Now, for the Scrabble

Wednesday, November 07, 2007
Mumbai (Bombay), India
And now, the final chapter. I had five nights booked at the Hotel, Godwin allegedly within walking distance of the Taj hotel, where the tournament was to be held. As you can see here, it's been all gussied up for Divali. On my one free day before the tournament began, I wandered around a bunch, eventually making to the waterfront to see the Gateway to India .

Mumbai was even hotter and sweatier than Goa. On the night of the reception, I had sent out all my laundry, and the only shirt I had left was the one I had worn that morning. But in my wanderings it had been completely drenched in sweat and was nearly unwearable. I had to buy some souvenir shirts from a street vendor just to have something to wear.

The tournament itself was very organized and well-run. Kudos to the whole Hasbro-India team, plus Wilma, Philip, John Chew, and everyone else involved. The playing room was wonderful, as was the daily buffet lunch. Even those of us sick of Indian food after three weeks here could enjoy it. The one downside of having the tourney at the Taj President was that we had to vacate the playing room at 6:00 every day, and virtually no one was staying there. This prevented any sort of after hours Scrabbling and anagramming, which is always a highlight of a big tourney.

As far as my performance, I was moderately satisfied. I blew one game on a SOWPODS lacuna that would have never happened in OWL-land, and "lost" another on a scoring error by my opponent where I should have asked for a recount, but figured 9 points was too big. I did play some great games, including back-to-back barnburners against eventual second-place finisher Ganesh and Terry Kirk, and met some great people. No news on the next World's, although rumors are either Japan or somewhere in the Middle East. Either way, I'll do my best to make it there.

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