The 2014 Asian English Olympics

One of the biggest English competition in Indonesia is back. On February 18th-22nd,2014, The 2014 Asian English Olympics, organized by Bina Nusantara English Club (BNEC), will challenge all students (High School and Varsity) across Asia to show their English skill. Taking the theme "Apex In Youth", The 2014 AEO serves 6 competitions, they are Debate, News Casting, Scrabble, Speech, Story Telling and Short Movie Making.

For Scrabble competition itself, here are the details :
System : Tournament (Australian Draw & King of the Hill)
Total rounds : 25 rounds
Final : best of 5
Word Authority : CSW12
Penalty : 5 points per word which actually allowable

Max caps : 70 Person(s)
Registration fee : IDR 375.000 (Varsity) and IDR 350.000 (High School)

Website : http://aeo.mybnec.org
Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/pages/AEO-Asian-English-Olympics/241282805910388
Twitter : https://twitter.com/the2014AEO

The Real Open Board

Asian English Olympic 2013

18-21 February 2013

Round 22 :Julius Wilson vs Christian O.B

This is the multiple records holder game in Indonesian tourney, most bingo played by both opponent (8) and highest combined score, which just 1 points short to 1100 points, also highest average score (688/11 resulting over 60 average points per turn)

At the last day for preliminary round (which consist of 25 games), with 21 rounds completed, Julius got 18 VP’s, and only got 3 losses, which was 2 VP ahead of Christian O.B and Fadlan Satria. The condition seemed perfect for Julius Wilson to extend his lead and make him guaranteed to play in final round with just 4 rounds to go. But then interesting thing happened…

Julius was confident with his opening play, EMAILED, with rack DELIME?, stated his blank as A, for 74 points, while O.B didn’t have a tile to counter it effectively with BIINQVY. Still, considered lucky to play NIQAB using Julius’s blank for 30 points

The next move, Julius seems had a vowel-heavy rack, dumped HOA for 16 points, fortunately O.B tile wasn’t improved yet and only reply with TIVY for 18 points, and made score 90-48 for Julius after 2^nd move. Then the real action begin, right after this

With the rack still full of vowels, Julius managed to spot the only bingo, DOUANIER, using D already in board for 61 points. But it left his R in triple-triple line for 167 points FRAGILER, gave O.B almost 100 points more than his best bingo before, FRAGILE/REMAILED for only 73 points. The next move, Julius keep getting more vowels than it should be, MOOVE for 24 points, while O.B got nice spot to load his K for 38 points.  175-253 after 4^th move

A rack full of vowels forced Julius to exchange, yet OB once again managed for bingo UNSCALED for 78 plus 5 points challenge penalty. Julius managed to keep himself one bingo behind by ENTRAIN/REMAILED for 71, but as soon as he thought he only need one bingo to level the score, he got smacked with STATICE/STIVY to to triple word for 91 points, score was 246-427 after 6^th move. It was very very unusual condition to be almost 200 points behind while you managed to score over 40 points average per turn. Plus, 6 bingoes are played after 6^th moves…

As the game continue, things are getting worse for Julius, his IF and MOZO for 28 and 30 was no match for SPAZ for 40, then JOGS for 56. With the gap expanded to well over 200 points, Julius secured the last blanks, but also got clunky medium-tile combination P and W. His move, PAW for 29, seems good move, made him reach 333 points and dumped 2 medium tiles for bingo next turn, tragically, for him, it made O.B breaking 600 points barrier with HALTERE for 81 (which was homeless if he didn’t play PAW). With just 4 tiles left in bag, Julius said… “OMG, this is the highest combined game”, then he played his 4^th bingo DATURINE for 64 points (he could do better if he was sure about MOOVED), made combined score reaching over 1000 points with 397-604…

The endgame may not be as great as other game, but the last 7 tile, which OB got, seems not great, yet it has secret ability to extend his winning spread. This was the board position when sack was empty

As you can see, OB was quite lucky that Julius cannot use his entire tile in one move; the BRUW was just not worked. The final task to OB was how to divide this “not so great” combination into 2 high scoring moves, and block Julius main spot. Such a lucky coincidence that DUNGY, or GUNDY in A1 answer all the question above, it was 41 points move, leave unstoppable OX that can be played for at least 30 points in various spots in board. After more than 3 minutes, Julius shook his head, and play BUR only for 14 points, and pressed his clock to made his final score 411, while OB finish the game with OX/TIX for 35 points, to make his score just 12 points below 700 after added with unplayed letter (W). Julius then ended the game by saying “This is the openest board I’ve ever seen”, and was quite happy eventhough he know he was losing almost 300 points. Julius still lead the standing with 3 rounds to go, and all of us laughed hard because it was a very rare situation when the leader got pulverized closed to 300 points, isn’t it?? This is the picture taken right after the game ended

Partial annotated about this game can be found here http://www.cross-tables.com/annotated.php?u=13686#0

Thanks for reading

Created by Christian Oktavius

A Postponed Bingo

Asian English Olympic 2013

18-21 February 2013

Round 4 between Fadlan Satria and Christian O.B

This game was in same competition with “the real open board”. The difference is this game was made in first day of the competition, and was a great example that sometimes, you need to think twice even you obviously got a bingo…

Fadlan started with low-scoring but high turnover tile move TAUNT for 12, and replied with YOUNG for 21 points. Nothing much special in 3 next moves, until O.B decided to “high turnover” move, LABOUR with tile LABOUR+I (no bingo available) for 23 points. At this point, the game just “started”, with score 77-91 for Fadlan after 4^th move

Fadlan made a phoney bingo ADEPTERS*, for 62, which escaped from challenge. He could play a legal bingo, scoring 105 points to triple ADEPTEST/ZOOS. No one know the true meaning of ADEPT, which only adjective. The high turnover leaving only I to getting good tile was unsuccessful from OB, instead of getting blank and other goodie, he ended up holding DEIIOOR, and only replied with OORIE for 18, which become crucial word later

Fadlan also got some dreck issue after several move ahead, KUTU for 18, blocked the bingo spotted by O.B DENARII, but quickly realized that he can also play bingo, even larger score, DEAIRING in triple for 83, and regain the lead with 193-222, but Fadlan has another bingo right after that, INSHORE for 77. OB tried to keep his score level to Fadlan by HEFT for 42 points, which replied by CABA for 33. Then the most interesting part begin.

Knowing that score 303-264 for Fadlan, or 39 points behind with 14 letters left in sack, and EGLNRSW, OB decided to gambling to maximize his bingo chance (knowing 2 blanks still unseen) by setting bingo spot which easily used with 7-letters word ended with S, AWL for 14, gave Fadlan chance to play his 3^rd bingo, LINTIES, for 70+5 points, and lead by exactly 100 points, leave only 5 tiles in the sack.

OB obviously got a bingo, with tile GONERS?, but with 100 points behind, an immediate counter with bingo will most likely not enough to make a turn-point, knowing he had to take all 5 remained tiles after bingo. With the remained tile, which tracked correctly ACDDEILOQRVW, he had to think some serious strategy to win the game.

And what happened next:

OB postponing his bingo, ERG/OORIER, for 10+5, leave ONES? enable double crossing TWL with ERGO, resulting close to 100 points bingo (still, this strategy require luck since there are still 1 O unseen, Fadlan could have got it, but cannot find any better strategy to get some serious fight back). Fadlan know exactly what happened here, and start to panic even 85 points ahead, knowing he didn’t have the right tile to block that spot effectively with ACDDLVQ. Fadlan still decided to block, even know it was ineffective and destroy his rack balance, DEAD for 9, which allowed OB to regain the lead with DOWNIEST for 101+5 (yup, over 100) points bingo. Fadlan decided to challenge since he know his QAID for 27 wasn’t enough to give him victory, as OB take the last letter in sack R for UR (4 pts) and got enormous 20 points additional by Fadlan unplayed tiles CLOVED. Final score 423-414.

Could Fadlan win the game?? Definitely. The key is “you don’t always have to block”. Fadlan let himself slacked by ineffective block with DEAD, leave DLCVQ, ignored his best move QAID for 27 points. Even QAID let O.B to higher bingo (SNOWIER) for 107, the combined score of his last 2 moves was able to keep him  10-20 points ahead (QAID for 27, then 20-ish move), that make about 50 points in 2 move, compared to 36 points he got with DEAD and QAID for try to block that deadly bingo spot, he also get a chance to use his C and V in his last move, minimize the additional points for OB, as the last letter he get, R only give him 4 points

The final picture:

Partially annotated about this game can be found here http://www.cross-tables.com/annotated.php?u=13681#0

Thanks for reading

Created by Christian Oktavius