Weekend Tiebraker

The Wife and I played five Scrabble games this weekend. The tiebreaker went like this, with seven-letter words earning the bonus highlighted:

Her Him
swivel 38 carouse 22
starting 68 airfield 63
hoaxed 27 we, weaning 79
dirtiest 66 affect 28
phobia 54 at, anomaly 77
equine 37 razes, affects 43
rev 18 globules 78
jump, ja, my 31 sky 20
drop 21 gluon 7
mint 6 E, I, O -3

End score: The Wife 379, Transplanted Lawyer 414

Normally, you’d think 379 points would be enough to win even a two-person game. But I got extraordinarily lucky and got not one but four long words and that really helps out. And fortunately for me, only once did I open up the triple word score to The Wife in a way that she could really capitalize on it (phobia) and I kept on getting good opportunities. In fact, if you look at the running count, you’ll see that the lead went back and forth between us the entire game, until “globules.”

I still think The Wife is better at this than me. Even when I jump out to an early lead, she finds a way to sneak up on me and even in a game like this, she didn’t lose by all that much in relative terms. But sometimes you’d rather be lucky than good.

Burt Likko

Pseudonymous Portlander. Homebrewer. Atheist. Recovering litigator. Recovering Republican. Recovering Catholic. Recovering divorcé. Recovering Former Editor-in-Chief of Ordinary Times. House Likko's Words: Scite Verum. Colite Iusticia. Vivere Con Gaudium.