As said before in the previous post[s], I went for a tortured Scrabble Tournament. Which was rated. And which all the word freaks enter (excluding GheeK in this case).
Alright, so I woke up early (not) and went to my aunt's house so that she could send us to Berjaya Times Square. On the way.....I realised I wasn't wearing my other rubber band (orhtodontics). We reached the Square very early. Around 8.00....And, we decided to go and explore around first, before we got lost and there was completely no hope to register myself. We were probably the earliest to be there [excluding the cleaning ladies, Mr Henry and someone else I couldn't make out]. We just sat down somewhere until most of the players arrived. After registering myself and becoming a member of MSA (Malaysia Scrabble Association? Forgive the ambiguity of the info given as I'm not pretty sure myself.....) I felt a little lost. I mean, c'mon, there's not a soul in the place who knows I exist.....And, I'm just a FREAKING NEWBIE. Darn.
I didn't bother to see what time the tournament actually started since I was too nervous to get a spread of -400 or more. By the Grace of God it did not happen.....though it could always happen tomorrow. Besides, there were others I didn't play against yet. Ghee Ken, if you're reading this, it's neither Sean nor Scott I haven't gone against yet. Yes, I played against them....And that's something new for all you crazy people out there. Unfortunately, I wasn't lucky enough to have missing games. See, there were supposed to be many newbies who were playing. Unfortunately, ALL THE NEWBIES quit after the first round (except 1 or 2 who quit somewhere in the middle of the 2nd game and break). How nice of them to leave me alone!!!!! Geez, now all was left was a bunch of scrabble nuts and a lone newbie. Plus, there were only 2 girls among....erm...13 other guys.
There was one contradiction here though. I'm pretty sure most DJians would expect the Scrabblers to be "geeky" and never say a word to you if it doesn't lower your score or help them gain points in Scrabble. That's where most people get it wrong. Basically, they were just really freaky people who acted coolly. They didn't seem all that.....well....geeky...or nuts. Most tried to be cool....well, they don't need to be...geez...Honestly, most of them looked like those lalas or mentally-challenged people who take spraying cans and vandalise things. But, they're totally the opposite. But somehow, I just didn't feel bad or anything....it was as if they were celebrities [who play Scrabble professionally] and I was just hoping to get contacts with them.
Game 1
Not a very encouraging start. I was basically lost as I had no idea who Teo Wee Seong was. I think he was taking his bag or something....And why the heck am I recording this in my blog?!??!?!?! It's not even good!!!! Nevermind... I won't state the terrible moments here. I just know that the game ended with me getting a 239 and my opponent getting 425. It was nearly a -200 spread. -194. Stupid spread.
Game 2
This was against one of the newbies, Syazwan. The win itself wasn't even near encouraging. I only won by +137 (mine at 387 and his at 250). Adfgaofbsbfnmdsbfmsfkshuwr.
Game 3
Ching San Song. Great. Just great. I heard he's quite good......the unique thing in the game was the tiles. Unique...but unfortunately, not to my advantage. The tiles were blue....and VERY THIN. It was so hard to control the tiles and most of the time, they kept falling off the rack. And NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! There was a point in the game when I was beating him!!!! Until I was challenged, my word didn't exist, and he scored a Bingo. [You may insert vulgar words if you want here]. Luckily, there was also another point in the game in which I put "TEA" and I think that ended his dream of placing some gigantic word there. He heaved a loud "Haiya......" and that made me happy. Hey, at least he wouldn't put a stupid bingo and beat me by more points. In the end, I lost by 159 points, mine being 270 and his being 429. Glad it wasn't 200+. I think he was having a bad sore throat as his voice sounded quite high-pitched and hoarse.
Game 4
The very game Ghee Ken lusts for. A game with Sean Chung. [Chops off head]. Aw, c'mon, have some mercy for me!!! You want me to play against him in the FOURTH ROUND OF MY FIRST MAJOR TOURNAMENT?!?!? You're kidding. I braced myself from losing by 400+ points and was surprised by a loss of a mere 156 points. Mine was 253 while his was 409. Not THAT bad, considering some circumstances. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!! I now have a picture of me on the Internet!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THEY TOOK PICTURES OF ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
BREAK
Ate fried rice, which I didn't finish, since my teeth were STILL ACHING. Drank some funny watermelon + vegetable drink. Lunch was over at 1.45 PM. When I got back to the tournament, I got the worst shock of my life.......
GAME 5
Up against Ong Suanne. This must be my lucky day [spot the sarcasm]. Well, at least she's really friendly. But really.....that's because she can relax. She IS the best here. But, oddly, she said she lost to 2 guys....I think they're quite young guys....either my age or younger....? William Kang and Ker Jen Ho. Ouch. Well, at least that means she beat Scott in the 2nd round. Back to the game. It started off quite badly.....for both parties. I unconsciously put "WA". And of course it didn't exist. However, Suanne forgot to challenge my word and only remembered it just before she put her tiles down. It was quite embarassing especially when I realised the error. This game was pretty scary, since I totally miscalcuted something which caused the whole marking system to be increased by 102 points. Thank goodness it was an error. Otherwise I would be losing by 445 points. Gee, you do the maths yourself (Suanne's marks were 586 and mine was 243). I'm glad she was really friendly....it kind of cushioned the stress a bit.
Game 6
This game was kind of dramatic.....I rushed to the toilet and arrived late. I could see my current opponent, Bryan Lai Tong Yin, waiting anxiously for the game. Well....I wouldn't blame him....he was a fortunate chap who had a few "missing games" before this, all because of the lack of opponents. I WANT MISSING GAMES!!!!!! He reminded me of a mix of Mr Abel, Mark (swimming) and Nigel Teh. Gee, one's a genius, another's the 2nd fastest swimmer in M'sia and one's the Head Librarian of DJ. This guy represents the "Scrabble-playing category". Noooooooo!!!!! There was point in the game where I was winning....until he scored 2 bingos right at the end [RESTALL and GROINED]!!! NONONONONONO!!! I almost had a rebound too.....the letter "S" in my word QUADS had covered RESTALLS and my word went over the triple word score. I had 62 points for that......But then....he managed GROINED. Forget it....after all, I didn't expect much....but it's kind of depressing when you get trashed at the last minute....JUST like the interschool games......and that was 20+ and 30+ points...DARN. I ended up getting a -60 spread. 343 vs 403. So close, yet so far. At least he DID loosen up a bit at the end of the game and at least talked about it. I was said to "be able to read his mind". I wish. Wherever he wanted to place his tiles, I placed mine there before him. I guessed it was the case when he started talking to his friend (my 1st opponent) about something like that. Well, luckily it was that way, otherwise.......well...I don't want to talk about it.....
Game 7
Brian Lim Daqing. Gjhadfjsdfjdfns. Reminds me of another Mark (my 1-year-older-than-me uncle). [Gee, this people DO make their MARK in a competition.....haha]. CRAZY. OPPONENT. Though it was quite amusing how Ganesh (helping out in organising) pronounced Daqing as Ducking. I learnt a new word here....(YRNEH [unit of reciprocal inductance], opposite of HENRY [unit of inductance]. I expected a terrible -400 spread here too. It was fortunate that it's only -272 (241 vs 513).
Game 8
Ker Jen Ho.
"It's OK, he's a nice guy" -Mr Henry-
*Ahem* He's 13, been into competitive Scrabble about 5 years ago and he just beat Ong Suanne. Wow. He IS nice. He's score against me? 555. My score? 236. And the dreaded spread=-319. Yep, he's nice. Lasfgaslfhsadfa.
Game9 OVER
Ghee Ken would kill to get this game too. Horrible. I don't want to recall this game. It's the worst game ever. SCOTT CHUNG!!!!!!!!! He not only LOOKED like my cuz, he SOUNDS and TALKS like my cuz and PLAYS like my cuz. I kept putting out non-existing words. The worst was that there was a part in the game when I put out WA AGAIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! STUPID!!! I THOUGHT I PUT OUT "WAN".....and there was another word....I wanted to put TA and HA but UNfortunately, I failed to notice there was an "E" behind "H" causing the freaking word to become "AHE" instead of "AH". DAMNDAMNDAMNDAMNDAMNDAMNDAMNDAMNDAMNDAMNDAMNDAMN. Somehow or another, he teased me for putting the same word again (WA). How the heck did he know??? Great, now there area BUSYBODIES??? WORST THING WAS THAT ALMOST ALL MY WORDS DURING THIS FREAK GAME WERE NON-EXISTENT. I must have lost concentration by concentrating mostly on "ohohohthisisthelastgamebeforeIcangoback" thoughts. I lost by a whopping 373 points. He almost touched 600 points. It was a hopeless 596 vs 223. At the end of the game, when we were rearranging the tiles on the rack 10 x 10, we found an extra tile. So, we went through all the trouble to recheck every letter, A-Z. And wow....all the letters were correct and there were no extra or missing letters. "That's strange", something my cuz would say often came out through his mouth. Say, do they KNOW each other?? And no, GheeK, there wasn't any topics about nuts here. Oh shoot....I forgot to discuss about Kelly XP
At night, I went in to ISC for a while and almost immediately, someone called "inkspell" wanted to match me. I was thinking....how can he/she look at who's online and match that person so fast? Ker Jen Ho was online that time too and greeted me. That reminded me of today, so nevermind, I'll just see how I'll play and ask for opinions on how to improve. Game over and yea, I lost.
-30 August 08-
Normally, when you're losing badly in a tournament and know you have no chance of getting anything, you'd just quit. But, unusually, this wasn't the case for me. Bring me to a swimming competition and I'd quit right after the first game. But hey, like I said before, they were like celebrities, so I HAD to go.....for the fun of it. It's nice to know you're in the presence of someone better than you....considering it's something you like.
Back to the games.
Game 10
Against Jagan Narayanan. It was terrible again but luckily I improved a little from yesterday and lost by 167 points (315 against 482). Worst thing was that EXECT doesn't exist. That was Jagan's last word before I finished off with GRAIL. And dammit, I thought EXECT existed too. I didn't challenge that freaking 68-point word, when it could have save me my pitiful spread. Well, at LEAST he apologized for that word (Yay!). Then, I asked him for his ISC handle and well, what do you know? He promptly said he played against me last night. Which could only mean he's Inkspell. When asked from where he got that info from, he just said he heard it. Is my voice THAT loud???? Both of us were, if I'm not mistaken, the fastest to finsh, so we waited in front of the computer anxiously. Then, William Kang came over after his game ended and asked Jagan, "What word can you form with the anagram GHIIILNS ?".
"I don't know. I can't come up with any."
"SHILINGI".
And that word DOES exist.
Game 11
Against my first opponent again. This time was much worse than the first. I lost by 207 points and his score was 589. Calculate my score. EDEN doesn't exist WTH.
Games 12-14
YAY!!! I was free this whole time. I spent most of my time in front of the computer learning new words with Mr Henry. Since I was having bonus round, I went out for lunch early. I'm not sure how many rounds there were here, because it felt like 2 rounds. If it's true, that means we actually played 16 games?!?!??! I was having quite alot of fun here. It was getting a little more exciting here since at this time when players were getting high, all sorts of funny words and challenges came up. Scott actually challenged William Kang's GROPE. Mr Henry was laughing at that time and he was like, "What sort of challenge is that? Challenge something that's worth challenging la [eligible to be used since it's in the Scrabble dictionary =P]!!". I'm not sure if the challenge was some kind of fake joke...I thought I saw him stick out his tongue and grinning....??....haha. Then, there were some creative ones like Khoo Beng Way's TAGTEAM, which didn't exist....or like Ker Jen Ho's ALIKENS, also a non-existent word. There was also NATIVED (X), from another game between Scott and.....forgot who. Then there was LATEXING (X) from......err.....Teo Wee Seong and Bryan Lai, I think. Henry said they could have put EXALTING. I think there was also TOONILY from Beng Way, and after a few stubborn tries of the same set of letters, ended up with SNOOTILY (accepted). Lol.
Halfway before the 14th game, Bryan approached Henry and asked to be put into Intermediate category for next week's competition instead of Masters and requested for a drop in rating. "If I enter the Masters next week, I'm gonna die!!". Now THAT was funny. Henry then said see how he does in this competition. Apart from that, he was also "jealous of my bonus rounds" and Henry said "Lose in this round!!". LOL. After that, he was playing the Zyzzyva anagram quiz that time when suddenly, this funny anagram came out: "GILOOONY". Beng Way so happen to come behind him and asked, "What sort of word is THAT?". The funny answer from the computer? (Mr Henry got this wrong). OINOLOGY.
"Is there such a word??"
"Yes la. Oink oink oink."
"You're damn lame wei!!"
"You're lamer. You almost bought it."
Haha. And whoever thought Scrabblers were lame people? I'm pretty sure they think they're quite cool......
More drama was added when Ong Suanne kept playing against Ker Jen Ho, who kept on beating her. In the last game which was about to come, her 4th round against Jen Ho, the winner would determine the winner of the competition.
Game 15
Bryan lost to............no, not me............. Teo Wee Seong in his 3rd round against him (he won in the 2 rounds against him), I had to play while he got the bonus round. Play against who? (I'm not looking forward to meeting Wee Seong again....it's scary).
Brian Lim.
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!! I sat down and nearly died. I didn't want to play against him in the last round, especially when I lost by 272 with him the first time.
"I'd rather lose by a 150 spread", I said honestly to him.
"It's ok. If I'm here playing with you, it means we're the same standard".
How nice. I wish. REALLY!!! But dammit. I was leading half the game unTIL I got challenged for putting up EP (darn, I just realised the mistake after writing it down on my paper!!!). Great. I lost a turn and during the next turn, I totally lost it when he made OTARIES. OK, not lost it in the sense that I start going hysterical and start laughing, but you know....hysterical...I'm proud to say I improved. [Inserts hysterical behaviour here]. I lost by 148 (260 against 408). If this was any normal game among DJians, I'd kill myself [no, not literally!!!!]. But well, at least the game was worth it because I did NOT lose by more than a 150 spread (HALLELUJAH!!!).
The drama ended when Suanne took the crown again. Bryan said she scored a last-minute bingo to win the game. Well, he was walking around anyway.
It all ended well.....kind of....
1. Ong Suanne
2. Khoo Beng Way (he rose above Jen Ho in his final win against William Kang).
3. Ker Jen Ho (lost to Suanne at last)
4. I think it's Sean. I'm not sure and will recheck with the websites....
.
.
.
. RECONFIRM LATER
11. Scott Chung
12/13. Brian? (LOL)
12/13. Wee Seong?
14. Bryan (LOL)
15. Me
16. Shazwan (vanished)
It didn't really matter whether I got last or anything. I was just happy to meet Malaysia's top Scrabblers face to face and say something to them.
This is something to think about (Thanks HJ) :
"Losing is a part of life, and life is a part of time. If you lose, you'll have the time of your life!!" =D
Alright, so I woke up early (not) and went to my aunt's house so that she could send us to Berjaya Times Square. On the way.....I realised I wasn't wearing my other rubber band (orhtodontics). We reached the Square very early. Around 8.00....And, we decided to go and explore around first, before we got lost and there was completely no hope to register myself. We were probably the earliest to be there [excluding the cleaning ladies, Mr Henry and someone else I couldn't make out]. We just sat down somewhere until most of the players arrived. After registering myself and becoming a member of MSA (Malaysia Scrabble Association? Forgive the ambiguity of the info given as I'm not pretty sure myself.....) I felt a little lost. I mean, c'mon, there's not a soul in the place who knows I exist.....And, I'm just a FREAKING NEWBIE. Darn.
I didn't bother to see what time the tournament actually started since I was too nervous to get a spread of -400 or more. By the Grace of God it did not happen.....though it could always happen tomorrow. Besides, there were others I didn't play against yet. Ghee Ken, if you're reading this, it's neither Sean nor Scott I haven't gone against yet. Yes, I played against them....And that's something new for all you crazy people out there. Unfortunately, I wasn't lucky enough to have missing games. See, there were supposed to be many newbies who were playing. Unfortunately, ALL THE NEWBIES quit after the first round (except 1 or 2 who quit somewhere in the middle of the 2nd game and break). How nice of them to leave me alone!!!!! Geez, now all was left was a bunch of scrabble nuts and a lone newbie. Plus, there were only 2 girls among....erm...13 other guys.
There was one contradiction here though. I'm pretty sure most DJians would expect the Scrabblers to be "geeky" and never say a word to you if it doesn't lower your score or help them gain points in Scrabble. That's where most people get it wrong. Basically, they were just really freaky people who acted coolly. They didn't seem all that.....well....geeky...or nuts. Most tried to be cool....well, they don't need to be...geez...Honestly, most of them looked like those lalas or mentally-challenged people who take spraying cans and vandalise things. But, they're totally the opposite. But somehow, I just didn't feel bad or anything....it was as if they were celebrities [who play Scrabble professionally] and I was just hoping to get contacts with them.
Game 1
Not a very encouraging start. I was basically lost as I had no idea who Teo Wee Seong was. I think he was taking his bag or something....And why the heck am I recording this in my blog?!??!?!?! It's not even good!!!! Nevermind... I won't state the terrible moments here. I just know that the game ended with me getting a 239 and my opponent getting 425. It was nearly a -200 spread. -194. Stupid spread.
Game 2
This was against one of the newbies, Syazwan. The win itself wasn't even near encouraging. I only won by +137 (mine at 387 and his at 250). Adfgaofbsbfnmdsbfmsfkshuwr.
Game 3
Ching San Song. Great. Just great. I heard he's quite good......the unique thing in the game was the tiles. Unique...but unfortunately, not to my advantage. The tiles were blue....and VERY THIN. It was so hard to control the tiles and most of the time, they kept falling off the rack. And NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! There was a point in the game when I was beating him!!!! Until I was challenged, my word didn't exist, and he scored a Bingo. [You may insert vulgar words if you want here]. Luckily, there was also another point in the game in which I put "TEA" and I think that ended his dream of placing some gigantic word there. He heaved a loud "Haiya......" and that made me happy. Hey, at least he wouldn't put a stupid bingo and beat me by more points. In the end, I lost by 159 points, mine being 270 and his being 429. Glad it wasn't 200+. I think he was having a bad sore throat as his voice sounded quite high-pitched and hoarse.
Game 4
The very game Ghee Ken lusts for. A game with Sean Chung. [Chops off head]. Aw, c'mon, have some mercy for me!!! You want me to play against him in the FOURTH ROUND OF MY FIRST MAJOR TOURNAMENT?!?!? You're kidding. I braced myself from losing by 400+ points and was surprised by a loss of a mere 156 points. Mine was 253 while his was 409. Not THAT bad, considering some circumstances. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!! I now have a picture of me on the Internet!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THEY TOOK PICTURES OF ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
BREAK
Ate fried rice, which I didn't finish, since my teeth were STILL ACHING. Drank some funny watermelon + vegetable drink. Lunch was over at 1.45 PM. When I got back to the tournament, I got the worst shock of my life.......
GAME 5
Up against Ong Suanne. This must be my lucky day [spot the sarcasm]. Well, at least she's really friendly. But really.....that's because she can relax. She IS the best here. But, oddly, she said she lost to 2 guys....I think they're quite young guys....either my age or younger....? William Kang and Ker Jen Ho. Ouch. Well, at least that means she beat Scott in the 2nd round. Back to the game. It started off quite badly.....for both parties. I unconsciously put "WA". And of course it didn't exist. However, Suanne forgot to challenge my word and only remembered it just before she put her tiles down. It was quite embarassing especially when I realised the error. This game was pretty scary, since I totally miscalcuted something which caused the whole marking system to be increased by 102 points. Thank goodness it was an error. Otherwise I would be losing by 445 points. Gee, you do the maths yourself (Suanne's marks were 586 and mine was 243). I'm glad she was really friendly....it kind of cushioned the stress a bit.
Game 6
This game was kind of dramatic.....I rushed to the toilet and arrived late. I could see my current opponent, Bryan Lai Tong Yin, waiting anxiously for the game. Well....I wouldn't blame him....he was a fortunate chap who had a few "missing games" before this, all because of the lack of opponents. I WANT MISSING GAMES!!!!!! He reminded me of a mix of Mr Abel, Mark (swimming) and Nigel Teh. Gee, one's a genius, another's the 2nd fastest swimmer in M'sia and one's the Head Librarian of DJ. This guy represents the "Scrabble-playing category". Noooooooo!!!!! There was point in the game where I was winning....until he scored 2 bingos right at the end [RESTALL and GROINED]!!! NONONONONONO!!! I almost had a rebound too.....the letter "S" in my word QUADS had covered RESTALLS and my word went over the triple word score. I had 62 points for that......But then....he managed GROINED. Forget it....after all, I didn't expect much....but it's kind of depressing when you get trashed at the last minute....JUST like the interschool games......and that was 20+ and 30+ points...DARN. I ended up getting a -60 spread. 343 vs 403. So close, yet so far. At least he DID loosen up a bit at the end of the game and at least talked about it. I was said to "be able to read his mind". I wish. Wherever he wanted to place his tiles, I placed mine there before him. I guessed it was the case when he started talking to his friend (my 1st opponent) about something like that. Well, luckily it was that way, otherwise.......well...I don't want to talk about it.....
Game 7
Brian Lim Daqing. Gjhadfjsdfjdfns. Reminds me of another Mark (my 1-year-older-than-me uncle). [Gee, this people DO make their MARK in a competition.....haha]. CRAZY. OPPONENT. Though it was quite amusing how Ganesh (helping out in organising) pronounced Daqing as Ducking. I learnt a new word here....(YRNEH [unit of reciprocal inductance], opposite of HENRY [unit of inductance]. I expected a terrible -400 spread here too. It was fortunate that it's only -272 (241 vs 513).
Game 8
Ker Jen Ho.
"It's OK, he's a nice guy" -Mr Henry-
*Ahem* He's 13, been into competitive Scrabble about 5 years ago and he just beat Ong Suanne. Wow. He IS nice. He's score against me? 555. My score? 236. And the dreaded spread=-319. Yep, he's nice. Lasfgaslfhsadfa.
Game
Ghee Ken would kill to get this game too. Horrible. I don't want to recall this game. It's the worst game ever. SCOTT CHUNG!!!!!!!!! He not only LOOKED like my cuz, he SOUNDS and TALKS like my cuz and PLAYS like my cuz. I kept putting out non-existing words. The worst was that there was a part in the game when I put out WA AGAIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! STUPID!!! I THOUGHT I PUT OUT "WAN".....and there was another word....I wanted to put TA and HA but UNfortunately, I failed to notice there was an "E" behind "H" causing the freaking word to become "AHE" instead of "AH". DAMNDAMNDAMNDAMNDAMNDAMNDAMNDAMNDAMNDAMNDAMNDAMN. Somehow or another, he teased me for putting the same word again (WA). How the heck did he know??? Great, now there area BUSYBODIES??? WORST THING WAS THAT ALMOST ALL MY WORDS DURING THIS FREAK GAME WERE NON-EXISTENT. I must have lost concentration by concentrating mostly on "ohohohthisisthelastgamebeforeIcangoback" thoughts. I lost by a whopping 373 points. He almost touched 600 points. It was a hopeless 596 vs 223. At the end of the game, when we were rearranging the tiles on the rack 10 x 10, we found an extra tile. So, we went through all the trouble to recheck every letter, A-Z. And wow....all the letters were correct and there were no extra or missing letters. "That's strange", something my cuz would say often came out through his mouth. Say, do they KNOW each other?? And no, GheeK, there wasn't any topics about nuts here. Oh shoot....I forgot to discuss about Kelly XP
At night, I went in to ISC for a while and almost immediately, someone called "inkspell" wanted to match me. I was thinking....how can he/she look at who's online and match that person so fast? Ker Jen Ho was online that time too and greeted me. That reminded me of today, so nevermind, I'll just see how I'll play and ask for opinions on how to improve. Game over and yea, I lost.
-30 August 08-
Normally, when you're losing badly in a tournament and know you have no chance of getting anything, you'd just quit. But, unusually, this wasn't the case for me. Bring me to a swimming competition and I'd quit right after the first game. But hey, like I said before, they were like celebrities, so I HAD to go.....for the fun of it. It's nice to know you're in the presence of someone better than you....considering it's something you like.
Back to the games.
Game 10
Against Jagan Narayanan. It was terrible again but luckily I improved a little from yesterday and lost by 167 points (315 against 482). Worst thing was that EXECT doesn't exist. That was Jagan's last word before I finished off with GRAIL. And dammit, I thought EXECT existed too. I didn't challenge that freaking 68-point word, when it could have save me my pitiful spread. Well, at LEAST he apologized for that word (Yay!). Then, I asked him for his ISC handle and well, what do you know? He promptly said he played against me last night. Which could only mean he's Inkspell. When asked from where he got that info from, he just said he heard it. Is my voice THAT loud???? Both of us were, if I'm not mistaken, the fastest to finsh, so we waited in front of the computer anxiously. Then, William Kang came over after his game ended and asked Jagan, "What word can you form with the anagram GHIIILNS ?".
"I don't know. I can't come up with any."
"SHILINGI".
And that word DOES exist.
Game 11
Against my first opponent again. This time was much worse than the first. I lost by 207 points and his score was 589. Calculate my score. EDEN doesn't exist WTH.
Games 12-14
YAY!!! I was free this whole time. I spent most of my time in front of the computer learning new words with Mr Henry. Since I was having bonus round, I went out for lunch early. I'm not sure how many rounds there were here, because it felt like 2 rounds. If it's true, that means we actually played 16 games?!?!??! I was having quite alot of fun here. It was getting a little more exciting here since at this time when players were getting high, all sorts of funny words and challenges came up. Scott actually challenged William Kang's GROPE. Mr Henry was laughing at that time and he was like, "What sort of challenge is that? Challenge something that's worth challenging la [eligible to be used since it's in the Scrabble dictionary =P]!!". I'm not sure if the challenge was some kind of fake joke...I thought I saw him stick out his tongue and grinning....??....haha. Then, there were some creative ones like Khoo Beng Way's TAGTEAM, which didn't exist....or like Ker Jen Ho's ALIKENS, also a non-existent word. There was also NATIVED (X), from another game between Scott and.....forgot who. Then there was LATEXING (X) from......err.....Teo Wee Seong and Bryan Lai, I think. Henry said they could have put EXALTING. I think there was also TOONILY from Beng Way, and after a few stubborn tries of the same set of letters, ended up with SNOOTILY (accepted). Lol.
Halfway before the 14th game, Bryan approached Henry and asked to be put into Intermediate category for next week's competition instead of Masters and requested for a drop in rating. "If I enter the Masters next week, I'm gonna die!!". Now THAT was funny. Henry then said see how he does in this competition. Apart from that, he was also "jealous of my bonus rounds" and Henry said "Lose in this round!!". LOL. After that, he was playing the Zyzzyva anagram quiz that time when suddenly, this funny anagram came out: "GILOOONY". Beng Way so happen to come behind him and asked, "What sort of word is THAT?". The funny answer from the computer? (Mr Henry got this wrong). OINOLOGY.
"Is there such a word??"
"Yes la. Oink oink oink."
"You're damn lame wei!!"
"You're lamer. You almost bought it."
Haha. And whoever thought Scrabblers were lame people? I'm pretty sure they think they're quite cool......
More drama was added when Ong Suanne kept playing against Ker Jen Ho, who kept on beating her. In the last game which was about to come, her 4th round against Jen Ho, the winner would determine the winner of the competition.
Game 15
Bryan lost to............no, not me............. Teo Wee Seong in his 3rd round against him (he won in the 2 rounds against him), I had to play while he got the bonus round. Play against who? (I'm not looking forward to meeting Wee Seong again....it's scary).
Brian Lim.
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!! I sat down and nearly died. I didn't want to play against him in the last round, especially when I lost by 272 with him the first time.
"I'd rather lose by a 150 spread", I said honestly to him.
"It's ok. If I'm here playing with you, it means we're the same standard".
How nice. I wish. REALLY!!! But dammit. I was leading half the game unTIL I got challenged for putting up EP (darn, I just realised the mistake after writing it down on my paper!!!). Great. I lost a turn and during the next turn, I totally lost it when he made OTARIES. OK, not lost it in the sense that I start going hysterical and start laughing, but you know....hysterical...I'm proud to say I improved. [Inserts hysterical behaviour here]. I lost by 148 (260 against 408). If this was any normal game among DJians, I'd kill myself [no, not literally!!!!]. But well, at least the game was worth it because I did NOT lose by more than a 150 spread (HALLELUJAH!!!).
The drama ended when Suanne took the crown again. Bryan said she scored a last-minute bingo to win the game. Well, he was walking around anyway.
It all ended well.....kind of....
1. Ong Suanne
2. Khoo Beng Way (he rose above Jen Ho in his final win against William Kang).
3. Ker Jen Ho (lost to Suanne at last)
4. I think it's Sean. I'm not sure and will recheck with the websites....
.
.
.
. RECONFIRM LATER
11. Scott Chung
12/13. Brian? (LOL)
12/13. Wee Seong?
14. Bryan (LOL)
15. Me
16. Shazwan (vanished)
It didn't really matter whether I got last or anything. I was just happy to meet Malaysia's top Scrabblers face to face and say something to them.
This is something to think about (Thanks HJ) :
"Losing is a part of life, and life is a part of time. If you lose, you'll have the time of your life!!" =D
Here's some snaps of all the players:
Playground
From left: William Kang, Bryan Lai, Mr Henry
Dr Adele Tan, Suanne's mother
Facing the camera is Ker Jen Ho
Ong Suanne
Chang Ching Wei
Teo Wee Seong
Sean Chung
Scott Chung
Brian Lim
Trophies
-Memories kept in Local Disk (D:) and will be saved forever-
Proud moment in semis. Agony in finals.
