My First Real Life Bingo

Sunday afternoon I attended a new Scrabble club for the first time. The Atlanta Sunday Scrabble Meetup is much more competitive club than the Kennesaw group I have been attending. The try to abide by the official rules of the North American Scrabble Player's Association which includes the use of clocks.

This group meets at Oz Pizza in East Point. I did not try any pizza as I was stuffed from a after church meal with my family. I arrived early and waited for the restaurant to open. As the the door was unlocked the group organizer Artis got out of her car with a satchel. After some introductions and instructions I was paired with a fellow named Bright to play my first Scrabble game on the clock.

It was a little intimidating at first to use the clock. Each player gets a total of 25 minutes to complete all his turns before incurring penalty. You make your play, announce your score, and then hit the clock stopping your time and starting the clock for your opponent. Each of you keeps track of the game score.

On Bright's fourth play, he got a bingo. A bingo is a word that uses all the letters on your rack and you awarded a 50 point bonus. "What had I gotten myself into?" I wondered. But then a few plays later I played my first bingo ever in real life - ZEALOUS through the top center triple word score for a total of 105 points on one play. What an amazing rush! In the hundreds of games I have played online, I think I have only had three 100+ point plays, so to get one in my first time in an official type setting was quite enthralling.

After my bingo I was able to extend my lead and won that game by the score of 382-318. While we played our first game, other people had arrived and started games so we played another game with each other. In the second game Bright bingoed twice and won 378-331. Bright played quickly and we finished our second game around the time the others finished their first. Then we exchanged opponents.

Now I was paired against Phyllis who I later learned has been playing in tournaments for over 20 years. She offered to give me help. She went first and then I played the bingo TRAILING on my first turn. She then withdrew her offer to help me find points. Phyllis was tracking tiles - writing down each word played and crossing the letters off a list. I went on to lose the game 416-366.

For my next game I was paired against Delbra. We did not have a clock for this game as not enough people have one. This was my first game of the evening when I could not achieve rack balance between consonants and vowels. I struggled and was beaten soundly 437-288. It was also during this game that I realized that the restaurant was a bit on the warm side.

Next I played JJ. I learned that she had played in one tournament but did not think she would try that again. I got to open our game together and played the bingo DEMOTEE. I wasn't sure if it was a word or not, but I figured I would take the risk since it was the opening play. JJ did not challenge, but as she started to lay her tiles down she realized that she had misread my word, but it was too late. I wound up losing the game 360-306.

After my first game with JJ, some folks left. We decided to play another game with each other. It was during this game that I played my fourth bingo of the night - ARCSINES. I won this game 360-310.

I went 2-4 with 4 bingos my first time playing in this type of environment. I was pleased with the competition and pleased with my results. I realized that I need to really learn the two and three letter word lists in order to achieve greater success at this game. I am looking forward to next time.