Recapping the first-ever Bellingham Fire Station Tournament

People hold Scrabble tournaments in all different kinds of venues. Over my playing years, I've played in shopping malls and church basements. I've been on a handful of college campuses, and more than a few directors' kitchens and living rooms. I've played in about 80,000 hotel ballrooms, give or take. But this weekend brought, as far as I can tell, a historic first in Scrabble history - a Scrabble tournament at a fire station. And it was pretty awesome.

The backstory here is that our newest director, Eric Fox, lives in Bellingham, WA, near the U.S. border with Canada, and he spent months and months looking for a venue in Bellingham where he could host an event and make his directorial debut. After many attempts to find the right restaurant or bar or park or what have you, he finally discovered that his local fire station was nice and spacious and had plenty of space to host a Scrabble event. So Eric and the fire department hammered out the details, and this Saturday, his first 1-day tournament was born.

We had a fairly modest group of players take part in a fairly modest event for the inaugural Bellingham Fire Station event - there were four of us in total, and we played a double-round robin of six rounds. Throw in a group outing to a taco truck in the middle and some board games at a dive bar in the evening, and you've got a pretty enjoyable day with the Scrabble crew.

Here's Eric's report on the day:

We had a great time playing Scrabble in the fire station and saw some of the trucks in action! With great company, a fun lunch outing, and post-tournament games, we surely had a day to remember!

As for the actual Scrabble results, Alec Sjöholm was the big winner on Saturday. Our double round robin proceeded with Alec mostly taking care of business in the early rounds, although he suffered one setback when Jennifer bested him in round 4. I meanwhile won all four against Jennifer and Eric, but took a beating from Alec in round 3. This set up a scenario where both of us were 4-1 going into the final game, paired against each other for first place, while Jennifer and Eric were also tied, thus squaring off for third.

In the end, the deciding games were pretty anticlimactic. Alec rained holy hellfire on me to take first place - his bingos of SOWSSED for 85 and SUNBEAMY for 80 on the first two moves of the game put in an immediate 120-point hole, and he didn't let up. Final score: Alec 590, me 324. In the other game, it was close for part of the way, but then Eric played MIAOU with the U in the triple lane at exactly the wrong time, and Jennifer slapped down QUESTING for 203 to effectively end the game. Final score there: Jennifer 554, Eric 348. So, final standings: Alec first, me second, Jennifer third, Eric fourth.

This was a fun Saturday of Scrabble! One of the most fun ones I've experienced in a while. Congratulations to Eric on making his directorial debut, and to Alec on totally dominating us. Here's to cool new tournaments at cool new venues. I hope to enjoy many more fire station tournaments in the future - and to see many more of you all at them next time. Until then...