My Only Scrabble Tournament

Here is something that popped into my head randomly while trying to sleep last night ...

Back in the late 90's, I was in my one and only Scrabble tournament.  It was a local fundraiser at the Escondido Public Library.  My wife-at-the-time was on my team, and two close friends were a couple on another team.  There were about 30 players, and our entry fees went to a literacy charity.

I won a few rounds, and as I recall I made it to the round where there were only 2 games being played.  So if there were 32 players to start, round two would be 16, round three would be 8, round four would be those two games.  That all adds up (in my head).

My fresh opponent started by saying, "Let's not add up the scores each round, so we can focus on the game.  It's such a hassle."

I didn't know if there was an actual rule against doing that, but I figured I could ignore the total score.  Why should those numbers affect my choice of words anyway?

In the end, we did add our scores, and I lost by 5 points.  I always wondered if it would have played out a bit differently, had I known I was ahead by 4 or behind by 10 on any given turn.  One assumes that we would just pick the best word each turn, independent of all variables, but I'm not so sure.  Knowing I need to play at least 20 points this rounds is a very real pressure, as opposed to some blanket mission to score 30 or more on every round, which will probably not happen half the time.

Maybe this opponent could keep the totals in her head, and was just playing me.  I will never know.  It's just an interesting moment in a life of gaming.

Have you seen any of the documentaries about the top Scrabble players in the world??  They are an interesting cast of characters.  I wouldn't want that kind of pressure, or to have to keep my head so full of words all the time.