Recapping a random 1-day at Random Row in Charlottesville, VA

This weekend's tournament in Charlottesville, VA came together pretty randomly. Jennifer and I found ourselves deciding at the last-ish minute to attend a friend's wedding in Northern Virginia, and we realized at the last-ish minute that it wasn't too late to round up a few Scrabblers and throw together a 1-day Scrabble event on Sunday. So we did just that.

And when you're holding a random Scrabble tournament, there's no better venue than Random Row - the local Charlottesville brewpub that did a fantastic job hosting an event of ours at this time a year ago. On a whim, we asked if we could rinse and repeat last year's autumn C'ville event, and luckily they happily accepted. Quickly, a tournament came together.

For a random, last-minute tournament, things turned out pretty nicely. We got a total of 7 people, and the venue was ours for 7 hours, which means we had just enough time to squeeze in a full round robin. Everyone faced everyone once (including the hapless loser Bye, who ended up finishing 0-7, -350). It was a beautiful autumn day in central Virginia, and everything went according to plan.

And oh, speaking of randomness - sometimes, random chance smiles upon you and you draw extremely, extremely well throughout a day of Scrabble. Such was the case for me on Sunday, as I happened to catch a torrential downpour of blanks and power tiles and racks like AENORST and EIINOST and so forth, en route to winning the tournament. It might take years before I see another day of draws that fortunate.

Despite my luckbaggery, we had a close race for the title throughout the day. After three rounds, Matthew Bernardina and I were tied with matching 3-0 records; we then went head to head in round 4. We had a tight, back-and-forth game, and Matt was able to outscore me in the endgame and eke out a 20-point win, putting him in sole possession of first. Matt then took a couple of setbacks, though, falling from 4-0 to 4-2; meanwhile, I won the fifth and sixth games, including an insane 1-point squeaker over Jean-Louis Guill.

Ultimately Matt came through and locked up second place - he earned a hard-fought win over Sam Rosin, 452-407, in the final round to improve to 5-2. Zachary Dang scored a big win against Jean-Louis to move to 5-2 himself, but he still ended up a few spread points behind Matt in third. Congrats to Matt, Zach, and Sam on taking the 2-3-4 spots in the standings; shoutouts are also due to Barry Keith, who won the class prize with a 4-3 record, and to Jean-Louis, a relatively new player who fought a number of really close battles against a tough field. (He had me sweating until the very end of our game, that's for sure.)

For a random 1-day tournament that we just threw together, we're really pleased with how this one turned out! Thank you to everyone who turned out and played with us in Charlottesville - and, once again, thanks to our hosts at Random Row for making this tournament possible. We couldn't be happier with the spacious playing room, the delicious pizza and beer, and the friendly staff. I already can't wait until we come back again next time.

In the meantime - the busy CoCo times continue! Jennifer and I will be back home in Seattle and directing another two 1-day tournaments this coming weekend; then, soon after, we'll be seeing a whole lot of you in Minneapolis in early November for the North American Collins Championship (NACC). Not only that, but the California Open awaits in December. The Scrabble action, be it completely random or meticulously planned, keeps on coming.

Hope to see you - yes, you - at a tournament soon.