A very exciting game 2 ended with Nigel pipping Komol 473-468. Komol drew first blood with GOATEES 83 with Nigel immediately replying with MUsLINET 86. Nigel later got CARTELS 76 which Komol immediately replied with AVIATES 90 to retain a 20 point lead amd continued to score strongly while blocking. Nigel managed a REGAlIAN 76 to set up a tight endgame, Nigel 424 to Komol’s 384 with Nigel holding the dreadful IIYCEE and Komol DDOZEXL with many high scoring spot.
Komol scored with DZO (44) instead of ZEX (58) to avoid Nigel’s counterscore of YE (39), and setup for his own X. Nigel partially blocked a high scoring X spot with ICE (24), and inexpicably (at least to us audience) played LUX (20) instead of DEX (36). Nigel squeaked in with TYE (25) before Komol went out with ED (22) for a 5-point loss. Some of the Thai players were saying DEX would lose Komol the game, but I haven’t found out the details.
Game 3 underway, Nigel starts with 109 spread handicap.
Laptop battery running out, hopefully still enough power to post round 3 result…
