Joe Gaspard vs. Steve Pellinen, 5/24/2005, Club Game
Joe Gaspard's Record-Setting Performance
At the May 24, 2005 Minneapolis club session, Joe Gaspard scored 627 points in
ten plays against Steve Pellinen to set a new NSA record. His 62.7
points-per-turn broke the single-game record that was held by another club 42
player, Jim Kramer. Kramer still holds the tournament record, which was
set in a March 2000 Waltham, Massachusetts tournament.
The Gaspard-Pellinen game was an exciting one (see board diagram at right and
turn-by-turn results below). Incredibly, Pellinen trailed by only nine
points after his tenth and final play of ORZO for 36 points. His play
emptied the bag and Gaspard bingoed out with the 185-point triple-triple
ENJOINeR. After adding fourteen points from Pellinen's rack, Gaspard won
the game 627-419. The combined score of 1046 is a club 42 record.
The following paragraph appeared in Issue 197 (2005) of
SCRABBLE®
News (it is reproduced
here exactly as it appears in the magazine, with all of its considerable
typographical, grammatical, and syntactical warts):
Joe Gaspard (MN) scored 627 pt. in a recent club game in May, in 10 plays!
That's a new per turn record of 62.7pt per turn, beating Jim Kramer's record
of 61.2pt. per play, which he earned at a Boston Area tournament a few years
ago. However, each retains its own record, since the NSA has kept track
of tournament records more assiduously than club records. However, we
believe that Gaspard now owns this new record for club play.
TURN PELLINEN PTS TOT GASPARD PTS TOT
1 NOWAY 30 30 EMACiATE 72 72
2 MAW 28 58 DREK 31 103
3 VALUED 34 92 SPAWN 24 127
4 QUA 38 130 UNITIES 65 192
5 FAG 32 162 GRIEF 18 210
6 SEABEDS 94 256 LIGATURE 60 270
7 YO 29 285 EVICTION 84 354
8 NOTATED 75 360 PILI 22 376
9 BIRTH 23 383 OX 52 428
10 ORZO 36 419 ENJOINeR 185 613
(HILU +14) 627
