5/12/09 NASPA We are officially a NASPA club. And I am, apparently, a NASPA member although I cannot read the newsletter because I don't seem to have a membership number. I will inquire to see if there is some trick to it that I don't understand. The newsletter is up at the North American SCRABBLE Players Association and is readable if you are a member and know your number. Once I manage to read it, I'll post a review. Meeting date change For June only, we will meet on the first Saturday of the month, June 6. I will be out of town on the second Saturday and, after discussing various options among attendees last meeting, we decided to change the date for June only. In July, we will be back to the second Saturday of the month. ****************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************** 5/7/09 NASPA Sanctioning I have applied for (and sent the fee for) NASPA sanctioning. I think that our club is more in the spirit of a "casual club" and it may be more appropriate to be listed as such at the NSA website, but I am willing to give official NASPA status a try for a year and see what they offer after they survive their growing pains. I have also sent in my personal NASPA membership fee and encourage you all to do so before July 1 if you are even marginally interested in tournament play or simply want to support tournament Scrabble. Oregon Tile Several members of the Tacoma Club attended, including myself. None of us won any money or other prizes but, on the other hand, we didn't lose a ton of rating points either. It was a lot of fun and I got to visit Powell's and have dinner at my favorite tapas restaurant. **************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************** 3/29/09 NASPA I'm just going to quote the blurb Rebecca sent me because this is all very confusing: The Seattle Club *********************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************** 3/15/09 Meeting notes 12 players appeared for our March meeting. Most got 6 or 7 games in. Sandwiches were provided by "Capers". We'll be back to pot luck next month. Upcoming events include the Seattle One Day tournament on March 28th. There are 40 people signed up already. ********************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************** 3/9/09 Meeting Date Changed Because of conflicts with several upcoming tournaments, as well as personal preferences of several of our founding members, the monthly meeting of the Tacoma Scrabble Club has been changed to the 2nd Saturday of the month. There is considerable interest in meeting more than once a month, however, I don't want to run more than one meeting a month. If one or more people want to step up and volunteer to run additional meetings, I would be glad to advertise them here. You would not need to take the director's test as the NSA is now listing "casual" clubs on their website for free. You would need to find another meeting location or talk to Shannon about using the Windermere meeting room. ******************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************** 3/9/09 Vancouver Tournament Club was not held on the first Saturday of March due to conflict with the annual Vancouver tournament. This is a very fun event held in the beautiful 4th floor ballroom of the Mason Lodge with a great view of the Vancouver harbor. Keith Valentine, Rebecca Slivka, Lynn Dreyer, Jane and George Bissonnette, and Dave Foerstal played in the tournament. Rebecca won second place in the Early Bird for Division 1, Lynn Dreyer won first place in the Early Bird for Division 2 and second place in the Main Event for Division 4. ********************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************** 3/9/09 NASPA No, it's not an acronym for yet another government agency or the National Association of Silly Putty Afficianados. It's our new North American Scrabble Players Association. Starting December, 2009, Hasbro has decided to only give it's financial support to School Scrabble. They will continue to support the NSA website for "casual" (non-tournament?) players. To play in tournaments, you will need to belong to the new NASPA. I'm sorry if this is confusing but it is pretty murky to me also. If you plan on playing in a tournament between the expiration of your NSA membership and January 1, 2010, you must renew your NSA membership. Although many have asked, it seems unlikely that your membership will be prorated. So, since my membership expires in August, I will have to pay for a year's renewal to play in tournaments in the fall. The NASPA is also seriously considering charging a $20 to $30 yearly fee for clubs. If this is indeed the case, we will need to decide whether we want continue to be a sanctioned club or whether we want to be a casual club with free listing on the NSA website. It is unclear whether I can run a casual club and still run tournaments as a sanctioned director. Sorry, the more I think about this, the more confused I get. Updates as I get them. ***************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************88 12/7/08 NEW RATINGS FORMULA NSA members who play in tournaments receive ratings based on their performance. Over the years, some people have been concerned that, when there is a disparity in rating points, the advantage lies with the lower rated player. So that, if I play someone rated 500 or so points higher than me and lose, I only lose a few rating points. If I win, my opponent loses a lot more rating points. In extreme cases, it is possible to win a tournament but lose rating points. This has led to some of the most highly rated players avoiding tournaments where they are the highest rated player by far. So, the numbers geeks got together and devised a new ratings formula that is supposed to correct this problem. It goes into effect on January 7, 2009. I'm not sure how it will affect my tournament strategy. In the past, I have always played "up" into the next higher division when I could. I do know that I will be playing in Division 2 in Reno (and not 1 as I had been contemplating). ***************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************** 12/7/08 Every meeting gets a little less crazy for me. Yesterday we had 6 returning players and 3 new players. Bev brought a friend (and her husband) from Auburn, Rebecca and Dave Forestel came down from Seattle, and Bob Schonman came from, I think, Bellevue. I need to work on getting more local (Tacoma) people to show up. I see Mandolin Cafe is starting a games night on Mondays, perhaps we can find some people there. And I've been lazy and still haven't done anything about advertising. Some of our members have attended tournaments since the last meeting. The one day tournament in Portland on November 1 drew a lot of players from Washington. Rebecca Slivka won 3 and lost 4 against a strong field to come in 6th in Division 1. Keith Valentine won 4 and lost 3 to finish in the money and come in 3rd in Division 2. Dave Forestel finished 5 and 2 to come in 4th in Division 3. George Bissonette won 6 games and lost only one in Division 4. He came in second and was edged out of 1st only by spread points. Because there is a lot of overlap between the Seattle and Tacoma clubs, many of our members played for Seattle in the annual Seattle-Vancouver Challenge three weeks ago. Those Division 3 Vancouver players are strong on strategy. Bev Nelson played in her first rated tournament, won 2 games and lost 6. Her official rating is 821. George Bissonette went 3 and 5 to finish in 16th place in Division 3. Shannon Krueger won 4 and lost 4 to place 14th. Lynn Dreyer also went 4 and 4 for 11th place and, with a spread of -3, won "the most middling player" award (I got a nice coffee cup and some candy). Georgianne Fiorini had a strong showing to finish 6th with a 5-3 record. Dave Forestel went 6 and 2 to finish 5th. Jane Bissonette also had a 6 and 2 record but with a better spread. She finished 2nd in Division 3. Claudia Finn was our only player in Division 2. She won 6 games and lost 2 to finish in 1st place. In Division 1, Ken Clark had a tough day, winning 2 games and losing 6, to finish 13th. Rebecca Slivka had a great tournment, winning all her games and taking first place for Division 1. Seattle won the challenge. I think it would be fun to have a Tacoma-Seattle challenge next year. ******************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************** 11/2/08 Meeting 3 of the Tacoma Scrabble Club ran a little more smoothly, I think. In an effort to impose more order, I collected names and email addresses. Expect an reminder email about a week before the next meeting. I also offered people the option of turning in some basic stats which I will report on our new Statistics page. For me, it is helpful to see how I'm doing from month to month, how strong my opponents were, and how many bingos I make per game (not so good this month). Interestingly, for 3 out of the 4 people I collected stats for, the bingo average was identical with the win average. If you aren't interested or don't want your stats posted, just don't turn in a tally sheet. I suppose I would be willing to post stats under a pseudonym (like Mickey Mouse or Super Scrabbler) if you're shy. We had 4 new people at our meeting yesterday. We lost a few people who usually come to the one day tournament in Portland but altogether we had 10 players. ********************************************************************************************************************************************************************* 10/31/08 Chess timers won't work because they don't show negative time. So I ordered 4 mini SamTImers. They arrived Wednesday. Awesome turn around time since I ordered them on Saturday. They are green and functional. And with the discount for club and for ordering 4, they were $50 a piece. I also bought 2 more sets of Pro-Tiles. Hopefully this will be my last Scrabble Club investment for a while. FYI: Sam, ever the entrepreneur, is undercutting Bob and offering SmoothTiles for 12.99 a set. Through November 7, they are on sale for $7.99. There are 5 or 6 colors and they appear to be silk screened. ******************************************************************************************************************************************************************** 10/5/08 I just ordered 2 timers. I had forgotten just how expensive timers are. After perusing both the SamTImer and Adjudicator sites, I decided to try Amazon for chess clocks. I purchased a Chronos GX chess clock that appears identical to the Mini SamTimer Touch apart from the fact that it is yellow, doesn't say "SamTimer" all over it, and costs $20 less. I also took a flier on a cheaper clock that is fairly well thought of in the chess world--the Excalibur Game Time II. I'm not expecting a lot for $25 but I'm hoping it'll be functional. ************************************************************************************************************************************************************** 10/5/08 Just for fun I figured out the relative rankings of the players at our second meeting. There were 8 rated players and 7 unrated players. Rated players ranged from 552 to 1761. I'm trying to figure out a better system for pairings so that everyone feels that they got in at least a few challenging games in a club session and so that there are not too many blowout games, especially for new players. Right now, things are very informal with people wandering in and out as they please during the 6 hour time frame. This seems to suit folks and I don't want to change that part of the format. However, my ultimate goal is to become a better Scrabble player. I would like to keep some kind of statistics so I can gauge how I am doing. ************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************ 10/4/08 The second meeting of the club went well. We had 15 players, including a few that found us either through the Seattle Scrabble website or through Google. I figured out how to get the Craig's List post to stay up longer than a week so maybe we'll get some traffic from there. The new venue is great: comfortable and spacious. We have a few more tables we'll bring in for next month. I would appreciate suggestions on how to bring a little more organization to meetings. *************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************** 10/1/08 We have a club number! Tacoma Scrabble® is now officially NSA sanctioned club #679. *************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************** 9/22/08 Like any birth, the beginning of a Scrabble Club is apparently confusing, messy, and sometimes painful. But, hopefully, we'll all be thrilled with the final product. Unfortunately, Tully's is booked for every Saturday this year. We are moving to the Windermere office at 6221 Tacoma Mall Blvd. This is a little further south but right on the freeway so I think there will be no real difference in driving time. It is a little difficult to get to by bus, especially from Seattle. If you are coming by bus and would like a ride from the Tacoma Dome Transit Center or the Point Defiance Ferry Terminal, give me a call or send an email at least 24 hours in advance and I'll coordinate a car pool. **************************************************************************************************************************************************************** 9/17/08 After due deliberation, the consensus is that 1) we like the Tully's and 2) we want to play more than 3 games. The official verdict is: we will stay at Tully's, move to the first Saturday of the month and start at 4 pm. Since Tully's closes at 10p on Saturday's that will give people an opportunity to play 6 (possibly 7) games. Because we play an informal Round Robin and don't keep stats, you don't need to wait for all games to be finished to start your next game. When you finish a game, just look around for someone you haven't played yet who is also done and start right in. I realize that only true Scrabble® addicts will play for the whole 6 hours. I'll be there the whole time to facilitate and arbitrate as needed. It's still $1 (to cover expenses) no matter how many games you play. ***************************************************************************************************************************************************************** Tacoma Scrabble® is a once a month club that meets in Tacoma, WA. NSA sanctioning is pending so we don't have a club number yet. We have a few options for future meetings. Please email me (scrabbletacoma@gmail.com) with feedback on the following options: 1. Continue to meet on the first Friday of the month at Tully's. This is a central, friendly location and they let us play there for free. Disadvantages are that they close at 9 and I think we will soon outgrow their space. I can't meet any earlier than 6 so that means only 3 games. 2. Change to the first Saturday of the month at Tully's. They are open until 10 on Saturdays and we could also consider starting earlier. 3. Move to the Windemere office on Tacoma Mall Blvd (courtesy of Shannon Krueger, Windemere agent extraordinaire). We can stay as late as we like, it is also free, and there is soda, tea, and coffee available. Disadvantages: it is a little farther south (but very accessible to the freeway), the tables are narrow, there is no walk by traffic). Advantages: a bigger space, quieter. 4. Look for another space. It has also been proposed that we move to the second Friday of the month since first Friday is free museum night somewhere. This is fine with me if there are no objections and we are not changing to some other night of the week. ******************************************************************************************************************************************************************* Last night (9/5/08) was the first meeting (ever) of the Tacoma Scrabble® Club. We met at Tully's Coffee at 764 Broadway at 6 pm. We had originally intended to play 4 games but, unfortunately, had misinformation about when the Tully's closed (9 not 10), so only got in 3. Geoff Tongue, Ken Clark, Georgianne Fiorini, Betsy Moschetti, Shannon Krueger, Jane and George Bissonette, and Lynn Dreyer were in attendence. There was some interest from people walking by and I handed out some flyers. Considering that the meeting was virtually unpopularized, attendance was excellent. I had a good time and hope others did too. We are looking for a venue change so we can play until 10. Friday looks best for people since it is not a school/work night for most. Lynn ****************************************************************************************************************************************************************** |