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Lexington Scrabble® Club 1999-2000 Season

This reports on the season which ran from September, 1999 through August, 2000.

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, which is situated on Lexington Green behind the Lexington Minuteman Statue. Judy Horn has been directing this club for about 17 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.

In this season, individuals played 3182 games, and so there were 1591 games in all. The average score in all of these games was 374.

Of the 3182 individual games, 2918 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 376 for the season.

These are the top 16 active players in decreasing club average rating:

  Jere Mead         - averaged 417, and won  18 of  24 games
  Joey Mallick      - averaged 414, and won  32 of  43 games
  Steven Saul       - averaged 395, and won 139 of 210 games
  Joel Horn         - averaged 398, and won 129 of 184 games
  Richard Buck      - averaged 404, and won 103 of 159 games
  Mike Wolfberg     - averaged 402, and won 100 of 167 games
  Mark Fidler
  Dave Mallick
  Judy Horn         - won 155 of 266 games, totalled 103,438 points
  Bruce Adams
  Rod MacNeil
  Ben Loiterstein
  Elaine Patterson
  Arnie Horowitz
  John Van Pelt
  Gerri Martin 

1999-2000 Season Average Ratings of Those who Played at Least 20 Games
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    1802.30    Jere Mead               1703.56    John Van Pelt      
    1767.14    Joey Mallick            1681.98    Gerri Martin       
    1742.04    Steven Saul             1680.32    Ellen Miller       
    1741.20    Joel Horn               1675.37    Gregg Foster       
    1739.93    Richard Buck            1620.75    Joel Kershner      
    1738.30    Mike Wolfberg           1616.67    Nora Tolins        
    1722.93    Mark Fidler             1607.01    Hilda Siegel       
    1719.69    Dave Mallick            1594.70    Sherrie Saint John 
    1716.56    Judy Horn               1593.90    Pat Hennessy       
    1716.22    Bruce Adams             1593.87    Marshall Finn      
    1714.05    Rod MacNeil             1504.21    Liz Ashby          
    1711.42    Ben Loiterstein         1472.96    Mike Rosen         
    1711.06    Elaine Patterson        1461.96    Leland Fidler      
    1707.32    Arnie Horowitz          1426.32    Julius Perl

In this past season, the highest game score was 668 by Mike Wolfberg. Other over-600 games were: 665 by Mike Wolfberg, 622 by Joey Mallick, 619 by Rod MacNeil, 618 by John Van Pelt, 604 by Judy Horn, and 601 by Richard Buck. The club record is 709 by Mike Wolfberg on 4-Nov-82.

The highest losing score for the season was Bruce D'Ambrosio's 449 on 10-Aug-00; the winner of that game was Mike Wolfberg, with a 458. Bruce was a visitor from Los Angeles on the same day as the NSC2000 finished in nearby Providence, RI. The club record is 480 by Merrill Kaitz, losing to Mike Wolfberg's 493 on 12-Jan-89.

The highest tied score for the season was a 416 by Joey and Dave Mallick. The club record is a 462 by Merrill Kaitz and Richard Buck during the 1998-1999 season.

Our club was represented by 25 players and 2 workers at the NSC2000. These are the top finishers in their divisions: Jere Mead was 6th in Divison 1, John Van Pelt was 2nd in Division 2, Dean Cullen was 2nd in Division 3, Scott Pianowski was 33rd in Division 4, Scott McDougall was 18th in Division 5, and 12-year-old Leland Fidler was 28th in Division 6.

Leland Fidler was also on the 2nd place 2-player team in the 2000 Massachusetts School Scrabble tourney for 5th and 6th graders.