd mind summing the turn scores for him.

I'd have had a hard time explaining to him I haven't chosen him for my opponent – but luckily he didn't ask.

Getting a blank, I compose a bingo soon (in my sixth move – just like in the preceding game) – an infinitive ošlehat, “to lash”, with a blank for the L, for 68 points. Right in the following turn I make some more points for free as I challenge his invalid move off the board.

He, though, then got a bit too wild and got neck and neck with me in a few moves. If I thought a while before that that I had had the game nailed, I had to acknowledge I was mistaken. He kept me busy practically for the rest of the game and I hoped to work out what an opponent of mine once called a “killer endgame of yours”.

 

I was the only one of the team who was still playing and – which I didn't know yet – my result was to decide whether the round is going to be a tie or a win for my team.

Jindra whips out his leftover. I do the math with it and...

 

... win 334 – 333.

 

As I report my result to Pavel, he lets a laugh. Not only did my one-point win grant a victory to our team over Nerobité in this round – but on top of that, it was him now for a change who was the only one of our team to have lost.

I get somewhat done in after the fight but there was no time to rest. Let alone before a fight against such a team as Záškodníci – The Saboteurs. I get chosen by a scrabble site friend of mine – Renata Volfová. I resist her for a few turns, throwing a bingo in the fifth but that's when I felt our game has sort of gone over my head. I feel feverish as a result of the morning unwellness but still would rather kick the bucket rather that give up. She got neck and neck with me easily and soon even ahead of me, and I, on top of how my health is, get shit for letters that I have to deduct at the end of our game. All of this contributes to a loss, though just by twenty. 345 – 325. She refused to receive my congratulation, telling me not to be cross but that she was afraid of “getting infected from the handshake”. I told her that was a bullshit but she just wouldn't believe. At least this gave me a reason to call a friend doc of mine from the university years (he was my halls of residence roommate in my third year) and have a friendly talk after a long long time. He confirmed my opinion. “She'd have had to stick the whole hand of hers down her throat right after the shake in order to get infected,” he grins into the phone. But she still refuses to believe.

The only one to win in this round of my team is Jirka Kracík, who can't of course help some quizzical macho talks.

The last round. God, the only tourn in my life of which I'm glad that it's coming to an end. Who I choose for my opponent is Eva Pavlorková, who in the last opposing team substitutes Radek Mannheim, a significant force of this team who unluckily couldn't come. Jirka told me Eva's scrabble site nick and I discovered I often play against her there.

“And don't you dare gape at her tits,” Jirka sneers at me, hinting at the trouble I'm usually in playing against pretty women. He forgets that “tits” are usually the last thing I gape at on a woman. Eh, okay, maybe the last but one or two.

“Doan worry – she ain't my type,” I shoot back his ironical attack. He gets suprised.

I told her my scrabble site nick and she was surprised – probably had never thought of clicking on my profile, that way she would have discovered me straightaway according to the photo I have there.

I remember games against her at the site have always been pretty hard fights, so I prepare myself for another one of these.

She, though, belongs to the sort of players I don't easily get intimidated by. So when I throw onboard a nearly 100-point bingo right in my third move, she has to acknowledge that although this is the last round, I don't even seem exhausted (and had she known about my then health state...). On top of this, I successfully challenge a bingo of hers five turns later.

In spite of all that, she proves her dangerousness and gets after me soon. Hell, I didn't think at all that I'd have to still be careful in this game after throwing the bingo and successfully challenging hers. But it seems so. With a well-done use of premium squares, she fights me so hard that when I draw the other blank, I'm glad to have drawn it – and I don't even think it's unfair of the bag and fate against her. After all, what's at stake is a win of the team as a whole.

I do win in the end. But not even by 20 points – 374 – 393. A lame win, considering the blanks that went to me, I think to myself. But hey – in the team league there's no such thing as a lame victory, cuz had it not been for it, our team would have lost in this round; with my win, it had a tie.

I meet Katka Rusá after the tourn, and complaining I was 3 – 6, she laughs, “Man, I'm 7 – 1 – why the hell didn't I play this good yesterday!” Which was a fact – she was referring to the qualification tournament where you play just for the sake of yourself, not your team. And after my coming fourth of 63 at that tourn the day before, I can't complain at all. It fastened my position in the qualification chart for this year's championship. As they say in America – you can't win 'em all. And you know what – I learn something that gets the team league trouble off my chest completely. This tourn hasn't shaked our position (though not that good) on the team chart, so we haven't improved it, but haven't worsened it either. 9^th of 12 – rather a bummer and nothing that could compare to our 4^th position we gained last year.

 

As agreed on before, I meet my dear friend Šárka after the tourn who had obtained the night stay for me at her friend's, too. Before my train was due, we spent the rest of the time by a beautiful walk around the town eating almonds spiced with wasabi – the kind of Japanese horse-radish that you can't play in Czech scrabble.

 

If I had known what awaited me later at the non-qualification Mind Sports Olympiad tourns in Prague, I'd have hung the anger with that day's bummer right away. Guess what...! But that's another story. And yet one qualification tourn in Prague is there before me so I'd better save energy for it. Cheers!

 

linkuj.cz vybrali.sme.sk

poslal scrabblista, 27.10.2010 7:32:00

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