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Odkazy:

The Fall Prague Scrabble Championship Qualification Tourn 2010

 

The last straw the down-below-the-dividing-line aspirers for the Scrabble Championship can catch upon this year. I was already practically qualified – eleventh from the top after the Brno event – even before the Prague tournament, but I just wanted to make sure nobody kicks me out and anyway just enjoy a few last tournament games before the championaship and see some old Praguean friends. My cousin Martin at whose place I stayed at during the Mind Sports Olympiad, warned me though he was going to be away on Saturday 30^th. I contacted all the other people I knew resided or studied in Prague, but to no avail.

“At worst turn to me – I have a friend called Helena there,” my dear friend Šárka tells me via Facebook chat. Šárka was going to be in Prague that weekend too, undergoing a course there, so we looked forward to seeing each other there. Anyone believe Facebook is time-wasting and useless? Not me. You just mustn't let it take control over your time.

I finally gathered there was nothing left for me but to take advantage of her offer. She kindly arranged the overnight stay but warned me it was a small apartment and that it was going to be full of people that weekend. So I took a sleeping bag along.

As I had remarked, holding a tourn on the 30^th of a month was extremely impractical as it was a date JUST before the pay-day with most people, me being no exception. So I just had to save money as best as I could. All I had was the money for the train fare and I was able to pay the tourn entrance fee, too, but that was about it. And Prague – no “town” you could go everywhere on foot in the scope of. You just had to use the subway and sometimes the streetcar, too. Which means what? Yeah, another arm and leg for the fares. I figured out I'd have to travel WT for a few times – Katka Rusá, being a Prague resident, suggested when it is “most suitable” to travel that way and I stuck to that.

When I was looking up a suitable connexion in an online train timetable, I thought I'd hit the roof. The timetable gets changed at the end of every year – but only a fool could believe it gets better and better with every such change as the Czech Railroads claim. Not that there wasn't a train to get you to Prague on Saturday morning. There was one, but it would be necessary to change trains in Chlumec nad Cidlinou for which action you would have no more than three minutes. Should I miss this train, I could say goodbye to several first rounds of the tourn. Not good, eh? So I emailed Pavel Žibřid about whom I knew he goes to Prague by car, hitching Jiří Kracík on the way, and asked him whether he would hitch me too.

“No prob,” he wrote back. We arranged he'd pick me up in Česká Skalice just like he did three years ago when he drove me to my very first tourn in Volyně.

The Friday before the tourn, Jirka Kracík called me for a change. There was this “Pair Championship” taking place the Sunday after the tourn and so he asked me whether I'd participate at it with him. I said to myself, why not. The “pair” does not have to be a “couple” after all. For instance the Association pres Pavel Vojáček takes part in this championship with his son Filip. And besides – the tourn was going to be just fun, as it was not going to be counted into your chart rating change. (How could it after all – what counts there is the combined rating of the pairs and the players within a pair take turns in playing so you would have been penalized for some bad moves of your pair colleague...)

 

A few kilometers before Prague we saw a familiar car getting ahead of us.

“Burda,” Jirka says. I had to gather he was right – a split second later I saw the logo of Zbyněk's train-making company on the disappearing car.

“The rat,” Jirka chuckled.

“Hurrying to get his ass kicked.”

Pavel put on some jazz and our talking turned to mushrooms. Or to put it exactly, I opened the topic unintentionally myself by mentioning Jarda Kodym (the old “Grim Reaper”) who has been fucking the tourns lately just in favor of mushrooming. Discovering we all are keen mushroom pickers picking many kinds of edible mushrooms, we start a fruitful (or “mushroomful”) discussion. Is it a good idea to go mushrooming even after the first ground frost appears, as the Grim Reaper does?

“You bet it is,” Jirka cracks. “When the ground frosts start, mushrooms grow fur-caps instead of their common caps and are then more sating.”

This gets me – had there been more room in the car, I'd have been rolling on the floor laughing shortly after.

“I once tried to clean the cauliflower mushroom,” Pavel contributes to the laugh. “That's a fine mushroom, isn't it, but it's just full of these sinuses and they were full of some insect shits.”

Hope the laughter ain't gonna freeze when the tourn starts.

I down a snack I had brought from home before we arrive so that I don't have to bother such “earth- -bound” things as food is. Just in time so that I don't have to spit it out while bursting out laughing at Dana the IT manager's comment.

“Welcome a newbie among us,” she says. Yeah, we've already discovered him. Raul Kačírek – that bearded guy over there. I play often against him at the scrabble site (he told me his nick). Let's see how he does...

“The computer pairing, which is done by means of coincidence in the first round, did a funny thing seeding him at table #1 against Martin Kuča.”

We couldn't help letting a laugh. Table 31 being where the top players meet, duh, seeding a newbie there is the last thing you'd expect. And on top of that against the 2008 National Champ and a fivetupled Championship silver medailist Martin Kuča, who in the eyes of many of us is the best Czech scrabble player of all... God forbid. Poor Raul.

 

My first opponent is the 1815-rated Hana Filipová, the daughter of Milena “The Old Shrew”. A nice opponent to play against and, luckily for me, not my type of woman so the “female weapons” won't work this time. She has already been qualified twice for the Finals in the past (2008 and 2009, finishing dead last in the latter year) and is qualified this year again, currently 11^th on the Chart – but only after eight years of tournament scrabble. We had confronted each other at a tourn four times (once at a qualification tournament, three times at team league) and she never once won over me, so I hope for history to repeat itself as usual.

Right in my first handful of seven against her I can see blank. Good, I say to myself. We can work it out, as it goes in that The Beatles song – a bingo, that is. I did – right five turns later. Množíce (a blank for the ž), an ancient plural present participle of to reproduce, gets me ahead by 77 but I can enjoy this lead of mine for as short a time as one turn, as right in the seventh she shoots a bingo of hers at me. A tripled one on top of that – but being made of one-point letters and a blank, it's finally worth even three points less than mine was.

Awright, Hana. Want a war – I'll let ya have it.

We both cross 350 and still the game doesn't lean towards one or the other. What d'ya think I'm gonna rely on?

Yeah. The (in)famous “killer endgame of mine”. I figured out I could make one, while she still had her last full rack.

I did, and finally won by 17 points, ending the game of a very nice score sum: 387 – 370. Hana's mom Milena was finishing a game of her own right at the neighboring table so Hana went and unburned to her about the loss straightaway.

Looking at the current ranking of the tourn after the first round makes me pissed off – as low as 31^th of 70, so the fifth worst of the winning players. But I'll show y'all.

 

Moving one table higher, I get Niki Zgafasová for my second opponent. From what I remember, she hasn't ever shone at a tourn so I hope there's nothing to fear of – let alone with that exotic name of hers.

“Hi,” she shakes my hand like she knew me for a long time. And she does: “We've been playing against each other at the scrabble site.” She tells me her nick and I gather she's right. Her site rating being quite high though, I gather she's not probably gonna be that much of a breeze.

Now, the bag puts me through a hell during which I get to fully understand why to most scrabble players getting two blanks at once is a road to hell. I felt I just had to make up a bingo with them but kept getting such shit to accompany them that it just wouldn't do. So I did something I hadn't ever done at a tourn before and I pretty much guess I won't do it again: I used both blanks in a 30-pointer just to catch up with her. And then I thought I would die – only then did I get a bingo-prone combination, so bingo-prone I just couldn't resist. I thought, getting a pure bingo together is just a matter of time, and I only hope she ain't gonna jam all the free spots in the meantime. Which she started working on, of course, as my preparation for a bingo started to be a bit conspicuous.

But I managed. Throwing a pure nezalívá, a 3^rd person singular present tense of “not to water”, I empty the bag and seek to be the first to go out.

Which I finally am, as what the bag offers to me on its bottom isn't the usual “shit” you get in most cases of emptying it. Adding Niki's leftover, I win by two points – 345 – 343.

“Congrats,” she shakes my hand with a smile, but this time it's not something to rejoice upon. Duh – with both blanks by two points! Such a lame win.

“Well thanks, but it's nothing to congratulate for I guess,” I chuckle. But oh well – I need to fasten my position at the qualification chart, so morale goes sort of apart here. In the continuous ranking of the tourn I jump from 31^th place to 14^th – but to my amazement not of 69 players but of 70 suddenly.

“How come?” I wonder.

“It's because of Radek Mannheim – he came late.”

“Oh, I see.” Radek missed the first round but thanks to the TurČAS criterium this doesn't prevent him from having an opportunity to still finish among the best players.

Being 2 – 0 after first two rounds, you usually already ask for a pretty trouble – well, you actually do after just about every win. So I breathe a sigh of relief at finding out this – for my third opponent I get Milena Filipová, “The Old Shrew” and the mother of Hana whom I beat in the first round. No doubt she's a dangerous opponent, having qualified for the the Finals twice in the past, but I've already beaten her quite a few times.

“Come on – your dear daughter got her dusting already, so it's time you got your own share,” I grin at her from the designated table #5.

As if to demonstrate I mean it, I draw both blanks right in my first rack of seven and start of with a bingo – nedodám for 66, the blanks for the O and the Á, the 1^st person singular future negative of “to supply”. In the 12^th move I shoot a 37-pointer exploiting the already used X.

Ya think she must be K.O. already? Nope. Years and years at the tournament scene, she's now pretty much able to keep up with me in spite of all these point blows of mine. Old Shrew, eh? Tough to chew.

But hey – I know what. Putting sty on the board (sto being the number 100 and this its plural instrumental case), I'd wait for this 5-point ú which I'd sixtuple by means of the field just above it, making ústy (the instrumental case of the word “mouth”) and another word containing this accented vowel. The vowel itself will yield 30 points and the remaning letters will add a bit... hey! This could work. Well ... unless she's the first to draw the ú and make the same plan.

Yeah – here it is. Just among these freshly drawn tiles. Yeah the chances were high so I could rely on them, taking into consideration the little number of tiles left in the pool. So I made the move described in the pan above, which yielded 40 points for me and practically decided the game in my favor. 370 – 395 – another hell of a good sum of scores.

3 – 0! But hey, I'm sure gonna get a cutthroat opponent now.

What a surprise – to get a mild and beautiful woman when expecting a butcher. 1642-rated Jana Vágnerová, who fought her way to the Finals successfully last year. This sweet-lipped, long-nosed freckled girl, her brown hair reaching her waist in length, enchants the letter bag with her charm so much that it gives her both blanks right at her first draw. She throws a two-blanked bingo for 61 in her 2^nd move, but I answer with a 29-point word and even the difference wihtin a few turns.

I dope myself with a few bites of extra-dark chocolate, offering it to her too. No, I ain't gonna let her charm get me. I run away point-wise as effectively as I can, glad to have overcome a big disadvantage – her getting both blanks. Winning against blanks always delights a lot – hope I'll manage.

I did. 320 – 361. Wow, 4 – 0. But aww, I expect to get a real ass-kicker to play against now.

I see Martin Kuča coming in my direction. “How are you doing?” I ask him, expecting the obvious “4 – 0” answer and thus a confirmation of what I expect – that I'll get him for my fifth opponent.

“2 – 2, and you?” he took my breath away.

“Kidding me...!” The best Czech scrabble player is 2 – 2 after four rounds...! Incredible. Oh well, shit just happens.

Good – so I'm not gonna get Kuča now. Oooph.

“Results! Schedule!!” we can hear Dana Kučová calling out, holding the fresh two printouts in her hand and pinning them up. The results of the previous round are always pinned up for the players to check. They were all right, but what I was after was mainly see my verdict ... the killer opponent I have just gotten for the fifth round.

Table #2, Břetislav Basta. Ouch. But hey, I've beaten him already a few times (twice, plus once at the team league).

But ugh. After four wins in a row, this was apparently meant to be a hopeless game from the very beginning. I start the game, only to give him a hook for an 8-point pure bingo, obscénní, “obscene”. Ain't this obscene! But what's even more obscene is that at his following turn he plays another pure bingo. Now this is lame even to him.

“So sorry... just luck,” he feels obliged to say. My blood is boiling, but I just grit my teeth and bear it. To even want to win a fifth game in a row would be too much to ask, eh? But hey – you don't have to demonstrate so conspicuously that this game is in vain in advance...! For a change, that is to say, in the 4^th turn I get a pure bingo myself. Now, what do you think...? Exactly – a homeless one.

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

But I don't get lured by keeping it for the remote chance of once putting it. My heart breaking, I break the bingo up, saying to myself, it doesn't matter after all, cuz this one is in vain in advance.

But to express that I don't give up easily even in such one-sided games, I do play my best – after all, what counts too is the difference you lose by. And I ain't gonna give him this game for free, let alone just because of his luck.In the 15^th turn, I eXploit the X, making 42 points on it. I chase him as best as I can, but two bingos at the beginning is too big an advantage, eh? Still, my furious defense does yield a good result – I lost just by 34 points, contibuting to awesome sum of scores of 782. 374 – 408 – what you feel like congratulating to after such a game is the bag, eh, not your opponent. At least he admits it. Let alone if he got both blanks towards the end to cap it all.

“Going down” to 9^th place of 70 players in the continuous ranking and to 4^th table for the sixth round is a kind´of going down you don't mind much. I get Vít Sázavský to play against, the charismatic top player who co-ordinates this year's championship and strives to qualify for it himself. So if I lose, I'll do a good deed after all. It'd be a shame if he didn't qualify.

My third opponent in a row to get both blanks – but as I say, I don't mind in his case.He composes a bingo with them in his 12^th turn on which we just have to agree it's “lame”. Out of despair, I try a pure triple-triple later on but of course it's challenged off.

I lose 371 – 265, mz lowest score of the tourn. But having fallen lower a bit, let us get to the top again!

My seventh opponent being Saša Willerthová, I say to myself, oh God. Someone I just can't stand and who can't stand me – her reason probably being that she hadn't long been able to beat me at a tourn, our personal win-lose ratio so far being 3 – 1 in my favor. She's close below the qualification line for this year's championship – so let's not let her there.

If in the sixth round I was the apparent “victim of the game”, as Trisha Yearwood would put it in her song, this time it was Saša. It was me who got two blanks this time – although the other one at the very end – and her who had a hard time getting over 250 at all (but didn't in the end, unlike me in the previous round). I compose a bingo in my 13^th move – 16 of them being enough to win this time – and using the other blank to go out as I've already said above, I win 378 – 244, definitely destroying Saša's hopes for the Championship.

From the sixth round on, another result sheet appeared – the “continuous qualification” which kept track of the players qualified for the championship and got updated after every round of this tourn as this is the last one before the championship and everyone wants to know whether they've gotten there or not. After the sixth round, I was sixteenth, and after the 7^th one I jumped to 12^th place in the qualification. In the continuous ranking of the tourn, I was seventh of 70.

Expecting a real butcher now for my upcoming opponent, I breathed a sigh of relief when reading the name of František Růžička. I had played against him three times at a tourn and he never once won. But today – after five seven rounds, he's 5 – 2 like I am, huh? What's happened? Ya turned into a 1612-rated tornado, eh? Come for a dusting, old fart.

A muse, though, had probably kissed him right on the ass. He threw a bingo, and just when I started breathing on his back score-wise, I got such a shit into my rack that I had to get rid of it at the cost of giving him a hook. Now what do you think he played? Yeah – another bingo, pure on top of that, just on the hook I made.

I just lash my hand in hopelessness. This is evidently fate – no use commenting on that or trying to change. I just seek to get rid of the kast rack so that I don't lose – at least – by more than fifty. I don't – it's just 47. 363 – 316. Both blanks and two bingos on his side, needless to say. Nothing on mine ... feast or famine.

If I thought I'd at least get an easy opponent for the last round, I was mistaken. The old veteran Jindra Voráčková – a tourn veteran (since 2000) frequent Finals fighter about whom if I had to talk about each time she got into the Finals, it would be a long story so I just menation the years in which she HASN'T qualified – 2000 and 2007. Now this round was to decide whether this year would become a third member of this list.

To discourage her a bit, I start off with a nice bingo zadrčev, an ancient past participle of “to ring”, and race ahead. May be another of those games because of which she says she “doesn't enjoy the tourns anymore”. She answers with one of hers seven turns later, but I was already too far gone and, what's more, cooking another bingo, a pure one this time. Which I had ready two turns later and played it. With the usual fed-up expression on her face she challenged; the word turned out to be good, upon which I explained to her why and what she might have mistaken it for.

“Why are you saying that to me – I don't care,” she shoots back with the same ole fed-up face. The second bingo of mine causes me to finish playing this last game of the tourn in absolute peace. I smash her 410 – 260 and not only stay among the qualified ones, but on top of that, Martin Sobala, one of the best Czech scrabble players who is going to organize a scrabble tourn in Ostrava after the Championship for the top 16 players of this year on the basis of the Ryder Cup, says it's already sure I am qualified for this peculiar event as well.

Okay, good news, but I now want to know how HIGH I've finished at this tourn! With six wins of nine, the position can't be bad. The tournament was won by Břeťa Basta and he left he 2008 National Champ Martin Kuča as “low” as second. Břeťa confirmed his qualification for the championship by this win of his, but later cancelled his participation for family reasons.

I call Dominika, the dear Praguean friend of mine from the university years, and arrange a coffee meeting with her after the tourn – another something to look forward to.

The best score of the tourn was piled up by Milena Filipová – dreadful 578 of them, and she also played the best word – a 185-pointer. The newbie ended up 47^th with 4 – 5 record – great for a newbie, isn't that.

 

“Thank you all for participation,” Pavel Vojáček, the Association pres and the organizer of this tourn, says. “Let me read the results now, starting by the winners of the tourn.”

A noise of disagreement from the crowd of players.

“Okay, from the bottom then ... the last, seventieth, place – Zdenka Rosypalová...“ This lady always finishes dead last with no win at all. She's a savior of the losers – cuz nobody of them can finish last when she attends a tourn.

As he continued to the higher places, still not mentioning your name, you could rejoice over all the ones who finished lower than you. When I heard of the 2001 Champ and still a feared-of scrabble butcher Martin Daněk ending up 13^th, I couldn't believe my ears – I'll be better than him this time...!

Indeed. 10^th ! Or as sportsmen say, I finshed “among the first ten”. Not only am I now fully qualified for this year's championship – 13^th in the qualification chart – but, as I already said, I'm also fully qualified for the 16-player “East vs. West” tourn in December for the eight best 2010 players from either side, inspired by the Ryder Cup.

I call Dominika again and meet her for the coffee as I promised. We had a real thing to cheer to!

I was so glad to meet her after all those months. But I still kind of couldn't reach the gal who promised to put me up for the night.

Some time after, Šárka called me, all apologies. She had given me the wrong number. I finished my mojito (hadn't had this drink for ages – enjoyed it greatly) and hit the road for the streetcar which'd get me there.

If I thought this was the end of fights today and what awaited me right away was a friendly chat, a shower and a bed, I was mistaken, at least as far as the words “right away” are concerned. When I got off the streetcar, I felt absolutely lost, although what the designated house was to be situated in was one of the broadest streets around.

What followed was nearly an hour of confused phone calls. Me to her apologizing that I can't find the way, her to me trying hard to explain the way to me or wondering where the hell I am. After half an hour I found a scrap of a Prague map – luckily just the scrap her street was a part of. It helped a bit, but it being close to midnight and the street labels not quite clearly visible, not as much as one would expect.

A few minutes past midnight I finally found it. Helena (which was her name) wasn't luckily much cross as she didn't have much of a sense of direction herself. Although she was feeling a bit sick and tired as she said, finally we were sitting and chatting over a cup of tea as late as 1AM. Of course – then that I had planned to hit the sack as early 10 pm...!

Even so, I set my cell phone alarm clock for 5 AM. It may sound unbelievable but even after the hard day's night I was able to pull myself out of the bed and as early as 5.20 I was already sitting in the streetcar to Jinonice. That's a Prague suburb where Šárka was staying during her course, and I looked forward to seeing her very much. The early getup was just for this single purpose of being able to see her before the Sunday pair championship starts.

Everything happening according to the plan – a wonder after the day before's thing, eh – , I tell her I'd be there at 6.45 and 6.45 is finally really the time I jump out of the tube to give her a warm embrace. Almost hard to believe.

I brought along and lent her the second volume of Neale D. Walsch's Conversations with God: an uncommon dialogue which we had agreed on I'd do. I had lent her the first volume before that, and she agreed it was awesome.

We had nearly an hour left to enjoy each other's presence. She suggested she take me around Jinonice, which turned out to be a real gorgeous peaceful countryside part of Prague. We enjoyed the walk in spite of the morning cold weather; after all, what warmed us was our heartfelt friendship.

I left Jinonice and headed back to the Pramen hotel where the pair championship was to take place. I arrived right on time at nine. Jirka Kracík had slowly been becoming nervous after where the heck I was but he didn't know that there was another pair of players one of which was going to cause a real stir among us by not coming.

The pair in question was the tall bearded freak Viktor Hagenhofer and his friend Lucie Jechová. Lucie was already there but when she called Viktor at nine, wondering where the heck he was, he replied she'd just woken him up.

So during the first round she just sat there pissed off, watching the other people play.

The first round was not even worth mentioning. Jirka and I were “sentenced” to play the triple national champ Milan Kuděj who joined forces with my scrabble site buddy Věra Majtánová who is also an every-year participator of the finals. Not only two “butcher” opponents but the tiles were just all the time falling their way. While Jirka and I fought with shit for letters, Věra played a quadrupled non-bingo ořechům, the plural native case of ořech, a nut – something that really drove Jirka and me nuts, as it gave her no less than 64 points. As we so-so stumbled over 250 points, Milan went out with a bingo erudici for 81 and thanmks to the deduction of our leftover, they made Jirka and me lose as bad as 432 – 236. Where was the other blank, you wonder? Of course – coming too late, it stayed among the leftover letters Jirka had to deduct.

In the continuous ranking we were last but one after the first round, so we told each other this was just a “warm-up” round and now we start merciless play.

We got Lucie Jechová and the latecomer Viktor Hagenhofer for our second opponent pair. We'll take it out on them!

As if they knew, they fought us as best as they could. They kept neck and neck with us, although their “average rating” (according to which the pairs off opponent pairs were computed) was by about three hundred lower than ours (Jirka and me being in the 1700s). They managed to do so until the sevebth turna – in it, I threw a bingo dvířkách (the locative case of dvířka – “litle door”) for 78 with a blank for the D, which Jirka responded to by joyful hand clap. I was mainly glad to have been able to make a bingo with such dreadful accented letters as ř, í and á coming around together. We smashed Viktor and Lucie 368 – 285, asking, of course, for trouble in the form of a stronger pair of opponents.

Indeed – we got two regular finals participators Aleš Horák (rated 1806) and Martin Kapler (1823).

But we stood tall to them. Chasing them as best as we could, I made a hook to the triple with šiď (an imperative of “to cheat”) which could be broadened into ošiď (a completive form of the imperative) and a word containing the O hooked upon it.

Of course I counted the O's which have already been used before making the hook, and there had already been 5 of 6 on the board. I hoped the opposing pair wouldn't receive the last one.

Luckily they didn't. Who got it was Jirka and made such a nice move with it as úhon (the plural gentive of úhona, “damage”), sixtupling the five-point ú, and altogether making 56 points. Aleš and Martin moaned about the letters they got, and Jirka and I kept running away. When Pavel Vojáček, the Association pres, was saying the introductory word, he pointed out that in pair championships it was extremely inconvenient to swap letters. So they tried their best while we ran away point-wise – just the situation we were in in the first round, but vice versa. We beat these top killers 258 – 356, congratulating each other for a good job and having such nice scalps. In the continuous ranking we are eighth of eighteen pairs now, and are starting to be greatly optimistic about possibly ending up with a medal.

So we now fight the fourth round as high as at tavle #1. But against even bigger top butchers – Ivo Hradský and Břeťa Basta. Ivo throws a pure bingo as soon as in the sixth move, and Břeťa tries one right in their next move. It gets challenged off, but they're in a lead so they can afford a pass. They even afforded an exchange of letters. Břeťa tries another bingo two turns later which this time turns out to be good. To cap it all they get a blank and use it in a fat move again; but luckily I counterblow right away, quadrupling the X and getting 47 points for a move (which makes Jirka rejoice again).

Now, where's the other blank? Guess! Yeah, right, for the second time already, Jirka gets it but so late that it gets “deducted” as a part of the leave. Pissoffable, eh? Taking all this into consideration, a result of 337 – 398 in Břeťa's and Ivo's favor is one we can be happy with after all.

In the fifth round we get Jiří Kučka and my scrabble site buddy Josef Pustka. Dangerous but manageable, I thought. And indeed. After a series of neck and neck moves, Josef starts getting behind. I rightly guessed he is after a bingo. So with the shit I had in my rack, which my fingers were itching to swap, I went and jammed the only spot on the board that offered room for bingos. My move wasn't worth more than 10 points, but considering what it prevented the opponents from doing, it was ... invaluable. Josef made a mittere-sour face. Had it ready, eh? Ha!

We won 289 – 338. Josef confirmed I thwarted his bingo just in time. We move to eighth place of 18 in the continuous ranking. Now we get another butcher – the 2004 champ Michal Sikora with his gal, the beautiful half-Vietnamese Žaneta Leová.

Playing against a champ you don't respect helps – you don't fear then. And this was exactly my case. I don't respect Michal and consider him a lucky ass – he always happens to get bingos without even preparing them.

As if just to prove this, Michal throws a pure bingo as soon as in the second turn – something he sure couldn't have prepared. It just came by itself – as always in his case. Me, for my part, get a blank, and unlike him, COOK a bingo. Cook it during three following turns. When I throw it onboard (nahřátým – “partly heated” with a ř and ý again, those most players would consider crap letters...), getting 86 points for it. Jirka can't help but clap and rejoice... Michal and Žaneta don't catch up anymore and we win 356 – 330. We jump to 4^th place in the continuous ranking and Jirka says again that we could end up with a medal, the imagination almost making him drool.

 

But in the seventh round our hopes get lost, up and gone. We get the Association pres Pavel Vojáček with his son Filip and kick our asses even worse than Milan and Věra did in the first round. They get both blanks on top of that and win by almost 230 points. We don't crap up more than 237 points and they mammon as many as almost twice as much. We lose 463 – 237 and fall to 9^th place – even lower than we were two rounds earlier.

In the seventh round we are to play against two regular Finals qualifiers– the Association financial manager Iveta Vondrátová and Martin Hrubý. This is a non-bingo fight, neck and neck towards the very end – now what decides is the leftover and who goes out first, which is unfortunately them. They add Jirka's leftover. Now, guess what a part of his leftover is again... yeah ... no kidding – the blank!!! For the third time already. Fucccck. Iveta and Martin, who used their blank unlike us, win by eleven points only – 290 – 301, and make us definitely leave the first half. We are twelfth now.

Before the ninth round starts, a complication emerges. Martina Iliasová, the one who always comes to the tourn either pregnant or with a newborn child, needed to breastfeed her baby and we all had to wait. Blood was boiling especially in Jirka and me who were praying that we catch the last Sunday train home.

“Have you finally finished your breastfeeding?” someone called out ironically from among the players.

“They haven't even given birth yet,” Jirka replied. This makes many of us roll on the floor laughing, but it turns out Jirka meant it in some other way than we all understood it. We all thought he was hinting at Josef Nerodil who came last in after the break with his pair co-player Jindra Sikora – as Nerodil in Czech is the masculine past tense/present perfect of “not to give birth”.

Butt that's not what Jirka was driving at – he was making fun of Josef's and Jindra's beer bellies which make them both look as if they really were pregnant and “haven't given birth” yet.

Our fight against Barbora Hrůzová and Radana Williamsová resembles the one against Viktor Hagenhofer and Lucie Jechová in the second round. A neck and neck fight which gets decided by a bingo of mine, which the two gals unsuccessfully challenge. It was a special word used in metal processing which, if you interchanged one letter in it, could be changed into a perfectly common colloquial verb rajcovat, “to make horny”. But I knew this was a trap – rajcovat surprisingly isn't valid.

“Kidding me – and this is what I definitely wouldn't have challenged had you played it instead...!” Radana says, greatly surprised.

 

We win 273 – 332, getting halfway up – 9^th of 18. To our amazement, instead of another 5 – 4 pair we get the opp pair from the very bottom – the two beer bellies who “haven't given birth”, Jindra Sikora and Josef Nerodil. We think we have them nailed in advance. And whadya think – of course; they get both blanks, cook a bingo with it (laughing, because they do it literally – what the bing is is the past tense of the verb “to cook”) and in spite of our trying hard to catch up we don't anymore, losing 303 – 334 and finally ending up as low as 13^th of the 18 pairs.

 

Not a big deal – rather a failure. But hey – not something I'd worry about as the day before at the qualification tourn I finally GOT QUALIFIED for the championship!!! By chance, I'm finishing the story the night before leaving for it. My 1^st championship ever – gonna try and do my best!!!

linkuj.cz vybrali.sme.sk

poslal scrabblista, 12.11.2010 23:46:00

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