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Odkazy:

The Hradec Scrabble Qualification Tournament and the Spring Team League 2011

Hradec Králové, CZ, Sat & Sun May 28^th & 29^th 2011

 

 

 

As the tourn in Přerov two months before was a bummer, I hoped for the tables to turn this time again. “Don't worry, I ain't gonna aim too high – I can cope with ending up as low as fourth,” I joked talking to my mom before I left.

If you remember previous Hradec tourns, you probably expect a 2-day, 15-round one. Not this time, though. Zbyněk Burda, its organizer, said he didn't have mind to hold a two-day one this time. So he had made a deal with Pavel Vojáček, the Association pres, that the 2^nd team league would be held the following Sunday.

There's gonna be cutthroat competition, I thought as I was looking at the list of participants. Five National Champs and practically all traditional finalists...

 

Despite having been here for quite a couple of times before, I had a hard time finding the way. Oh well, what could you expect from me whose orientation abilities are practically zero. And I had drawn a map of the route from the station right to the school in the canteen of which the tourn was to take place!

 

Having finally gotten there, I still had a lot of time on my hands. I had me a coffee and went to greet Katka Rusá who was sitting at one of the tables verifying the completeness of one of the sets. As we were putting the tiles in a ten times ten square, we were shitting the shit while some of the players were doing the same, too, at the other tables.

 

All the players who applied have come save the triple National Champ Martin Sobala. He probably preferred to stay home a day longer to take care of his pregnant wife. Four other national champs didn't fail to arrive, though, so the threat remains hanging over us anyway.

 

As if I were meant to have a warm-up, I was seeded against as low as 1250-rated Milan Seidl.

This railroad man is someone I often play against at the Parnas club, and to tell the truth, I hate playing against him. He's the type of weak players who are able to burn a blank for 15 points and when you play a bingo against them after your consipicuous working on it for several turns, they just accuse you you are “lucky”. Oh well, I'm already getting used to this. No use losing temper.

Beating him was no prob of course, let alone after playing a 71-point bingo in my 11^th move. I won 293 – 390 without putting in any particular effort, but hey, what the fuck – guess what happened next!

Yeah. One can't even afford to win over a weak player – one gets seated against #1 on the chart, a triple National Champ who, apart from knowing his native language well enough, is known to be fucking lucky. And so, while I draw such combinations as non-vowel or all-vowel ones, he gets one blank, plays a bingo, then gets the other blank, plays another bingo, and I have a hard time piling up 300 points at all. Which I don't anyway in the end – managing at least to put together toxiny, TOXINS, a 78-point non-bingo, I lose 270 – 462. Like, I've expected such a thing anyway.

Falling from 10^th place to 35^th in the continuous ranking of the tourn, I overhear friends from the Parnas club talking about how well the otherwise low-rated Mrs Seidlová is doing, being 2 – 0 after the first two rounds, having beaten such guys as the Association director Pavel Vojáček or the every-year finals participator Jiří Kamín. And hey – the triple National Champ, Katka Rusá's uncle Milan Kuděj, has just had his ass kicked by 1686-rated Eva Baďurová, and what's more, his score was as poor as 228. What the heck has been happening – what kind of ineffability?

At least I can comfort myself by doing a bit better than Jirka Kamín – after I lose in the third round to Marek Holba whom I scalped at the 2010 Championship, I still end up seven places higher in the continuous ranking as he, to the wonder of everyone around, hasn't won any of his first 3 games.

In the fourth round I get the recent newcomer to the tournament scene, a 50-ish bearded guy named Raul Kačírek, and what do you think – I lose to him, too, even in spite of playing a beautiful bingo legiích, with a blank for the H, a plural locative case of the noun “legion”, and then extending it to elegiích in the very next move for 23, elegie being a kind of panegyric. As I've already said, these two nice moves didn't save me from burning the game by thirty-one, 341 – 372. You know it from the beginning when a tourn is going to be a cursed one, eh? So do I, and this is exactly the case.

Falling to #52 in the continuous ranking of the tournament, I go take a break, and when the results of the fourth round have been pinned up, I find out that quite a few of every-year finals tycoons are 1 – 3 at the moment just like I am, including Jarda Buksa, Jirka Kamín, Pavel Vojáček or Pavel Chaloupka. “We've been taking this tourn as a training for tomorrow's team league,” Jirka Kamín grins.

This tournament being, as it seems, ill-fated, you couldn't look to the usual comfort of a loss – i.e., that you'd get a “more bearable” opponent in the next round: that's to say, the “unbearable” killers have been doing just as bad as me today. So when I lost to Raul, guess who I got to play against?

Jana Vacková. A every-year finalist again, eh?

As I drew my first seven tiles from the bag, a good one including a blank, I thought, at last – are the tables finally gonna turn?

I set up °nanuji on my rack, a first person singular present tense of “to masturbate”, and hope for her to give me a suitable hook for this cool bingo.

What'd you think – she didn't. It was just a matter of time and some thinking, though, for me to rearrange my tiles and use her U on the H8 field to make nahnijou, a 3^rd person plural future tense of “to become partly rotten”.

“Eighty,” I announce and press the clock. She challenges; it comes back good.

“What a shame – I had onanuji here but no place to play it after your opening move,” I sneer – I couldn't not tell her, could I?

“Grow up, you're forever being like an adolescent,” she chuckles back. “You remind me of the teenagers who go to my scrabble classes. They're able to play SEX for two points just for the sole sake of having the word there on the board.” We share a laugh at that.

“How the heck do you play SEX for two points?” I wondered, guffawing, only to flash upon the idea right after pronouncing the question – you play a blank for the X, duh.

“So, you give scrabble classes, eh? I didn't know.”

“Yeah... for children. You know, I have to breed the next scrabble generation as I myself don't enjoy playing it very much anymore.”

Six turns later she plays a 74-point bingo of hers and goes on running neck and neck with me practically for the rest of the game. You probably already know how such a game is likely to end on a fucked-up scrabble day, eh? Yeah – exactly. Drawing shit from the bottom of the bag, I lose because of what I have left to deduct, by eight points – 355 – 347.

Now I'll take it out on the poor next one, I think to myself. Indeed – ideal opponent for this situation turns out to be Jitka Svrčková. You know this pretty charming lady from previous tourns as Jitka Maceková – that was before she met this ugly old scrabble player at a tourn and married him. Hard to say what she saw in him, indeed.

That's why her charm doesn't really work with me and she becomes my first opponent at this tourn to be really killed by me: 391 – 225. And I didn't even have a blank or play a bingo.

After this game, which pushes me up a little to 45^th of 61, I learn really ain't alone in my bad luck today. Katka Rusá has just gotten beaten by not even 1500-rated Viktor Hagenhofer (for the second time actually already) and Luboš Vencl, another every-year Finals qualified, told me with an ironic grin that he had a win more than me.

 

As you might have already gathered, I have caused myself to get a butcher for my next opponent. Pavel Chaloupka, another frequent finals qualified, presents me with a grin as I announce a change of one letter in my first move.

“I'm about two places below the qualification line now and doesn't look like I could push it up today,” I complain – as if not even halfway through the year any qualification position would matter.

“Me I'm about fifteen places below it,” he sneers. “And I can't push it up today either.” Well a good comfort indeed!

The six-letter combination I had (plus the letter I just swapped) looked quite bingo-prone with lots of seventh letters added, so I hoped I could make one.

Indeed. Pominuty – feminine plural passive of to neglect – makes me jump right into 65-point lead and for joy. Not for long though – just for about six turns, then he shoves on his, a pure one this time. Looks like a good even-chance neck and neck game – until about 15^th move of his when he lets me take that with a 39-pointer of his. I start reaching cesspool of shit letters at the bottom of the bag and just watch him get further and further away. What seemed to be a close game in the beginning finished 360 – 424 in his favor.

52^nd of 61 in the continuous ranking. Phew. Ninth from the bottom. Ain't been through such shit in scrabble since I dunno when. I hope to improve my destroyed mood on a co-player from my team, 1460-rated railroad man Pepa Grosskopf who becomes my next opponent. The pic looks rosy at first, as he gets shit for letters (at least according to what he says) and swaps the full rack twice – one such change right after the other. Six turns later though, his bad luck evidently changes sides, grasping me for a change. He plays a 42-pointer and a tripled bingo right after. I don't even marvel anymore after what I'd been through. Fuck! I lose 358 – 281 and at least win over one of the weakest players at the tourn, Gabriela Gugová, 347 – 293. 50^th of 61 with a 3 – 6 record – fucccck. Like back then at the beginning of my scrabble career.

The only light moment was on hearing that Pavel Podbrdský didn't win – he finished as low as second, the victory being taken by who's the best Czech scrabble player in the eyes of many of us – Martin Kuča.

 

Oh well, as Jirka Kamín said – let's take this as a training for tomorrow's team league.

The next day at 8.30 we are about to start, when we find out Ivo Hradský, one of the top players of the Sklípkani or Trap-Door Spiders team, is missing. Boozing or smoking somewhere again, eh? Or both.

A Trap-Door Spider says he'll call him. He does, and when Ivo finally turns up, the whole room applauds.

Pavel Vojáček as the Association pres and team league organizer in one announces the team pairings for the first round. His team, Sirotci or The Orphans, is matched up against us, and who choses me for his opponent is he himself. Jindra Voráčková sits down against Zbyněk Burda, Jirka Kamín does against Pepa Grosskopf and Filip Vojáček, Pavel's son, against our team capo Pavel Žibřid.

“Against bingoers we have matched up classic scrabble players to mason their bingo spots,” Jirka Kamín explains with a grin that their match-ups against us were highly sophisticated.

 

Pavel Vojáček took Jirka's word. Playing a bingo himself as early as in his 3^rd move, he tried to mason the board so I couldn't play mine. That's what got me behind and prolonged the game of the two of us – otherwise fast players.

Pavel Žibřid, being long done with his opp (won, needless to say) sneaked behind my back to see how I'm doing – right on time to see a set-up homeless bingo on my rack. NEURON plus a blank. A bingo close to his doc heart, eh? He gives me a sympathetic grin. A bingo to be extended with an accusative-case U, a plural nominative Y, plural genitive Ů, or even an Í to make the verb neuroní which doesn't even have anything in common with neurons – it's the negative future 3^rd person singular of “to shed”.

 

I did find a spot in the end. I spotted a spot – around the Ž on the board. I made the blank an A and played nežranou, an accusative feminine case of the adjective nežraná, “not eaten”.

I lost anyway, though just by 36 points – 303 – 339. Jirka Kamín was glad his sophisticated plan worked. Now, though, an even tougher work was ahead of us: Ýáčci, the club consisting of mother and daughter Filipová and, among others, the 2008 Champ Martin Kuča, a sixtupled vicechamp, too. And according to some of us, the best Czech scrabble player. No wonder then that when we were matching up our club members to theirs, nobody wanted him. As I returned from the restroom, Pavel was already waiting for me with the 2^nd round match-up sheet in his hand. “Which of these players aren't you able to play against?” he grinned, and after skimming the names I said Martin Kuča, of course, at which Pavel let a laugh. “Nobody can, I guess.” He was then off to show the match-up sheet to other members of the team, and when he came back to me again, he tapped me on the shoulder and told me encouragingly: “You'll manage him.”

 

Haha! Like, a good joke indeed, after what I was through the day before. Yes I have beaten Martin already, but that was apparently on a day with a better star constellation.

You know what's worse than playing against who's considered the best player by many?

Yeah – playing against who's considered the best player by many when he's apparently lucky on the particular day. He gets a blank, plays an 81-point bingo on the triple – just for a start. I run after him, though, pushing so hard that when I play efúzi for 42 points on a triple, hooking it to an E on the board, it' so nutritional that this Martin, one of the best Czech scrabble players, commented it with a “phew”. Ya think ya can't play something nutritional (point-wise, heh) to an E? Sure you can! Three moves, later, though, he used the other blank, played another bingo, and all I could try was not to lose by more than a hundred at least. Which I finally didn't: 421 – 329.

None of our team members won this time – we got our asses kicked 0 – 4. And no, in the next round no relief is about to come – we get another hard opp team, Túzy a múzy or Deuces and Muses. Who chose me was Pavel Chaloupka – he apparently hadn't had enough of beating me the day before. Against Pavel Žibřid Jarda Buksa gets seated, Zbyněk Burda is taken on by Petr Landa and Pepa Grosskopf by Marek Lašťovka.

Pavel Chaloupka didn't know – of course – WHAT a game this is going to be. Nor did me for now. Getting a blank, I come up with a bingo as early as in my 6^th move: fonovati, a somewhat obsolete infinitive of “to phonate” , with a blank for the N.

“Sixty-three.” I knew I wasn't going to enjoy my lead for long. But looking into my new bunch of letters, though blankless this time, I thought, with heed to usable letters on the board, hey, this looks bingo-prone again. As early as two turns later I tried opásneš*, which I thought a good 2^nd person future form of “to fix one's belt around [sth]”; however, to my great surprise, it gets challenged off. As soon as this happens and the clock is pressed, I see it. Heck, what kind of fool am I, I think, another, this time a very nice bingo, fits right over there. So seems like nothing's left but to pray for him not to go there with his move.

 

He didnnnn't. Ooophhh. Now I can break through with nehopsáš, a 2^nd person singular present tense of “not to skip/jump”, hooking my letters to a H on the board and at the same time forming EX, the whole thing altogether for 97 points.

Pavel ain't gonna give this up, though, and so without me even knowing, he starts forming another bingo while I enjoy my lead. Five turns later he comes up with věrnost, “faithfulness” or “fidelity”, with a blank for the N, for 83 points, to make this cutthroat fight even more thrilling and interesting. We both get over 400. Luckily I find a good strong move for over thirty points then. Now this finally makes this merciless game nailed for me, I hope.

Indeed. I went to dictate the results to Pavel Žibřid who, as usual, was making records of how we were doing. “I won. Four hundred and two – four hundred and thirty-four.”

“Ohhhh maaan,” Pavel lets out in a shock and puts this incredible result of mine down among the other ones. (My sum of scores with Pavel Chaloupka – 836 – gets recorded as the fourth highest sum of scores of this team league.) He himself has just won over Jarda Buksa, and when it turns out our “substitute” player (for the long-time sick Jirka Kracík) Pepa Grosskopf has won over the frequent Finals participator Marek Lašťovka, thus securing a win for our team (Zbyněk Burda being the only one to have lost – by 66 against Petr Landa), Pavel glosses it with a grin: “We just do good against strong teams – we don't know how to play against weak ones.”

Our optimism was cooled down in the next round – against the Praguean Paluba team. The triple lucky-ass National Champ Pavel Podbrdský (I suppose now you wonder – a triple lucky ass, or a triple National Champ? BOTH, heh.) probably hadn't had enough of playing against me and smashing me the day before, and so chose me for his opponent.

Most National Champs deserve respect for their art of playing; not him, though, especially not after last year's championship finals which he totally pulled out while the vicechamp was getting crap in the final round all the time.

“Does everyone have an opponent?” Dana the IT manager checks, only to get a negative answer from František Růžička who was to play against Zbyněk Burda.

As soon as the negative answer had been pronounced, Zbyněk Burda emerged at the entrance to the tournament room with a guilty grin on his face, and as he was drawing closer, we saw he was carrying three sandwiches on a plate in his hand.

“You miscounted them,” František cracks. “Two for me and only one for you.”

Pulling my first rack of seven, I thought, heh, now I'll show you how your opponents feel when exposed to your constant good luck. That's to say, I opened our game with a pure bingo.

Such something always fills you with optimism, but – ya remember how Martin Kuča did in the final round of the Finals in 2009? Opened the game with a pure bingo too, and lost anyway.

And so did I against Pavel now, in spite of the bingo AND getting both blanks. At least I had a reason to acknowledge he deserved the win this time.

“That was a nice win, congrats – not like the ineffable luck of yours yesterday,” I sneer. Paluba won over us 3 – 1, the only member of our team to have won being Pavel Žibřid (over the scrabble veteran, businessman and frequent Finals qualified Martin Hrubý).

Oh well – let's take it out on “the poultry”, as Pavel Žibřid once called our upcoming opposing team – Střelené kachny or The Meshugga Ducks.

“I've matched you up already – make sure you do your best,” Pavel tells me. Matched me up, eh? Let's see against whom.

Ohh nope. The beautiful half-Vietnamese Žaneta Leová (almost looks like her epiteton constans, eh?) – but oh well, today no female weapons can distract me. Especially not if you have been PDAing with Michal Sikora here all the time – I'll take it out on you for that.

As soon as I said that in my mind, I saw my first rack of seven was pretty bingo-prone. AAEKNR?. Let's see what she plays – I don't wanna play a “primitive” bingo, as Zbyněk would call it, i.e. one starting with the negative prefix ne-.

She opens, and I guess, well, not one you could easily hook something onto. I spend about a minute thinking, from which any player who already knows me well could judge something bad was about to come. A player at the internet scrabble site said about me that every move that takes me longer than ten seconds automatically means something bad for the opp.

I was after making the most of the bingo, and indeed – I hooked it to her S, used the blank for a P and made a tripled pankreas for 74 – PANCREAS as you might guess, for which, though, we also have a far more beautiful Czech word slinivka, which would literally translate as “salivator”. My second move being for 32, I get over 100 in just my first two moves, and four turns later, I come up with another bingo, just double this time but pure on the other hand – nemořené for 82 points, “not tortured” or also “not stained [about wood]”. She does answer with a pure bingo of hers this time, but as it turns out in the end, this just saves her from being under 250 – although she does get a blank, I shatter her 284 – 447. Serves you well for your PDA, beautie.

“How did we do?” a Meshugga Duck asks Michal Sikora who kept records of the results.

“Lost 0 – 4,” he reported the bad news. Mucking good one from our point of view, though! “Close losses mostly, though – just Žaneta's gotten a dusting.”

Close losses indeed – most magnificent was the fight of two national champs, the 1998 one Zbyněk Burda vs. the 2004 one Michal Sikora. Zbyněk won 449 – 439 – ain't that an amazing win.

I went and dictated my result to Pavel. “You're gonna like my bingo,” I grin – for sure, as he's a doc.

“You played pankreas, eh?” he laughs. “You're a beast.”

The Meshugga Ducks, there being five of them, had been discussing which one of them is going to be put apart for the upcoming round, as the team league is played by four players against four. But if you expect none of them to want to “have the bye”, as we here call the pause of the odd player, you're badly mistaken – seems like most of them would welcome having a rest now.

“We can't all have the bye at once,” Michal tells Žaneta.

“Oh yes you can,” I cut, standing nearby and overhearing them. Haha – why not play against four empty chairs? I guess their upcoming opposing team would be glad to have a 4 – 0 win for free.

In the sixth round we get exposed to last year's team league champs – Poškoláci or The Detainees. As I get chosen by the top-20 frequent finalist Luboš Vencl, the nutrition advisor my age.

I wasn't gonna give it to him easily though. He pushed hard on me, but I, knowing that every time I bomb out at a qualification tournament, I should do good at the following team league, wasn't gonna give it up. Pulling both blanks at one draw, I used them in the 64-point non-bingo neočuď, a negative 2^nd person singular imperative of “to stain [sth] with smoke” – it being worth so much thanks to the sixtupled 8-point Ď.

Getting crap afterwards, though, my lead decreased. I hoped he wasn't going to come up with a big bomb and catch up.

Which is exactly what he did. A tripled hýkán, a masculine passive form of “to bray” yielded him 46 points – exactly the kind of lead he needed to keep me away from him. He won – but losing just by 22 against such a class is something I can be satisfied with. 341 – 319 – and hey, we still got one point as we reached a “small tie” – two wins (Pavel Žibřid by 13 points over the triple National Champ Milan Kuděj and Zbyněk Burda by almost a hundred over Jana Vacková), two losses and the sum of our scores smaller than theirs.

Next we are supposed to play against Sklípkani or the Trap-Door Spiders. In this round a peculiar thing happened – made you realize what a disadvantage it is to have two friends in the opposing team. You take on one and the other is marveling why you don't play against him. I chose Marián Viochna, while Ivo Hradský was still missing as we got seated against each other at the designated tables.

 

“Does everyone have an opponent – can we start?”

“Hradský is missing.”

“He's evaporated in smoke somewhere,” laughs Pavel Žibřid, hinting at Ivo's smokership.

 

When the red-haired beardo finally turns up, the whole room applauds ironically. On finding out his upcoming opponent, he whispers to me: “Why don't we play each other?”

“I don't feel like I could play you today, sorry.” Which is right – I preferred to avoid such strong opponents after what I was through the day before.

Against Marián it's always a good-time game. Especially after I drew a blank right among my first handful of seven. On my second turn I threw a bingo (nesléhej – “don't lie in”) which made sure I'd be in the lead for the rest of the game, and even though he successfully challenged a word of mine off the board six turns later (the word itself was all right but wrongly inflected), in the end I win by more than a hundred, making use of my knowledge of painting (škica, a not very common word for a sketch, made me 36 points) and managing to go out by burning the 5-point G for 19. Final result – 410 – 306. Pavel Žibřid won over the frequent finalist Aleš Horák not only thanks to his beautiful bingo forsáže (AFTERBURNINGS) which he played as early as in his 2^nd move, but overall killing him – 427 – 293. Zbyněk, though, lost to Martin Kapler and Pepa Grosskopf to Ivo Hradský, so iut was a tie – and thanks to our sum of scores which was bigger than theirs, a big tie for us.

The last round, ooph. Mostly when there are eight rounds instead of nine I'm not very glad, but today I'm sort of done in. Our last opposing team, Sklípkani or The Trap-Door Spiders, matches up Josef Nerodil against me – when I see that, I say to myself, hey, we should gather our last bits of strength and don't let this drunkard beat me.

As if he had heard me, he punches me in the face with a 82-point pure bingo in his seventh move. Ooops – wither he's not that drunk today or it really brings him inspiration. Luckily I can use my two blanks to answer with a bingo of mine, výkvěte with blanks substituting the K and the E, the vocative case of the noun “élite”. That's where you don't belong, Josef!

Later on, as I still had him by the tail, I used the common tactics of counting letter numbers – and played the word husí, “of a goose”, in front of a triple word. It can be extended only with a M (an instrumental case of the adjective) – but as you can guess, one M has been played and the remaining two of the Czech scrabble set are right here on my rack. Another thing which spoke in my favor, too, was Josef's apparent tiredness later on in the game. The bingo you had made exhausted you, eh? Or you been drinkin'. Or both, probably.

And yes, I'm mucking tired too. But I don't let it show.

 

I go out with the weird word eem, denoting the last interglacial period (yes we do know the threes cold just like the Anglophone scrabble players do) to win over Josef 346 – 382 and thus contributing to a 4 – 0 win of our team in this last round.

 

To sum it up – three 4 – 0 wins for our team, one “small tie” of 2 – 2 when our sum of scores was lower than that of the opposing team, one “big tie” and two 1 – 3 losses. That puts us on the 8^th place of 12 teams – not so good. What sounds better is the ranking of players after this tournament where I'm 22^nd of 51 players of this team league – this puts me a bit back up on the chart after the fall the day before.

 

And hey – as it's after another tournament as I'm writing this, this time in Zlín, I can tell ya right away you can look forward to a story of SMASHING success!!!

linkuj.cz vybrali.sme.sk

poslal scrabblista, 23.06.2011 2:09:00

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