San Mateo Scrabble tournament

Sunday was another travel day, with a 6-game Scrabble tournament squeezed into the middle of it.

I walked to San Jose Diridon station from my hotel, which took 25 minutes, so I probably ought to have taken the light rail bus replacement service - yes, it wasn't running this weekend between San Antonio and the railway station due to the engineering works.

It's fairly pretty, as I walked past the HQs of some large IT companies such as Adobe, there are some off-street walkways and parks with fountains.

From here, I took the Caltrain to Hillsdale.  It was 8 minutes late leaving, but that was OK, as I'd left 25 minutes to get to the venue at the other end.  Worryingly, we sat at San Antonio station for 25 minutes, because they were using only one track that morning for maintenance reasons and we had to wait for the southbound train to come through first.  Luckily, the tournament had been shifted half an hour back to midday, so I still managed to get there in time.

I met several people I've met before, including the organiser Ed de Guzman, Mary Aline Stevens (who I've played at Broadstairs), Paula Catanese (who I've played at Berkeley), David Whitley (who I played at the Pacific Coast Open earlier in the year) and Christopher Stjern who plays NWL rather than Collins, but I met at Berkeley, but he's friendly too and give me a big welcome.

I managed to lose my first two games to the two lowest ranked players, won one, lost the next two, including this fabulous game against David Whitley which he won by 13 points 475-462.  The game started with 5 bonuses and a 72 point non-bonus, so it looked destined for a large score from the outset.  My bonuses were ANTIVAX and DEMOTING, and my 72 point play was DOZY.   In the final game, I played Paula again, but this time I won to finish with a 2-4 record.


After tidying up and preparing to leave, I left straight away, as I had 15 minutes to catch my train to San Francisco, and I'd have had a 90 minutes wait for the next one.  Usually, I get off at Millbrae and take BART into San Francisco, but this time, I wanted an easy journey to the hotel, so I carried out to the terminal and caught a bus there that stopped directly outside my hotel.  It was getting late, so I booked dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe, which is only 5 minutes walk away.
Location: 60 31st Ave, San Mateo, CA 94403, USA

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