up to Mike Wolfberg's Personal Scrabble® Achievements

Mike Wolfberg's 737-Point Game

June 21, 2007 - Lexington, MA Scrabble® Club #108

Mike scored 508 in his first moves, having bingoed with a double-double, a triple-triple, and two others. Later in the game, he unfortunately missed playing another triple-triple with two opportunities. He also accepted a word which he knew was a phony. The excessive room noise affected his focus at that point in the game, and he was getting low on time. Despite that, getting over 700 is a rare achievement, but it is disappointing to realize the score could have been over 800. The first missed triple-triple was PECTORAl at 1A which would have scored 149; instead he bingoed for 83 a turn later. Mike did find POsTRACE, which also would have worked and decided against it. PORTAnCE also fits. But even on his next turn, when he bingoed with OREIDEs, he could have played the triple-triple LOITEREd.

Mike's opponent in this game was Jamie Ryan, who was ranked second in the strong Lexington Club at the time. Jamie began the game with 3 trades of all his letters due to horrible racks. Later, he opened and kept the board open in an attempt to recover and catch up. This enabled Mike to take advantage of his better racks and add to his already-high score. The total score for this game was 1077, the second-highest total achieved at the Lexington Club in its 27-year existence.

This is the third time Mike exceeded 700 points in a game. His previous record was a 709-point game at the Lexington Club on 4-Nov-92. In that game, two of Mike's four bingos were non-challenged phonies. Mike played a 701-point game on 8-Jul-90 in which he played no phonies, but he let his opponent play one. The same is true of this game.

You can see a photo of the board here courtesy of Jamie Ryan.


   a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o
   -----------------------------
 1|=     T A L C U M     '   W O|
 2|  -   A   "       P     J O Y|
 3|  D U I     '   ' A   L O O  |
 4|'     G       '   C H E W   '|
 5|      A D           O X      |
 6|  "     E "       " A     "  |
 7|    '   N   '   '   R   '    |
 8|N     ' O   Q A D I S '     B|
 9|E   '   T I '   '   E   '   I|
10|R   G   I F       " N     " K|
11|V   R   V   B O N E S E T   I|
12|i R A T E L Y '       F I R N|
13|E   Z       '   '       -   G|
14|S T I P U L E S   H A E M -  |
15|T     '       O R E I D E s =|
   -----------------------------
   a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o


Jamie Ryan              Mike Wolfberg
----------------------  -----------------------
trade 7         0    0  QADI        8g  28   28
trade 7         0    0  HOARSEN     k4  85  113
trade 7         0    0  LEX         L3  39  152
JOW        m2  39   39  BONESET    11g  90  242
iRATELY   12a  75  114  DENOTIVE    e5  98  340
IF         f9  28  142  FIRN       12L  28  368
WOO        n1  33  175  NERVIEST    a8 140  508
TAIGA      d1  17  192  OY          o1  43  551
trade 5         0  192  BIKING      o8  39  590
STIPULES  14a  74  266  PAC         j2  25  615
GRAZI     c10  30  296  OREIDEs    15h  83  698
TALCUM     1d  30  326  HAEM       14j  39  737
DUI        3b   8  334
(ANU)           6  340

 FINAL SCORE       340                      737

Notice the high total score of 1077 points.
back to the top of this page This page, maintained by Mike Wolfberg, was last updated on December 14, 2012.