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Lexington Scrabble® Club 2005-2006 Season

This reports on the season which ran from September, 2005 through August, 2006.

The Lexington, Massachusetts Scrabble® Club #108 has been running continuously since it was started by Edie Berman and Muriel Sands in January, 1980. We meet nearly every Thursday night of the year in a comfy basement meeting room of the First Parish Church, situated on Lexington Green behind the Lexington Minuteman Statue. Judy Horn has been directing this club for about 23 years. Ellen Miller serves as associate director. Mike Wolfberg joined the club within its first month of existence, and he took on the role of club statistician within the first year. The club has operated with its own rating system, designed primarily by Alan Frank, since early 1981. Ratings are based on the percentage of points each of the players scores in each game. The club web site includes a detailed description of this system.

This is a report of the highlights of this club's Sep-05 through Aug-06 season. In this season, individuals played 6058 games, and so there were 3029 games in all. The average score in all of these games was 380. These numbers were 6720, 3360, and 375 for the previous season. It is likely the new words in the OWL2 contributed to the higher average.

Of the 6058 individual games, 5602 were played by an "active player". We define an active player as someone who played at least 20 games in the season. The average score of the active players was 380 for the season. These numbers were 6321 and 374 for the previous season.

Average attendance thoughout the season was 26, and with 52 sessions. These statistics indicate that each player plays on the average of 4 1/2 games per session. We realize this is higher than in many other clubs, and so some of this club's achievements in one season should be understood in this context.

155 different players have attended the club in the past 2 years. During the 2005-2006 season there were 52 active players, namely those who played at least 20 games, and here are the top 21, ordered by decreasing club average rating:

 Jere Mead            - averaged 431, won 34 of 42 games
 Merrill Kaitz        -          408      19    27
 Aaron Bader          -          416      28    40
 Richard Buck         -          421     153   215
 Mike Wolfberg        -          414     190   284, scoring 117,677 points
 John Van Pelt        -          420      18    27
 Steven Saul          -          401     123   206
 Rich Reiben          -          389      10    20
 Mark Fidler          -          388     115   189
 Joel Horn            -          410     140   205
 Jamie Ryan           -          411     188   279, scoring 114,731 points
 Arnie Horowitz       -          387      37    71
 Jesse Day            -          434      45    57
 Carl Durdan          -          401     104   153
 Elaine Patterson     -          387      58    95
 Bruce Adams          -          394     113   182
 Kate Fukawa-Connelly -          388      45    76
 Ben Harrison         -          400     120   192
 Ben Greenwood        -          396      23    41
 Jake Bergmann        -          399      72   102
 Judy Horn            -          398     142   252, scoring 100,328 points

Also of note:

 Trx. Kt. played 349 games and scored 117,590 points.

 These high-rated players attended our club more than once, but failed to
 play the  minimum of twenty games to qualify to be considered as active:
 Jason Katz-Brown, Cecilia Le, Rod MacNeil, Joey Mallick, Marsh Richards.


Season Average Ratings of the Top 50 Players who Played at Least 20 Games
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

    1802.89    Jere Mead                1664.70    Tim Wilkinson
    1771.75    Merrill Kaitz            1654.19    Chris Kulig
    1758.03    Aaron Bader              1644.31    Myron Feld
    1738.28    Richard Buck             1644.18    Ellen Miller
    1729.90    Mike Wolfberg            1639.47    Larry Katz
    1728.23    John Van Pelt            1635.97    Diana Spiller
    1723.09    Steven Saul              1622.43    Marshall Finn
    1718.26    Rich Reiben              1615.15    Chris Sinacola
    1717.20    Mark Fidler              1606.22    Linda Giovinazzo
    1715.72    Joel Horn                1604.35    Brad Whitmarsh
    1714.75    Jamie Ryan               1603.39    John Cheras
    1712.02    Arnie Horowitz           1601.06    Stephen Graham
    1711.71    Jesse Day                1599.96    Jackie Prince
    1708.44    Carl Durdan              1589.86    Emmanuel Aronie
    1706.89    Elaine Patterson         1586.52    Michael Cresta
    1703.87    Bruce Adams              1582.07    Tim Lutts
    1698.87    Kate Fukawa-Connelly     1575.12    Trx. Kt.
    1698.14    Ben Harrison             1574.22    Marek Janota-Bzowski
    1695.08    Ben Greenwood            1571.53    Danny Moraff
    1694.31    Jake Bergmann            1562.81    Judy Cole
    1681.41    Judy Horn                1550.44    Betsey Wood
    1675.88    Joev Dubach              1549.92    Hilda Siegel
    1669.92    Bob Becker               1538.31    Catherine Day
    1668.72    Seth Lipkin              1532.92    Wayne Yorra
    1665.64    Barbara Revkin           1493.36    Claudia Cassel

There are many notable achievements this season:

Club Web Site

The club's web site continues to be at http://wolfberg.net/scrabble/lexington, and it is also reachable using the shorter http://LSC.wolfberg.net. You can also click on the "Clubs" box at http://ScrabbleClub.com to get there.

NSA ratings

We usually have about 4-8 players in the top 100 rated tournament players in North America, based on the National Scrabble® Association (NSA) ratings. Our club roster lists NSA ratings of active players; these are updated a few times each year.

ISC Players

Several of our club members are active at the web-based Internet Scrabble® Club. Our club roster includes ISC handles for many of these folks.

Challenges and Postmortems

The club has continued to use the WHAT program on one or two laptop computers available to all players at the club. Players tend to handle their own challenges using the program, and they often check on racks, etc. after a game is completed to see what was possible. Since WHAT can provide definitions, this is an efficient method of doing postmortems.

Transition to OWL2

The club began a 4-week transition period starting on 16-Feb-06 to begin to use the OWL2 lexicon in club play. During those four weeks, players were permitted to look at the list of words of length 2 through 8 which were added and deleted by the update. As usual, the WHAT program was used to handle challenges, but it was set in "Lexicon Transition Challenge" mode in which there was no penalty for challenging a play where all the words were added or deleted ones.

High Games

The highest game score in a club session during this season was 628 by Jamie Ryan. The runner-up position was tied by Richard Buck and Judy Horn, who scored 602. These were the only games in the 600's during this season. The club record for high game is 709.

Most Games

Trx. Kt. played the most games during the season, with 349 games. Last season she played 406 games, which broke the record for the most games in a season.

Most Wins

With 190 wins, Mike Wolfberg had the most wins, and the runner-up was Jamie Ryan with 188 wins. Jamie broke the club record for the most wins with 222 wins in the previous season, when Mike was the runner-up with 207 wins.

Most Points

With a total of 117,677 points, Mike Wolfberg scored the most points in this season, and Trx. Kt. was an exceedingly close runner-up with 117,590 points. Jamie Ryan set the club record in the previous season With a total of 138,892 points.

Highest Percentage Above Average

Wayne Yorra had the highest percentage above average when he scored 533 points in a game on 9-Feb-06. His percentage above average was 63.7%. The runner-up position was shared by Jamie Ryan (scoring 628) and Judy Horn (scoring 602) with 52.6%. We have tracked this statistic only since the 1997-1998 season, and the club record is 80.6%.

Many Bingos by One Player

Chris Guilbert attended the club only once in this season and played a 6-bingo game with these: FLUIDITy, ARGUFiES, ODONATE, EBONIZES, HEAUMES, and ANKERITE. He tied the club record set by Adam Logan about 10 years earlier. Joel Horn played two 5-bingo games during the season.

High Losing Score

The highest loss during this season was Jamie Ryan's 473 (to Jake Bergmann's 496). This was the sixth highest losing score in this club's history. The runner-up high loss was also by Jamie when he lost to Trx. Kt. 461-452. The highest losing score for the club was 500, set in the previous season.

High Tie

The highest tie of the season was 411-411 by Linda Giovinazzo and Marek Janota-Bzowski. The club record is 462-462.

Consecutive Weeks with Ties

This is not a statistic noticed in previous years, but there was an unusual streak of ties in this club such that there was at least one tied game in 7 consectutive weeks. In two of those weeks, there were 2 ties. In the week the streak ended there was a game where the scores differed by one point. There were 3 other ties during the season, making a total of 12 ties. There were only 7 ties in the entire previous season of the club.

High Bingo

Judy Horn scored 275 points for nONEQuAL. The club record is 293 points, and this is the second-highest high score for a bingo played in this club. The runner-up high bingo play for the season was also by Judy; she played sTICKMAN for 185 points.

High Non-bingo

Jack Niles made a 98-point non-bingo of QADI. The club record is 109. Runner-up plays during the season were for 90 points by Mike Wolfberg and Joel Horn.

High Overlap

Trx. Kt. made a 6-letter overlap on her first play. Jamie Ryan opened the game with HOWBEiT, and Trx. replied with a 6-letter overlap parallel play of the recently turned-acceptable REALTOr beginning under the O. We believe the club record is a 7-letter overlap set in 1980, but we do not recall the specific words.

Low Win

Trx. Kt. defeated Wayne Yorra 180-170, which is the lowest win we recall in this club. The game was terminated early when there were six consecutive plays scoring zero.

Many Wins Above 500

On 29-Jun-06, with 33 players in attendance, there were 12 games in which the winner exceeded 500: Mike Wolfberg (573, 516, 516), John Cheras (548), Elaine Patterson (540), Jesse Day (523), Joel Horn (520), Richard Buck (517, 512), Jamie Ryan (508), Bruce Adams (505), Seth Lipkin(501). This was the third time in the club's history when there were 12 games in which the winner scored at least 500.

Many Losses in the 400's

On 2-Mar-05, 8 games were played in which the loser (or tied player) exceeded 400: Wayne Yorra 425 (to Mike Wolfberg's 454), Bob Becker 412 (to Ben Harrison's 527, Judy Horn 410 (to Jack Niles's 433), Arnie Horowitz 409 (to Jake Bergmann's 413), Larry Katz 404 (to Michael Cresta's 417), Carl Durdan 401 (to Ben Harrison's 427), Marek Janota-Bzowski 404 (to Jamie Ryan's 404), Joel Horn 400 (to Tim Wilkinson's 451). The club record was broken by this accomplishment.

Long Words

There was one instance of a word of more than 9 letters seen on a board during this season. This was when Jesse Day hooked INULASE onto Brad Whitmarsh's 9-letter OVeRSHIRT (made through HI). We do not recall any other words played during this season of length longer than 9. If this did happen, we did not make a note of it. The club record for the longest played word is 11 letters, and this happened 6 times over the years.

High Session Attendance

The highest attendance during this season was 37 players. The average attendance was 26, down 2 from the previous season. The club's record attendance is 44 set two seasons ago.

This Club at USSO 2006

About twenty of our regular club players attended the U.S. Scrabble® Open Championship tournament in Phoenix, AZ in August, 2006.

Further details for many of the club records mentioned above can be found on this club's statistics page.


back to the top of this page This page, maintained by Mike Wolfberg, was last updated on December 14, 2012.