I’m back blogging only because I will be reporting on the progress of the upcoming Causeway Scrabble Challenge. The blog is at http://causewayscrabblechallenge.wordpress.com/

Go Team Singapore! Aim for second! (yes I’m neither ambitious nor confident ;p )

Temptation and suffering. Payment for the win was 3-days of medical leave on food poisoning. 2 days of hourly toilet visits (meaning no sleep longer than 60 minutes), plus 1 day of total drain-out, flat out with no energy to even go to toilet (which I fortunately no longer needed by then, THANK GOODNESS).

I don’t feel like winning another tournament for some time.

I will repeat again how I love the new words. Beyond the local dialects e.g. Maori absorbtions, they really are practical words. Have been seeing more and more of them in print and usage.

I finally conceded that I would have to miss, for the first time since I was eligible to participate, the Singapore National Scrabble Championship. Quite ironically, it should happen when I actually put in the most effort studying (admittedly more due to the new dictionary).

And it was due to work, the project that had sapped substantial spirit and time from my life two months ago. That beast had perfect sense of timing. Just my luck that our team had to get Friday and Saturday for presentation slot when drawing lot with the other candidates in the bid, instead of, say, Monday and Tuesday.

More agonisingly, it is highly likely that I will only have to attend the presentation and sit pretty, since my company only plays a minor role in the whole project, and the lead company will be the one running the entire session. We supporting minions are there to be backup in case they have to redirect some questions, and to sit and present a united cohesive team supporting the whole bid, us all the linebackers. I guess I will feel better missing the Nationals making some important presentation that no one else can be delegated to handle, but no, I will sit pretty from 830am to 6pm doing nothing instead. The Boss had initially expected, and wanted to request for, allocated slots for the different partners to present and support their own expertise domain, and hence not waste all that time there. She instead came back from the briefing awed and said the lead team knew their business and knew what they’re doing. Hope dashed.

We better win the darn deal…

This was my first exposure to tuina (the practice, not the word, which I have played before in Scrabble). The Chinese physician quickly diagnosed my discomfort as a latent injury that occurred in the past and didn’t completely heal (unfortunately I can’t remember which injury; perhaps cumulative effect of wear-and-tear from misuse instead?), and that my joints (or ligaments?) were loose. Paraphrasing him, he was going to bring out the old pains hidden inside (that caused the discomfort) before it could recover fully.

For the treatment, the physician had me lie face down on the bed and then applied some liquid concoction on my wrist and forearm before proceeding to massage it vigorously, the concoction acting as a much-needed lubricant. I’m not sure if it’s because I’m bony, or because my problem is in a bony area, or it’s the way of the treatment, but I felt the main difference was that unlike massages, tuina doesn’t target the muscles, but the joints and bones. The physician used his knuckles and his elbow to apply strong pressure on a point, or to knead through along a bone.

The first session last week was OK, I did feel some pain when he applied particularly more force, but it was bearable. The second session upped the stakes. Though my pain was on the wrist, he focused quite some time on my forearm, kneading his knuckle hard along the bone, or – I suspect – raking it across a few bones, hence the clacking sound/feeling as it went through a rough surface. That was bad for me. He did forewarn that it was going to be more painful. I was hoping throughout that he would feel some pain back on his knuckle and stop, but no such thing; later on I observed that his knuckle and elbow has a lump, almost like a keloid forming a protective layer across his own joints. Cheater :-/ But seriously, that’s quite a sacrifice to pay for someone practising his art; somewhat like martial artists who thickened the skin of their knuckles by repeated punching of sands or sandbags.

Anyway he proceeded to inflict pain in several other places, but it really was that across-bones feeling that jarred me. He remarked that my nerves had hardened from overexertion and were like metal wires (or so my dearie translated), but I couldn’t imagine that nerves were feelable; perhaps he meant veins, and he raked through my veins instead of bones? In which case then I’m amazed nothing burst.

It was a good whole-body workout for me, as I involuntarily tensed up and then consciously relaxed the curled toes, raised shoulders etc. The 10-minute session in air-conditioned room ended with sweat dripping from my left arm and the back of my shirt wet.

His assistant later wrapped warm cloth pre-soaked with medication, and applied bandage to hold it tight for the next 24 hours. A slight dullness (not really pain, but I can’t describe it) lingered until the bandage was unwrapped. Now with the bandage off, I’m pretty much back to normal (except that I am much more aware of various sensation when I use my fingers), waiting for the ordeal to repeat again every weekend, for I-don’t-know how long. And in the meantime, no arm exercises, so I’m going to lose muscle and gain fat again.

Descent is an RPG-like dungeoneering game where a team of players each control one character trying to accomplish a mission in a dungeon, playing versus a player who is the overlord controlling the minions and traps in the dungeon. This particular meetup saw 4 (!) games of Descent being played, and our table was the one that took the longest. Possibly because our table was the only ones where the heros prevailed and reached the end of the dungeon, whereas all other tables saw the overlord swatting away the heroes, some with great speed. It was also long due to the fact that the scenario we played was one of the longer epics apparently, and our overlord was a rookie overlord learning the ropes occasionally needing to stop, think, and ask another veteran overlord.

The overlord’s greenness may have helped us won the game, but he was definitely a very unlucky overlord. His dice rolls often failed him at crucial moments. At the verge of killing our best character, he rolled a failed attack in a multi-dice roll. His undying creatures allow him to roll a dice to resurrect them, but his success ratio was I believe less than 15% (based on the dice probability, it should be 33%), including the final boss who was supposed to resurrect at a 5/9 probability but didn’t resurrect at all. The epitome of his bad luck: he conjured a dark charm to take control of one of our characters, to deal the surprise killing blow to our wounded team member. But his inexperience and bad timing ended up with him realizing that the character he took over turned out to be one who was unarmed: he just passed his weapon to my character and hadn’t received the weapon I was supposed to pass back in return as part of our artefact exchange! He pressed on, making a barehand attack (rolling the minimal one dice), only to have the roll ending up as a missed attack (a 1-in-6 chance).

Of course he was very unlucky from the start when our heroes, when drawing random ability, got very good matches. Our main attacker got the ability to attack multiple times and causing damage to the surrounding. My ranger got the best combination of multiple attacks and armour-piercing. Another character happened to have a familiar which nullified most of his curses, and yet another happened to have the ability to minimise the amount of threat the overlord can inflict each turn.

Now perhaps for some more challenging descent into real nasty dungeons …

The last day saw a lot of people making a final charge. Komol P (THA), already in third place going into the final day, went 6-1 to snatch the first spot in the best-of-three finals, surpassing overnight leader Nigel and even having the luxury of being Gibsonized in the last round since he couldn’t drop to third place. Nigel, on 18.5 wins (he had a tie with Panupol earlier in the day) duked out with Jakkrit who was the sole player on 18 wins for the final spot, and prevailed (I didn’t manage to get the score).

Other people who stormed up their way were Hubert Wee (SIN) and Odette Rio (PHI), both going 6-1 and both ending up in the top 5 with 18-5 records. Hubert beat Panupol (THA) in the final game to overtake Jakkrit for the third spot. Femi Awowade (NIG) also put in a strong performance with 5-2, but coupled with his first day absence, he fell short of top 10, finishing 12th.

This year two people managed to go unbeaten in the final day: Gan Cher Siong (SIN) and Robbie Onate (PHI) went 7-0, and got the bonus prize. All players get 100 Baht for every game they win (50 Baht for days 1 and 2), and unbeaten players get their winnings multiplied by 5. So both Gan and Robbie earned 3500 Baht in day 4; more than the 9th placed finisher!

Some nice words played:

- Hubert Wee (SIN) ‘s ZYGOSITy through O for 98 against Alastair Richards (AUS) in round 21.

- In day 1, Karen Richards played CLOAK(I)NG (one tile was a blank, couldn’t remember which), and Jakkrit extended it to the triple word to make BECLOAKING.

I didn’t do particularly well, but I must say this had been the most enjoyable King’s Cup I’ve been to yet – the funny dictionary (TWL2+SOWPODS – so people who have started on a bit of Collins like me were a bit wary on which words were good or not) notwithstanding. The venue, Siam Paragon complex, is impressive – the hall was more spacious than the previous venues and afforded a comfortable setting to watch the finals. The Paragon is also a fabulous shopping mall, with a great variety of food (oh the food … ice cream …) to choose from. Logistics were also much improved with: shorter distance to opening night dinner, and the fact that they slotted in one game before the princess came in for the opening ceremony, meant that there were less down time, and the games were a bit less rushed. And also the final was exciting. As Han Ei remarked, it was even more exciting than watching a sport match, with all the tension. Too bad it all has ended.

Ranking of top 20 plus some selected players below:

# Name Record Spread
1 KOMOL P. 20 – -7 1845
2 NIGEL RICHARDS (NZ) 19.5 – 7 1451
3 HUBERT WEE (SING) 18 – 9 1183
4 JAKKRIT K. 18 – 9 1057
5 ODETTE RIO (PHI) 18 – 9 837
6 THACHA K. 18 – 9 463
7 PANUPOL S. 17.5– 9 932
8 TONY SIM (SING) 17 – 10 871
9 GERRY C. 17 – 10 675
10 CHEAH SH  (SING) 17 – 10 434
11 PAKORN N. 16 – 11 1163
12 FEMI AWOWADE (NIGERIA) 16 – 11 1017
13 CHARNWIT S. 16 – 11 994
14 KAREN RICHARDS (AUS) 16 – 11 822
15 CHOLLAPAT I.  16 – 11 750
16 JOCELYN LOR (MAL) 16 – 11 429
17 APIRAT C. 16 – 11 390
18 GAN CHER SIONG (SING) 16 – 11 -244
19 ATIRUTH S. 15 – 12 1234
20 NAWAPADOL S. 15 – 12 1066
23 MICHAEL TANG (SING) 15 – 12 375
27 AMNUAY P. 15 – 12 -137
29 ROONGROJ H. 14.5 – 12 294
30 RICKY PURNOMO (INDO) 14 – 13 615
31 TAN JIN CHOR (mal) 14 – 13 592
35 ALASTAIR RICHARDS (AUS) 14 – 13 -12
36 MARLON PRUDENCIO (PHI) 14 – 13 -80
40 YEO KIEN HUNG (MAL) 13.5 – 13 251
41 AZMIL AB AZIZ (MAL) 13.5 – 13 -261
43 MARTIN DEMELLO (INDIA) 13 – 14 283
46 CHEW HAN EI (SING) 13 – 14 -19
51 K. DORAI RAJA (SING) 13 – 14 -645
55 KHEN MEERDING (AUS) 12 – 15 97

The very exciting final just ended with Nigel surmounting the 109 spread handicap. With the 109 counted in for Komol as his starting score, final score was 476-429 to Nigel.

Nigel managed to get APTNESS (81) down on his fourth move to draw almost level, 160-163, and we have an exciting fight on hand. Nigel immediately followed up with DERIDER (71). Komol kept up with BIRTH (42) and WHENS (40), Nigel had FEIJOA (43) with the rubbishy vowely rack. Komol played SOILIER (73) and Nigel played VANLOAD (24) through V and N, and the game was tied at 366 all and both blanks were still out, and the Z too.

Komol had REGUIDE with no place to play, played UREIDE (26) to hunt for the last blank or Z while restricting the board, but was disappointed to see Nigel’s sETWALL (80) still go down. That sealed the game, and it didn’t help that Nigel picked the Z too.

Nigel is the champion again, while Komol earns a WSC spot for his efforts.

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…