Bogota Third Part: Scrabble Tourneys

There were also other Scrabble tourneys taking place in Bogotá those days:

The Andean Tourney: for people from Venezuela, Perú, Bolivia, Colombia and Ecuador. It had been played 2 days before the World Championship (SSWC from now on). The winner, José Luis Rodriguez from Venezuela, obtained a place at the SSWC.

Other Tourney was the called “Extra” one. This one is for all the people that would like to play it and also gives 4 places for the SSWC.

The afternoon of the day before the World Championship, took place a new Tourney: the First Nations Scrabble in Spanish Cup. It was played by teams of 5 people, but playing at the same time just 4 (so one of each group can relax a bit each match). Days before the SSWC someone of the Spanish group of representatives, asked by mail who would like to play that tourney… and Alvaro, Topo, Juan Carlos and me, as good newbies, answered so soon we would like to, plus Carlos Puente, the only one of us that already had experience in a World Championship… the point is the other countries selected their best players for playing the tourney and we 5 weren´t exactly the best ones of Spain, so… the result was obvious… we were the second last… no wonder! :(

For me the funny experience was at the last match. I usually play quick, but in this case we both had to think a lot and the game took more time, so we were one of the last couples to end… It was a hard game, I had to think a lot, so, when we finally finished it, I was really thick and tired. In this kind of tourneys the public should remind outside the room the players are… so, imagine my big surprise when I opened the door of the room, someone asked me if I had won and when I said yes a lot of people screamed quite excited! Hehehehe! No! it wasn´t exactly my group of fans! ;P The point was that my game was the last one of the Spanish team and depending on it, Colombia would be (or not) the winner of the tourney… so the ones outside were the Colombians celebrating not exactly that I had win but that it meant they had win!!! :D



The World Championship was really exciting. In my case I usually say that my perfect way to lose weight is being in Scrabble tourneys! I usually go to the bathroom before starting the match and immediately after finishing each! But it´s nice to release that even the more expert players are also nervous. But what I liked more, was that even being a quite serious championship, everybody was so friendly, it really feels like a nice big family! The champion was Benjamín Olaizola.



The championship lasted 3 and half days. Most of us stayed in the same hotel. Also the meals were arranged with the hotel, so, most of us even didn´t cruised the hotel door during those days! Basically the restaurant was just for us during those days.



But definitely my favorite part of the Championship was what happened every night AFTER the matches! Just that… it deserves it´s own post! ;)



(To be continued)

Spain Scrabble Championship Lunchs

It´s always interesting to share lunchs with Scrabble players...

Spain Scrabble Championship

During the days May 1st to 3rd. the Spain Scrabble Championship had take place.

A lot of great moments and adrenaline, just I´m afraid, as far as the Championship is in Spanish, has no sense to try to translate the posts I have done in the Spanish version of this blog and would be too much work. At least I´ll share some pics here.

Scrabble weekend: Following the tourney

I´m afraid I just had time to do it in Spanish when the tourney was running, but anyway here is the tourney part:

We are already in Sant Andreu!

It´s so emotionant to watch again known faces, to discover new ones, Santi (the leader of the organizing team) is so excited and haven´t sleep due the nervous the night before (cheers champion! All will be great, you´ll see!)

Some people are going to take a coffee that finally makes them to awake and to tune up the anagramer neurons, some of us start to set the tables, check out the games… let´s see if this set is without the Q! Hey! No! The Q is also a nice letter! Do you remember that game when Antonio put “ululares”… no! no! it was “undulares”! and nobody else saw it.

Eh! Manchado is here! And Manchado says: “no, no, I haven´t been playing for so long!” Aha! Yeap! Right! He always say the same and at the end is the champion of the tourney! ;) I could bet this is part of his strategy to relax the enemy! :D

Here some of the pics I already have, I´m going to help to set up the tables!



FIRST ROUND

We all had already finished the first round. Due the way the system does the matches, (ordered by ELO, so the “favorites ones” can´t play together at the first round… due it´s more exciting if they play later!), it goes with no surprises.

Sant Andreu´s Club, with Santi as leader and also being the Referee of the tourney, has done a great work in every single detail, including the coffee break.



People saying things like “I had a Winter that I didn´t know where to place” makes me smile.



SECOND ROUND: ALICIA DOES HISTORY!

Our dear Canary Island´s lady living in Barcelona, has done history! She won to Manchado with a great advantage.

A moment like this deserved a pic!



Xas had won me, with 4 Scrabbles, one of them making 101 points… If we take into account that I had put just 1 Scrabble and our final difference were 65 points, I haven´t done it so bad! (It´s a matter of comfort myself!) ;)

Congratulations to Marina that had play in the first table! It´s obvious that the Canary Island´s ladies are giving their best today!



As curious thing, couples that had to play this round one at the side of the other:



THIRD ROUND: A G L O R Y MOMENT! :)

Gloria (in English: Glory)Bigorra is doing it great! With 3 of 3 won rounds, the last one with Montse Sanchez.

The first tables are giving surprises. Patxi is doing it great as well, step by step confirming himself as the favorite one, it´s almost sure in the next round he should play with Gloria… the poor girl won´t be able to eat, I think! ;)



Santi is doing quite a lot of work, being the Referee, cameraman and commentator at the t.v. program in charge of the event.

Topo! You shouldn´t lose this tourney! ;D



We are going to eat now, I promise more gossips later on!

Bon apetite!

AND WE ARE BACK FROM THE LUNCH...

where the table´s star was David Cantalejo (Zecks). He´s living in Barcelona due his studies and he commented me that he choose that place due the quantity of people playing Scrabble there (that´s to love Scrabble, oh yeah!)
His phrase of the day: I want this to finish now or I´ll have a nervous collapse! He had a heart attack game with Paco and was the all lunch time reminding it.
If by chance you met him, you should ask him to tell you a couple of jokes!

I´m leaving now! The new matches are being done!

4TH. ROUND WITH DAVID CANTALEJO!

If I would mention him before, I would play with him before! I had to play with David that made me to see stars! :(

David commented me that he´s hardly preparing himself to the Spanish Championship that will take place in a couple of weeks: he´s learning a lot of jokes! Here everybody prepares the Championship as how they want! ;)


And the surprises go on! Montse Sanchez told me that she doesn´t know what would be better: if to cut her veins or if to let them long! ;P She´s having a terrible tourney, in her last game she had the Q 6 times.

5TH. ROUND: “MAYBE!... “

We are finishing the 5th. round.

Patxi had win to Gloria.

Montse had lost with David Cantalejo.

Santi is in the middle of objections´ papers… and Curro, that is helping carry on the papers, comes and says: “and what about if instead of saying YES or NO about if a word is valid or no, you come and put: maybe!” Hehehe… that´s Curro´s sense of humor, I´m afraid! ;)

The day is running so fast for me. The ambient is quite nice and happy… it feels more like a good friends meeting than a tourney, I´m not saying this is not serious, just that it´s being so nice! Or maybe it´s due how relaxing is not to be in the first tables? ;)

Marina, in table 1, had won to Patxi... it´s being so exciting!



6TH. ROUND: WE ARE ALMOST AT THE END

Joan Ramón had won to Marina, so, they should play a “duplicada” till sudden death to define who the Champion is.

Some phrases I had hear:

“I start to got good letters when it was so late”

“And now, Xas, will you complain as well?”

“Oh Noooo!! I have to play with youuuu!!!” (That one was for me, I should say it felt so fine!) ;)

“Another tourney like this one and I stop playing Scrabble forever and ever” (If I should count the quantity of times I had hear that in the last 3 years…).

To the waiter that had served the wrong coffee: “Objection!”

An image of the ambient out of the playing room:



THE DUPLICADA




HABEMUS CHAMPION!

Patxi is the new Champion! Tonight the dinner will be the ham! hehehe



And with a great second place, Marina that was almost the whole day defending the table 1. Well done Marina! Women power! ;)



My favorite Mexican, Alejandro, got the third place… and he was saying he would prefer not to play the “duplicada”!



Due a mistake at the last round of the duplicada, Joan Ramón got the 4th. place. Well, anyway sometimes it´s good the rest of us to remind that you are also human, Joan Ramon! ;)



CONCLUSIONS

We went back to Girona talking about the tourney. As far as it wasn´t a matter of finishing the ham in one night, we went to buy food at König again and I had broke my diet quite a lot! Ouch! ;)



After the dinner (Oh! I forgot to take pics with the ham!), Isaac accepts a couple of games more. We finished around 1.30… Patxi told me no more games that day… Ooooohhhh!!! But ok, he had to use quite a lot his neurons playing the duplicada, so, ok, it will be at another time!

We had called again the same taxi driver that took us to their home on Friday, and that is a very nice girl. She´s starting with that profession and seems her new colleagues are taking good care of her.

As last recomendation, if you should eat at Girona´s airport, inside there are just 2 cafeterias, I recommend “The Bier Garden” that has quite better prices than the other one (ok, to ask for a great food quality at an airport would be a fantasy, but it´s not really bad).




So, we are going to Madrid, with an excellent feeling… would be due the ham? ;)

Scrabble Fever!

Since I remember, I love board games, especially the ones that mean a mental challenge. Board games are part of me at that point that even we usually play something at my birthday celebration… otherwise it´s not my birthday celebration! ;) Since some years ago, the favorites to play at my birthdays are Taboo and Scene it?.

My very favorite board game is Scrabble. I don´t remember how it came to me, but I know for sure I was already playing it when I was 14. Maybe one of the things that make this game my favorite, is that not ever you can imagine the result of the game. Also that it´s not just a matter of being lucky or to be the one that knows more strange words… it´s a conjunction of both mixed with the ability to resolve anagrams with the letters you have.

In Guatemala I have friends that like to play it, but once in Spain, it was hard to find people to play, especially after I made my husband to get bored of it! (I was asking him to play Scrabble with me every time we had a space to. Our first year together, you know, when husbands still want to impress their wife, he left me to do so… but after that year he just learned to say NO!) ; ) So years later I started to search info about Scrabble at internet and I discovered 2 things that wondered me a lot! 1. People all over the world play Scrabble in championships that are as important and serious as Chess ones. 2. There is a Scrabble Association in Spain!!! :D

Till then, I was playing Scrabble as any other game, just for fun, allowing some times words in English just to take out a Q and other kind of words that usually shouldn´t be allowed in Scrabble, but when I saw that there were people taking it more seriously and playing even with more rules than the ones described at the instructions of the game, a new world had been opened for me!

I started to go to tourneys in 2006. Of course in my first one my results were pathetic, but the experience was incredible! You see, it´s nice to meet people that take a game as serious as you do! :)

It´s hard to explain why I love Scrabble. I can tell different things Scrabble is about for me, like emotion, excitement, challenge, adrenaline, learning, sharing, passion, competitiveness… but I´m afraid this is the kind of things that are so personal, so, or you feel that “click” with something or you don´t.

Sharing with people with my same Scrabble passion was like opening a new world for me. Especially due most of Scrabble people are amazing. Everyone in a different way, but you can find something that makes them extraordinaries. In other posts I´ll talk more about them, so you will understand better what I´m talking about, but just for give you an example, several of them had participated in T.V. game shows like “Saber y Ganar” (we even have one of the “Magníficos”, Josep Abril ), “Cifras y Letras” or “Pasapalabra”. It´s obvious, without Scrabble, no chance at all to meet each other, we have quite different backgrounds, ages and professions.



At the beginning I started to play Scrabble due to my Scrabble fever, but after sharing with AJS people, it became in a great friendship with amazing people from all over Spanish talking countries. Today for me Scrabble is more about sharing the game´s passion with friends that have the same and even more fever than me.

My progression in Scrabble was very good till last year. I´m proud about my development that includes being part of the top ten of important tourneys and even a first place in 2007; and my classification to participate as part of the Spanish delegation at the World Championship in 2007 and 2008 (Yeap, I´ll talk about them in other posts).



Being in Spain it´s special due some of the best world players are here. We have 2 twice World Champions, Joan Ramón Manchado 1997 and 2003




and Enric Hernández 2006 and 2008;




2 world champions: Blai Figueras 1998


and Antonio Álvarez 2005.



And the current “Duplicadas” mode World Champion,
Eufrasio Millán.


So, taking in consideration that there are just limited participants per country to the World Championship and the great level of Spanish players... Yeap! I´m quite proud about had been part of it! :)

In May 2008 I became part of Scrabble Girona, yes, I know, a bit far away from Madrid! But I definitely love that group! They play all Saturday´s morning, of course for me is not possible to go every Saturday, but I try to go as often as I can and every time it´s a Scrabble weekend party, due plus the games we play at the club, with Patxi (the current Spanish Champion) and Montse (his wife and also the best Spanish female player) we just keep on playing till the body allows us, at their home… that usually means other friends to come as well!





Here a video of one SG friendly tourney that by coincidence was the day of my birthday:


Campeonato Rural de Scrabble en Girona "Entre Olivares" from FRANCISCO DE LA TORRE on Vimeo.

I´ll talk more about the great experiences I have with my Scrabble friends in other posts! :)



After the last World Championship in Buenos Aires, my fever decrease a bit. Of course I still love the game and I´ll try to go to all the tourneys I can, just that to try to be part of the best players means a lot of hours studding and I prefer to use it in other kind of activities. I still play a lot, I still try to give my best in each game, I still enjoy so much playing! :)

My last tourney was in Guatemala, on last February. Was a great experience to share that day with my compatriots! :) Special thanks to Emmanuel, Mauricio and Chofo for all their attentions!





Some interesting links (all in Spanish, I´m afraid):

For playing online with all the championship rules: http://www2.redeletras.com/

The one that is named “Spanish Scrabble Heart Point” gathers most of the info that is relevant to the Spanish Scrabble world: http://scrabble-santandreu.com/

Some interesting Scrabble problems done by Enric: http://www.lsi.upc.edu/~enriche/problemas_scrabble.html

Blai Figueras had created a lot of games including interesting Scrabble problems, as well: http://www.xtec.cat/~bfiguera/indexcat.htm