COLOR COMMENTARY AND PICTURES FOR THE PHOENIX 2007 TOURNAMENTS Pictures from the event are at our website in the first two albums: www.homepage.mac.com/larryrand1 EARLY BIRD- February 16th For the very first time, the 23rd annual Phoenix tournament was held at Inn at Pima in Scottsdale and was arranged for us by Lillian Goldfine, the original owner of the Scottsdale Scrabble Club. The 2008 Phoenix tournament will be held at the same venue, February 15 and 16-18. The Early Bird tournament attracted 88 players and was divided into 7 divisions. The divisions were divided into groups of 12, except for the last division, which contained 16. The format was a three game round robin starter, followed by four games of swiss pairing and concluded with a KOTH round. Two players, Mark Schellenberg and William Barfuss, in divisions 1 and 6, respectively, had perfect 8-0 performances. The entry fee for the EB was $40 and identical cash prizes were awarded for 1st through 4th places: $150, $90, $70 and $60. In division 7, which was larger, a “best performance” prize of $50 was awarded to Kaye Platts, who had the best record for all players in the “bottom half” of the draw. Prizes are notated for division 1 only, but are identical for all 7. There were only 10 errors on tally slips for this entire event. The Friend of the Directors award (FOTD), $20, was awarded in a raffle for all players with perfect tally slips to Stan Miranda. DIVISION 1 1 1847 Mark Schellenberg 8.0 696 $150 2 1839 Lloyd Mills 6.0 340 $90 3 1811 Kent Nelson 5.0 40 $70 4 1870 Mark Kenas 4.0 272 $60 DIVISION 2 1 1751 Dominick Mancine 6.0 407 2 1642 Greg Heidler 6.0 383 3 1728 Paul Phillips 6.0 319 4 1627 Mason Shambach 5.0 -116 DIVISION 3 1 1611 Luise Shafritz 7.0 610 2 1619 Kurt Davies 6.0 456 3 1527 Wallace Schultz 6.0 269 4 1492 Ed Saunders 5.0 87 DIVISION 4 1 1393 Lynda Shayne 7.0 177 2 1455 Carlynn Mayer 6.0 599 3 1444 Wes Morrison 5.0 173 4 1419 Glenda Short 5.0 48 DIVISION 5 1 1285 Michael Rhodes 6.0 441 2 1246 Jacqueline Stewart 6.0 435 3 1282 Miriam Green 6.0 136 4 1102 Allen Jacobson 5.0 124 DIVISION 6 1 1061 William Barfuss 8.0 515 2 1065 Louanne Saylors 6.0 425 3 1023 Richard Martin 5.0 137 4 1028 Andy Ludwig 5.0 -218 DIVISION 7 1 917 Ann Herget 7.0 244 2 809 Jane Bernes 6.0 291 3 869 Lillian Goldfine 6.0 213 4 872 Gayle Weyers 5.0 265 5 685 Kaye Platts 5.0 24 Seeded 10th- $50 Best Performance MAIN EVENT- February 17- 19 128 players participated in the 20 game Main Event and were divided into groups of 20 players, except for division 6, which had 28. The tournament had an international flavor with 8 players from Canada and 1 player from Israel, Hilda Ben-Nun. 21 US States were represented from HI to NY and WA to FL. Three players were competing in their first Scrabble tournament: Harry Decker, AZ; David Phillips, AZ and Millie King, IL. The expert division, one of our strongest ever, had 6 former winners from the past 10 years: Ira Cohen (97); Jim Geary (99 & 06); Chris Cree (02); Michael Baker (04) and Jerry Lerman (05). In addition, former US National Champion, Dave Wiegand and “triple crown winner,” Joel Wapnick (World, US and Canadian Champion) were in the expert division. Nancee Mancel provided name buttons for all of the players as a souvenir. Prizes were donated for the “early entrants,” (12/31/06). Winners included: Peter Noom, Wallace Shultz, Michael Thelen and Lynda Shayne- “Parlay word game”; Trip Payne - a fold-up chair and carrying case; Gary Smart- Personal SamTimer; and Josh Kassel- a new SamBoard. In addition, Ossie Mair provided a fold-up Scrabble board, racks and carrying case for a raffle. Jerry Lerman was the winner! On Saturday, in honor of two Phoenix Scrabble Club members who passed away in the past year, Greta Strong and George Stone, we had a high “GS” play for the day. Trip Payne won a one night stay in a suite at the Inn at Pima for his high triple/triple play of “restages” (140). On Sunday, we awarded four additional one night hotel stays in Scottsdale in our “Battle of the Sexes.” Two certificates were awarded to the high plays by women and two for the men. The men eked out the contest 289 to 280. Winners: Mike Baron, “seahorse” (176); Maddy Golob “peronas” (140); Paula Catanese “brighten” (140); and Rich Moyer, “eyestone” (113). The FOTD award for the Main Event went to Beverly Moutet. There were only 23 tally slip errors that netted Beverly $51. Considering that there were 1,380 tally slips completed during this event, 23 mistakes is a mighty low error rate!! The director, Barbara Van Alen, only made one data entry error ($5). She mistakenly read a “0” that had a line drawn through it as a “1.” Millie King was playing in her first Scrabble tournament and had one win over the course of the three day event, but was gracious to all of her opponents and displayed sportsmanship to the highest degree. The directors awarded her a hand made tile bag for her efforts. Dave Wiegand could have been “gibsonized” after round 17, but had two predetermined round robin rounds to complete. Harry Decker, competing in his first tournament, had 18 wins and finished second. Husband and wife, Lynda Shane and Frank Kashuk finished in the money in Division 4. The entry fees for the 2007 tournament were $100 for players rated 1500 and above and $85 for all others. $8,350 was awarded in cash prizes in a descending per centage by division. Prizes were awarded to the top four finishers and the “best performance” in the bottom half. Division 6 had 28 players and three additional best performance prizes were awarded. Sam Kantimathi provided 12 of his SamBoards, at a discount to the tournament, as prizes for the high game and high loss in each division. The winners are noted in the results. Kay Patterson won two boards in division 3 and Sarah King and Barbara Gray were victorious in the final round. DIVISION 1 20 ROUNDS PLACE RATING NAME WINS SPREAD 1 1906 Dave Wiegand (700) 16.0 1193 2 1839 Lloyd Mills (350) 13.0 359 3 1857 Chris Cree (250) 12.0 441 4 1878 Joel Wapnick (200) 12.0 122 5 1814 Jerry Lerman 12.0 87 6 1780 Ira Cohen 12.0 -69 7 1844 Trip Payne 11.0 250 8 1882 Jim Geary 11.0 179 9 1855 Patrick Hodges 11.0 125 10 1854 Nathan Benedict 10.0 198 11 1870 Mark Kenas 10.0 116 12 1847 Mark Schellenberg 10.0 -51 13 1838 Kevin Fraley 9.0 -27 14 1763 Mike Baron 8.5 -341 15 1751 Dominick Mancine 8.0 -269 16 1820 David Poder 8.0 -306 17 1843 Sam Kantimathi 8.0 -600 18 1764 Jan Mills 7.0 -55 19 1813 Mark Milan 7.0 -585 20 1809 Lewis Martinez 4.5 -767 HIGH GAME OF 590 WAS PLAYED BY Chris Cree IN ROUND 2 HIGH LOSS OF 479 WAS PLAYED BY Joel Wapnick IN ROUND 18 DIVISION 2 20 ROUNDS PLACE RATING NAME WINS SPREAD 1 1642 Greg Heidler (650) 15.0 658 2 1703 David Pearl (325) 13.0 771 3 1694 John Karris (225) 13.0 527 4 1669 Maddy Golob (175) 13.0 225 5 1728 Paul Phillips 12.0 445 6 1621 Paul Avrin (175) 12.0 -197 7 1690 Rich Moyer 11.0 265 8 1658 Bruce D Ambrosio 11.0 -105 9 1604 David Hermanson 10.0 346 10 1629 Ruth Hamilton 10.0 166 11 1694 Laurie Cohen 10.0 128 12 1569 Carla Cree 10.0 -137 13 1749 Stan Miranda 9.0 -27 14 1629 Jim Lamerand 9.0 -272 15 1611 Luise Shafritz 9.0 -385 16 1619 Kurt Davies 8.0 -249 17 1738 Michael Baker 8.0 -451 18 1597 Siri Tillekeratne 7.0 -327 19 1573 Jessie Jones 6.0 -365 20 1627 Mason Shambach 4.0 -1016 HIGH GAME OF 563 WAS PLAYED BY Bruce D Ambrosio IN ROUND 3 HIGH LOSS OF 456 WAS PLAYED BY Rich Moyer IN ROUND 10 DIVISION 3 20 ROUNDS PLACE RATING NAME WINS SPREAD 1 1548 Michael Thelen (600) 15.0 852 2 1526 Maureen Delgado (300) 13.0 567 3 1455 Carlynn Mayer (200) 13.0 496 4 1492 Ed Saunders (150) 13.0 424 5 1441 Bennett Jacobstein (150) 12.0 277 6 1527 John Ortman 11.5 992 7 1531 Kay Patterson 11.0 356 8 1471 Peter Sargious 11.0 81 9 1516 Gary Smart 11.0 -337 10 1447 Rosetta Donelick 10.0 -35 11 1444 Wes Morrison 9.5 -142 12 1527 Wallace Schultz 9.0 36 13 1477 Bonnie Redland 9.0 -709 14 1497 Paula Catanese 8.0 -114 15 1434 Kevin Schutz 8.0 -304 16 1534 Chris Patrick Morgan 8.0 -314 17 1478 Lewis Saul 8.0 -474 18 1439 Cathy Coking 7.0 -594 19 1429 Sandy Nang 7.0 -852 20 1460 Emely Weissman 6.0 -206 HIGH GAME OF 567 WAS PLAYED BY Kay Patterson IN ROUND 5 HIGH LOSS OF 450 WAS PLAYED BY Kay Patterson IN ROUND 17 DIVISION 4 20 ROUNDS PLACE RATING NAME WINS SPREAD 1 1393 Lynda Shayne (550) 16.0 967 2 1285 Michael Rhodes (300) 15.0 361 3 1246 Jacqueline Stewart (200) 14.0 447 4 1418 Frank Kashuk (150) 14.0 441 5 1419 Glenda Short 13.0 519 6 1237 Monique Kornell (150) 12.0 289 7 1282 Miriam Green 11.0 315 8 1374 Sarah King 10.0 668 9 1327 Jane Geary 10.0 333 10 1297 Pamela Stubblefield 10.0 -42 11 1211 Barbara Gray 10.0 -338 12 1170 Danny Kidd 10.0 -374 13 1359 Phyllis Koselke 9.0 495 14 1257 Joshua Kassel 9.0 -225 15 1305 Susie Page 7.0 -149 16 1236 Mollie Braverman 7.0 -293 17 1370 Pat Diener 7.0 -751 18 1341 James Wait 6.0 -553 19 1395 Richard Savitt 6.0 -1105 20 1327 Polly Moyer 4.0 -1005 HIGH GAME OF 557 WAS PLAYED BY Sarah King IN ROUND 20 HIGH LOSS OF 436 WAS PLAYED BY Barbara Gray IN ROUND 20 DIVISION 5 20 ROUNDS PLACE RATING NAME WINS SPREAD 1 1067 Robert Collins (500) 14.0 1232 2 1073 Luther Durant (275) 13.0 372 3 1080 John Aitken (175) 13.0 316 4 1042 James Johnson (125) 12.0 9 5 1049 Judy Carlock (125) 11.5 244 6 1061 William Barfuss 11.0 432 7 1005 Bonnie Cohn 11.0 185 8 1075 Al Demers 11.0 -85 9 1135 Doug Bobkovich 10.0 241 10 1114 Nancy McCarroll 10.0 -59 11 1148 Marina A Villena 10.0 -66 12 1118 Ron Barker 9.5 -323 13 1064 Hilda Ben Nun 9.0 33 14 1102 Allen Jacobson 9.0 -271 15 1065 Louanne Saylors 9.0 -309 16 1142 Con Downey 9.0 -400 17 1070 Erik Anderson 8.0 -109 18 1023 Richard Martin 7.0 -377 19 1028 Andy Ludwig 7.0 -535 20 1039 Mike Carlson 6.0 -530 HIGH GAME OF 561 WAS PLAYED BY James Johnson IN ROUND 19 HIGH LOSS OF 421 WAS PLAYED BY Robert Collins IN ROUND 8 DIVISION 6 20 ROUNDS PLACE RATING NAME WINS SPREAD 1 930 Peter Noom (450) 18.0 1979 2 0 Harry Decker (275) 18.0 1522 3 902 Tammy Ross (175) 14.0 610 4 942 Karin Somerville (125) 13.0 1006 5 751 Lois S Oda (125) 13.0 461 6 869 Lillian Goldfine 13.0 17 7 917 Ann Herget 12.5 627 8 749 BriAnna Shultz 12.0 502 9 936 Jeff Jacobs 12.0 -68 10 922 Chora B Eilertsen 11.0 661 11 832 Georgianne Fiorini 11.0 388 12 809 Jane Bernes 11.0 38 13 978 Karen Lundeen 10.0 499 14 872 Gayle Weyers 10.0 -100 15 939 Joey Cross 9.0 438 16 685 Kaye Platts 9.0 -10 17 903 Beverly Moutet 9.0 -196 18 665 Diane Manown 9.0 -262 19 0 David Phillips 9.0 -273 20 972 Fran Reich 8.0 9 21 525 Jean Downing 8.0 -277 22 745 Jan Dickey 8.0 -418 23 547 Mindy Pretner 8.0 -588 24 714 Muriel Abram 8.0 -1025 25 618 Eva Bartholomeusz 7.5 -241 26 813 Darlene Kendel 6.0 -448 27 427 Edna Perry 2.0 -2069 28 0 Millie King 1.0 -2782 HIGH GAME OF 590 WAS PLAYED BY Tammy Ross IN ROUND 5 HIGH LOSS OF 413 WAS PLAYED BY BriAnna Shultz IN ROUND 3 Thanks to all of the participants in the Phoenix 2007 tournament! Larry Rand and Barbara Van Alen Directors