NSA Clubs 42 & 651

Twin Cities Redeye 2006 Tournament

Redeye Redux

The first ever sanctioned Scrabble Marathon Tournament was held a week ago in downtown Minneapolis.  Sixty-eight Scrabble addicts traveled from near and far to test their stamina and wits in a 24 game two-day tournament.  This was the first time the NSA sanctioned a two day event with this many games packed into it.  Joe Edley patiently tried to explain to me via an email why he thought it was a bad idea.  He told me it was too risky for ratings, that I wouldn't get any expert players to sign up and that I should be prepared for a low turnout as the big Atlantic City tournament was being held the same weekend, as well as a few other larger, more established events.  I can't remember exactly what my reply was, but I think it went something like, And?

I told Edley I was really okay with a small turnout.  We were doing it for fun, it would be my directorial debut and a small, cozy gathering of 20 people or so would be fine with me.  I went into this tournament thinking that it would probably appeal to a handful of the hardcore addicts, with no plans for holding the tournament again in the future. 

Against Edley's advice, the Advisory Board approved the tournament and sixty-eight of you wicked addicts volunteered to give it a go, some of you traveling hundreds of miles to get to Minneapolis in the middle of January to do so.

Two days before the tournament a woman in Wisconsin left a message on my answering machine, "Hi.  I want to come play this weekend.  I'm a member, I want to come play in your club."  I listened to the message a couple of times.  She wants to come play in my club?  I immediately assumed she had somehow gotten my contact information for the tournament confused with club contact info.  I called her back, "Hi, yeah, you said you wanted to play in our club, but I'm actually the contact person for a tournament we're having this weekend, and the deadline has passed for registration.  I can give you contact info for our club though if that's what you're looking for." 

"Oh, no I want to play in the tournament."

"Oh, as I said, the deadline for registration was actually a couple of weeks ago,"

"You mean I can't play?."

"Well, there was a deadline, and this isn't a normal tournament.  Do you realize it's a marathon tournament where we'll be playing 24 games in 37 hours?"

"No."

"Oh, well, yes, it's a lot of games, 13 on Saturday and 11 on Sunday, and we have very short breaks and all the meals are catered and have been prepaid, and we start at 7AM, it's going to be sort of brutal."  And I waited for her to tell me she understood, that she would wait and sign up for our next normal tournament, but she didn't say anything.  "Sooooo, does that sound like something you would want to do?"

"Yes.  I want to play."

"Is your NSA membership current?"

"Yes."

"You have a rating?"

"Yes."

"This isn't a tournament for nonrated players."

"I'm rated."

"Did I mention the deadline thingee yet?  And meals have been prepaid, my divisions are set and we're even."

"You mean I can't play in your tournament because I'll make your divisions odd?"

"Well, no, that's not the issue, I ... "

"I called the hotel, they still have rooms."

"It's just that ..."

"I made a reservation."

And every fiber of my being wants to just say no to this woman, but deep down inside I am convinced that if I tell her no, some awful karmic payback will occur and one of my registered players will have car trouble or flight delays or food poisoning and not be able to make it and it would all be on my head. 

"Check-in is at 6AM, clocks will start at 7AM."

"Thank you." 

The Friday night before the tournament I picked up a few of the out-of-town players and fed them some dinner and arranged for rides to the hotel for them. Tobi Britsch turned to me and said, "I can't believe how relaxed and organized you are the night before this big tournament," and I believe my witty reply was something like, "Heh."  I didn't feel organized, or as organized as I wanted to be and my appearance of relaxation was no doubt confused for the semi-comatose state my body had sunk into after my synapses just couldn't reach any further, the few that were, in fact, still firing.

Ira Freehof's flight was delayed several hours because of fog, but I finally picked him up around 10:30 Friday night and by the time we got to the hotel and I unloaded everything and got settled into my room with Janice Kaye it was almost 2AM before we turned the lights out.  One could argue that Janice and I didn't have to sit there in our pajamas drinking wine and laughing for an hour before bed, but one would be wrong.  Those things, thankfully, are completely unavoidable in these situations.

Saturday morning was a blur.  I didn't feel like I had organized a tournament as much as I felt like this tournament was attempting to organize me.  Jeff Clark shuffled in right at 6AM in his pajama bottoms and slippers and started helping with the name tags and goody bags.  Blessed be the early risers.  People started flowing in.  I'm checking people in and trying to keep an eye on the time, handing out T-shirts to people who pre-ordered them, attempting to get the karaoke machine to work, which I have brought along to use as a mike in order to save us the $75 the hotel was going to charge for a mike set-up.  My kids have this machine running nonstop at home and now the one time I actually want it to make lots of sound it is completely dead.  Alex Fiszbein tries to get the mike to work and when he can't figure it out, throws in a Rolling Stones CD for good measure, so while people are setting up their boards and gathering their nametags and goody bags Mick is crooning out to the room, Pleased to meet you, hope you guess my name, which I kind of loved.

Steve Pellinen and Sue and Arthur Hoehn are busy getting the pairings posted and the computer set up for data entry.  And before I know it it's ten after 7 and I'm still missing about four players.  I walk to the middle of the room, since the mike isn't working and decide to just try and project my voice, "We have to start, please come in and sit down, we need to get started,. and I look down at my sign-in sheet for my missing players, "Does anybody know Mark Milan?," and Mark Milan raises his hand by the front door, "I do!"  The rest of the missing players trickle in during announcements.  I had prepared a little opening statement and I had notes on all the technical things I needed to cover, but I couldn't find my book or my notes, so I was just winging it.  I had a great setup for a closing line to my intro where I spoke of Gaspard and I conceiving of the Redeye during a muzzy game over at ISC and how I've had lots of chats with Joe in that fashion, how in fact I think once I told him I wanted to play Mandy Patinkin's role in Princess Bride some day, but he never actually thought I would go out and do anything about it the next day, and because I didn't have my notes, I get side-tracked with some of the announcements and never actually close my intro, but hey, it was 7:15 on Saturday morning and 68 Scrabble players were ready to begin a tournament with a very tight schedule on time, so it was all good, really.

And then we played, dear readers.  We played 13 games, on schedule all day Saturday and we played 11 games, on schedule, all day Sunday.  Sure there were a few quirky glitches to work through on occasion, for instance that hilarious time after the first game on Saturday morning when Greg Edwards walked up to me and said, "What's that smell?," and I paused for a moment and considered it and replied, "It smells like a small jet plane is warming its engines right next door to us, do you think that's a problem?.  It was actually a large tour bus idling its engines just outside the building, but we were in the basement and the fumes did get strong fast and during that second game a few festive headlines did cross my mind between tile shuffling and mind-boggling anagramming: 68 Scrabble Players Overcome by Carbon Monoxide Poisoning During MLK Tournament in Downtown Minneapolis, being one of them.  There was also the unfortunate circumstance of around thirty high school basketball players sharing the hotel with a lot of us Scrabble players, so really tall young guys were dribbling around the hotel with their shorter, energetic girlfriends, apparently unchaparoned, into the wee hours of the morning.  A few players complained about not getting much sleep because of all the noise.  I was apologetic, but as I listened couldn't help think to myself how glad I was that Janice and I were given a room in a separate part of the hotel.  Then after lunch I ran up to my room to grab something and one of the women who was complaining about the noise the night before is two doors over from me letting herself into her room.  Then I just thought to myself how glad I was that there weren't any five alarm fires Saturday night.

Judging from the results of the survey filled out by players after the tournament, fatigue was only an issue for a few people.  In fact for some players 24 games was not enough.  I would come back into the tournament room after a dinner or lunch break to get organized for the next phase and there was always at least two people playing a rec game between official rounds.  Rebecca Slivka organized an impromptu Late Bird on Sunday evening after dinner with ten people staying at the hotel, where they played 3 games from 11:30pm-1:30AM with a $5 entry fee.  There were far more players suggesting more games for future tournaments, not just marathon events, but regular tournaments, than players who thought 24 was too much.  In fact, 98% of the players who filled out the survey said they would attend the Redeye if it was held again, only if it was a rated tournament, however.  What does that tell us about this slice of NSA members, other than it's probably too late for most of us to get professional help?  Ratings do matter.  It's not quite as thrilling to play games when it doesn.t count, but more than a big, fancy rating, lots of us just love to hang out with each other and we love a wicked challenge and we just love to play.

I was losing quite a few of my games at the end of the tournament, and sure fatigue was playing a part in it, but I'm not a good enough player not to have losing streaks, so I sort of jokingly snort under my breath after making some stupid move, "Why do I play this game again?," and Ira Freehof is sitting next to me playing a game and stares at his rack and says in his New York lilt, "I know why you play this game,.  and I continue tracking , "Why?," and Ira shuffles his tiles, "Because it's one of the few sports you can play and drink beer at the same time, that's why."

Well, there is that.

Directing was fun, but I don't think I would have had as much fun if I wasn.t playing games as well.  I would have been bored.  I'd much rather be screwing up games than doodling on the back of an old standings sheet waiting for someone to call for a director.  In the survey (survey results) someone commented that a director winning a cash prize in a tournament they were running would leave a bad taste in their mouth.  I'm not sure why that is.  It's not like directors have any advantage playing in a tournament and running one at the same time.  After winning my first six games on Saturday morning, Ira kept joking that  "It bears investigating, if you ask me," but how on earth could I rig any edge during my games by adjudicating challenges or taking care of scut work while playing?  Now if I was a highly rated expert player who competed in many tournaments all year and then became the Executive Director of all Tournaments and Directors as well as the Player Representative for the association, that would certainly be offensive, if you ask me.

I'd like to thank all of the players who attended the Redeye for keeping that sense of adventure and fun in the air all 37 hours.  I'd like to again thank my club mates for all of their support over the weekend, and especially Sue and Arthur Hoehn for running all the data entry and Steve Pellinen for taking over the task of pairings for one chick who is hopelessly pairing impaired.

I had a great time, and it looks like our one-shot marathon tournament will be an annual event now, so I will see a lot of you, I hope, next year at the only "pajamas optional" event the NSA has to offer.  Until then,

My name is Inigo Montoya.  You killed my father.  Prepare to die.

steph.