Humbling Scrabble Tournament
Day 2 Pacific Coast Open Newport Beach, Very humbling experience. Although 8-7 doesn't look like a terrible record, considering the average player I played was rated at around 1000, the expectation was that I would do a lot better. Did my skills decline so badly from 2 weeks ago when I did well above expectations in an "A" division? Who can really know? Were my tiles that much better or worse this last weekend? Did I take lower rated players for granted? (I only played 4 people rated higher than me and lost to all of them). It's disappointing because I put a fair amount of time into studying, however I study actual words, not what words come in a rack of IUUVQW? So you can't see what's not there. Even then though, I missed a fair share of Day 2 3-4 (8-7 +1 overall) 14th place loss of 53 rating points. I lost to 540 rated player. I gave up the highest play of the tournament as well as the biggest upset and even...