UVSC Session Report
July 16, 2018 (Session #189)
(authored by BJ)

So Iliana got this new set of tiles recently -- they aren't the typical
tournament style tiles, but they are from an actual Scrabble set that is
sold in stores.  They are kind of cool tiles--plastic, smooth on both
sides, resembling Chiclets gum.  We have used them a few times now, but
they have one shortcoming which we should have foreseen, and which
became evident during a game this week.

"Director!" came the call from Iliana and David.  I looked at the board,
which already had two blanks on it, and Iliana showed me that she also
had a blank on her rack.  Three blanks!  Uh oh.  We flipped over the two
blanks on the board, and sure enough, one of them wasn't a blank.  Being
a relatively casual club, no one was too upset about it, but we tried to
resolve it appropriately.  First, it was evident that no one was
intentionally trying to cheat, and the shortcoming was with the
equipment, not the players.  Therefore I could assign no fault to any
player for having accidentally played a tile face down, and I decided
that no compensation was necessary, though that point is certainly
debatable (and it was considered, with much discussion).  The game was
to be continued as normal, with no change to the tiles on the board or
to anything else.

So, we had our first, and hopefully last, club game with an incorrect
tile distribution.  I will note that although at the time I had guessed
the tiles were probably not legal for tournament play, so far as I can
tell from checking the rules, they are in fact legal.  Their
shortcoming, of course, is that the backs of all tiles look exactly the
same as the blanks, so a player might believe they have a blank when in
fact they have actually put a tile on their rack backwards.  I've heard
stories of this happening in home Scrabble games using the traditional
wooden style of tiles, but never at a club!

We also had our first triple-triple in a while, when I found mEA(S)LIER
for 113 points.  Surprisingly it was not the high play of the night, as
I managed also to play EXHAUST across two double word scores in a
different game for 123!  I rarely have any plays that high so this was
quite a lucky night.

But wait, there's still more to report!  Having an odd number of players
for a while, David played simultaneous games a few times, and he ended
up playing 11 total games, which is just one shy of the record for
number of games played by one player in one session -- wow!  And to top
it off, not long after midnight we learned that this was the beginning
of his birthday!  Shortly after that, he played one last pair of
simultaneous games and managed to defeat both Iliana and myself for a
good start at celebrating it.

Finally, as always, here's our bingo list, phonies excluded: RETINAS,
STRAINS, CARRELS, ENTITLED, TAPPERS, REARING, CATERING, FLIRTER,
DOUTING, OUTREACH, ADNATION, FLAVOURS, MEASLIER, ACROSTIC, STRANGER,
DETAINEE, RAILINGS, VOLERIES, EXHAUST, REASONER, EGALITE, ATONERS,
COLDISH, RETSINA, AGITATED, WONDERED, ORIOLES, WETTINGS, UNITERS,
SILTIER, RELAXANT, AIRLESS, STILLER, ARROWING, EQUALING, MOANERS,
RECOVER, DELISTS, AEROBES, MOURNERS, RADIOED, DETOURS, ABLEIST.