Recapping the second Portland Pub Scrabble event
We're now two months into the calendar year (including that elusive leap day!), and March is upon us. And as 2024 keeps rolling along, so, too does the Portland Pub Scrabble tournament calendar. This past weekend, the PDX pub series returned with installment #2, held on Saturday afternoon.
This time around, the host site was Migration Brewing, on Williams Avenue in North Portland. It's a solid brewery, in a beautiful and super-walkable neighborhood, with a wide range of beers on tap and tasty pub fare - so it should come as no surprise that everyone involved had a rousing good time at this weekend's 1-day.
Let's recap a few highlights, shall we?
The race for the tournament win was a pretty epic one. Dave Wiegand and Gunther Jacobi were neck and neck the whole way, and going into the sixth and final round, they were both 4-1. They went head to head at the end, a winner-take-all situation... and ultimately, Dave won by a single point! It was an incredible 490-489 victory for Dr. Bing, who wins his first Portland Pub event of the year.
Props are also due to Kolton Koehler, who beat Dave in round 5 and then won big in his round 6 game, propelling him to 4-2, second place ahead of Gunther on spread. Gunther takes third.
A special shout-out also goes to Kaleb Lybecker, who joined the group for his very first tournament! Kaleb is far from a total newbie - he's an experienced online player who definitely knows what he's doing over the board. He walks away with a 1078 starting rating after one tourney.
Congrats to the whole Portland crew on another successful 1-day Scrabble event. For now, Dave and Conrad Bassett-Bouchard are your Portland Pub Scrabble yearly leaders - each player has 2 tournament points, by virtue of each having a tournament win under his belt. But it's still only March, and we've got a whole lot more 2024 still to come.
The next installment of Portland Pub Scrabble is just 6 weeks away, and let's make it a double - there will be two 1-day tournaments in April, one on Saturday the 13th followed by another on Sunday the 14th. That's sure to be an action-packed weekend. For now, though, feast your eyes on the results of this one.