Go to: Commentary Games Live Stream Players Teams tsh Reports Scoreboard Standings Photos Prizes

Back to SCT 2014 Live Coverage

SCT 2014 Commentary: Round 16

[ ]

Go to: Before the Tournament, Round 1, Round 2, Round 3, Round 4, Round 5, Round 6, Round 7, Round 8, Round 9, Round 10, Round 11, Round 12, Round 13, Round 14, Round 15, Round 16, Round 17, Round 18, Round 19, Round 20, Round 21, Round 22, Round 23, Round 24.

Round 16 Auto-Commentary

David Eldar (AUS) remains in the lead for the 3rd consecutive round, 14-2 +934, on a 11-game winning streak. Dave Wiegand (USA) is 1 game behind at 13-3 +1155, remaining steady at #2 for 3 rounds. Brett Smitheram (Eng) is 2 games behind the leader at 12-4 +1089, #3 rising from #6. Theresa Brousson (MLT) is +763, on a 3-game winning streak, #4 improving from #8. Chris May (AUS) is +670, #5 down from #3. Craig Beevers (Eng) is +549, #6 slipping from #4.

High Win: Alastair Richards (AUS) 605-360 vs. Jesse Day (USA). Low Win: Vannitha Balasingam (MYS) 362-341 vs. Austin Shin (Eng). High Loss: Simon Gillam (Sco) 453-461 vs. Elie Dangoor (Eng). Low Loss: Sumbul Siddiqui (Eng) 238-486 vs. Cicely Bruce (NZL).

At the end of 16 of 24 rounds, and 2 of 3 days of play in the preliminary phase of the Scrabble Champions Tournament at the 2014 MindSports International World Championships, David Eldar (AUS) has a one-game lead over the field. Eldar made it to the top after a 6-2 +146 start yesterday left him in 20th place by defeating some of the best players in the room to go 8-0 +788 today, the only player to go undefeated.

What's going through everyone's minds though is that this event is not about who finishes in first place tomorrow, but who makes the eight-player cutoff to Saturday's quarterfinals. That's still a wide-open race, with current computer simulations giving typical players on 9-7 with good spread a 5% chance of qualifying, 10-6 a 10-20% chance, 11-5 a 20-30% chance, and 12-6 a 40-80% chance. It would take a miracle for Eldar or second-place Dave Wiegand (USA) to miss qualifying, and even 29th place defending champion Nigel Richards (NZL) on 9-7 +862 has a 30% chance to make it if he plays according to his rated expectation.

There's a 90% chance that 16-8 with low spread can reach 8th place; and less than a 5% chance that 15-9 with very high spread can make it. There's a better than 5% chance that 15.5-8.5 can make it - good news for Rik Kennedy (NIr) on 10.5-5.5.

The high game of the event so far was Vannitha Balasingam's (MYS) 654-253 win over David Delicata (MLT) in Round 13; it was one of 10 games played so far where the winner scored over 600 points.

In the team standings, the singleton teams from Thailand and Sri Lanka, consisting of Gerald Carter (THA) and Suresh Thevakumar Samuel Chinnaiyah (LKA) respectively, lead the field with 10-6 records. Team Canada is in third place, with an average team record of 9.6-6.4, followed in the top ten by the Philippines, Malta, Bahrain, New Zealand, Northern Ireland, Pakistan and Ghana. The largest teams from the United States and host country England, are in the middle of the 32-country field, in 14th and 16th place respectively.

The MSI team produced streaming video of all eight games at Board 1 today; and with Natasha Pratesi's able assistance, I was able to post five Board 2 or 3 games in playable form. My favourite play, spotted while transcribing one of those five games, was a four-letter front-extension of WOLF to a TWS.

Play resumes tomorrow at 9:00 UTC for the last eight games in this event, and at 10:30 for the last six games of the Norwegian event. There will be a brief prize ceremony at the end of the day, and then we prepare for the weekend's busy schedule of events, including the quarterfinals, semifinals, finals, open and youth events.