Nasferatu

For the final RauHaus event at our comfy Connecticut digs, we decided to go big: $100 entry fee. Seven games. Three entire cows grilled up bulgogi-style.

It was an exciting finish, as five players (in a field of ten) entered the last round at 4-2. In the end, we crowned a new champ:

1. goldfishbw  5-2, +390
2. ftangredi  5-2, +241
3. key_lime_guy  4-3, +324
4. cheezchick  4-3, +283
5. wisemonkey  4-3, +236
6. Augustine Adda (who needs to get a dang LJ already)  4-3, +16
7. picopaco  4-3, -159
8. olaugh  2.5-4.5, -248
9. satireblank  2.5-4.5, -252
10. sr_orangepants  0-7, -831

Other prizes included most bingos (18) by Alyssa, most stylish bingo (GANGBANG) by Cecilia, and high game (597) by yours truly. Portions of the entry fee fund were spent on an array of housewarming gifts (including matching Monkey and Doggie baskets) for John and CeLe.

The final game at table #1 pitted me against Brad for all the marbles. It was a close game all the way which turned a bit ugly at the end, as my last rack of LMNQRWZ couldn't get the job done against his admittedly-not-all-that-much-prettier AEIIIRU. Congrats to Brad, who walked away with the biggest first prize ($400) in the history of the RauHaus events.

Thanks to all who've helped make these events so much fun. We're going to try to put our next one together this summer after we're all settled into our new digs in Baltimore.

This past Saturday saw the continuation of the illustrious, prodigious, and never lugubrious RauHaus series. By popular demand, we expanded the tourney to the heretofore unheard-of total of seven games. Ten wordsmiths gathered from far-off lands such as Michigan, California, and Pluto to vie for a prize pool totaling somewhere between one hundred and six billion dollars.

After a slight delay owing to wicked traffic on the MassPike, round one got started around 1:15. Wackiness immediately ensued, as bottom seeds samantics, kangarau, and hector31 knocked off top seeds bbstenniz, key_lime_guy, and lordiceman, respectively. kangarau, in fact, got off to a blazing start, winning her first four games (her complaints of "not feeling sharp" notwithstanding) and threatening a runaway.

Things went smoothly until round 6, when it was determined that there was no practical way to do Swiss pairings without repeats. A desperate phone call to John Chew yielded the helpful advice that we should go to hell and stop bothering him during the Degrassi Junior High marathon. Failing to see how this related to tournament pairings, we opted to finish things off with two KotH rounds.

When all the dust had cleared, things looked like this:

1. key_lime_guy, 5-2, +379
2. Augustine Adda, 5-2, +62
3. spherulitic, 4-3, +384
4. kangarau, 4-3, -12
5. goldfishbw, 4-3, -33
6. cheezchick, 3-4, +98
7. lordiceman, 3-4, -108
8. hector31, 3-4, -426
9. bbstenniz, 2-5, -31
10. samantics, 2-5, -313

In other prize categories, Pookie took the gold for most stylish bingo, with HAVARTI; Lipe laid down the most bingos, with 16, and also had the highest individual game, with a 531; Conrad played the highest "TKR" word, with TRINKETS for 90ish; and yours truly had the highest per-game average, with 420.4 (edging out Alyssa by the narrow margin of exactly one point per game!).

Afterwards, as always, we were all treated to an amazing repast of various species of grilled meat prepared by the able hands of Pooie. Potables (and other substances of varying degrees of legality) were consumed enthusiastically, tiles were tossed, brains were fried, and even a few rogue games of Clabbers broke out before everyone (save those responsible few who had to work the next day) collapsed into heaps from the brand of sheer exhaustion only seen after such unfettered bacchanalia. Cool!