An Unbelievable Ending!

Last night I played an incredible ending in a fabulous game of Scrabble with an online opponent, Dina. She was leading me all the way from the start and it became worse when I made 3 tile changes during the course of the game because of ugly tiles on my rack. We finally arrived at this position when I need at least 57 points to overtake her (diagram):


I shuffled my rack and found ENIGMAS, but there was no obvious place to put the bingo away. Coupled with damning computer freezing making it hard to validate words for possible hook, I was only focused on putting something on the Triple Letter square at the bottom right of the board. I tried many other words because ENIGMASER is not a valid word, but nothing was successful. Placing something other than a bingo would hand her the move and possibly the game. Suddenly, after restarting the Firefox thrice, I found a hook at the bottom left of the board, placing A to BUTS with ABUTS being a valid word. I slammed ENIGMAS for 81 points to win the game.



Here is the whole game for your pleasure:

Dina (D) vs Yours Truly (Y)

D: DIVE 16pts
Y: TI, WAIT, ID 16pts

D: AYE, WE 23pts
Y: YE, WEY 22pts

D: YES, QUIDS 33pts
Y: YOK, OYES 26pts

D: DIVER, RUG 14pts
Y: ZING 34pts

D: IF, ZO, ROOF 30pts
Y: exchange 3 tiles

D: SPIN, ZINGS 25pts
Y: SPINE, DEALING 77pts

D: HUED, SPINED, DE 36pts
Y: MAGS 24pts

D: WARM 18pts
Y: AH, JA 30pts

D: AVE, EQUIDS 27pts
Y: exchange 2 tiles

D: FAVE, FED 21pts
Y: ED, RERAN, NOYES, RE 17pts

D: REP, BAP 19pts
Y: TA, AW, ER, PRATE 23pts

D: ZOO, RE, OX, EXO 45pts
Y: exchange 3 tiles

D: TIC, TRUG 12pts
Y: ODE, LAH, LOON 18pts

D: BUTS, TICS 18pts
Y: REN, OXO, LINO 21pts

D: DIVERT, CHIT 27pts
Y: ABUTS, ENIGMAS 81pts

adjustment 7

From Gua Musang to Tumpat

Today I went to my would-be new school SMK Chabang Empat, Tumpat. It is a big school housing more than 2000 pupils with two sessions of schooling; morning session starts at 7.30 a.m. and evening session starts at 1.00 p.m. I reported myself to the headmistress, Mrs Nik Hasnah, who expressed her gratitude of receiving an English teacher. She hoped that the new environment will not deter me from working with integrity and sincerity.

Tambun (Again!)

This time I brought my in-laws to the water park. Initially, I was anxious of the ever-changing wheather, and was wildly wondering whether the weather is where the weather should be. Leaving the Tanah Merah house at 5 a.m., we travelled through Gerik and arrived to find the sunny weather at Tambun at noon. We checked in Sun Inns at 5 p.m. after playing our hearts out at the park and head for Cameron Highlands the next day. It was an enjoyable experience, hopefully to be repeated in the near future.

Time for pics: