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Lexington Scrabble® Club 2000-2001 Season

This reports on the season which ran from September, 2000 through August, 2001.

The Lexington, Massachusetts Scrabble Club #108 has been running continuously since it was started by Edie Berman and Muriel Sands in January, 1980. We meet nearly every Thursday night of the year in a comfy basement meeting room of the First Parish Church, which is situated on Lexington Green behind the Lexington Minuteman Statue. Judy Horn has been directing this club for about 18 years. Ellen Miller serves as associate director. Mike Wolfberg joined the club within its first month of existence, and he took on the role of club statistician within the first year. The club has operated with its own rating system, designed primarily by Alan Frank, since early 1981. Ratings are based on the percentage of points each of the players scores in each game. The club web site includes a detailed description of this system.

In this season, individuals played 4108 games, and so there were 2054 games in all. The average score in all of these games was 375. These number were 3182, 1591, and 374 for the previous season.

Of the 4108 individual games, 3796 were played by an "active player". We define an active player as someone who played at least 20 games in the season. The average score of the active players was 376 for the season. These numbers were 2918 and 376 for the previous season.

These are the top 16 active players in decreasing club average rating:

  Joey Mallick      - averaged 438, and won  33 of  48 games
  Rod MacNeil       - averaged 417, and won  66 of  96 games
  Richard Buck      - averaged 410, and won 107 of 155 games
  Mike Wolfberg     - averaged 412, and won 127 of 190 games
  Joel Horn         - averaged 400, and won 143 of 222 games
  Steven Saul       - averaged 398, and won 147 of 211 games
  Dean Cullen       - averaged 412, and won 105 of 162 games
  Scott Appel       - averaged 404, and won  28 of  41 games
  Arnie Horowitz
  John Van Pelt     - averaged 402
  Ben Loiterstein
  Chris Guilbert
  Bruce Adams
  Elaine Patterson
  Mark Fidler
  Judy Horn         - won 131 of 249 games, totalled 96,381 points


2000-2001 Season Average Ratings of Those who Played at Least 20 Games
----------------------------------------------------------------------
  = 1766.55    Joey Mallick          - 1665.14    Gerri Martin
  + 1744.40    Rod MacNeil             1653.78    Scott Pianowski
  + 1739.57    Richard Buck            1649.21    Gina Fassio
  - 1737.35    Mike Wolfberg         + 1615.52    Marshall Finn
  - 1734.14    Joel Horn             + 1614.85    Pat Hennessy
  - 1731.66    Steven Saul             1610.09    Thomas Stumpf
    1726.15    Dean Cullen             1597.12    Diana Spiller
    1723.79    Scott Appel           - 1590.12    Hilda Siegel
  + 1715.51    Arnie Horowitz        - 1584.04    Sherrie Saint John
  + 1710.92    John Van Pelt           1583.98    Barbara Revkin 
  = 1710.71    Ben Loiterstein         1550.10    JoAnne Rapchuck
    1710.42    Chris Guilbert        + 1545.31    Leland Fidler
  - 1709.08    Bruce Adams             1517.98    Ron Mignery
  - 1704.82    Elaine Patterson        1451.24    Jonathan Ellis
  - 1701.94    Mark Fidler             1441.76    Brenda Romanos
  - 1682.86    Judy Horn               1432.06    Skott Klebe
  - 1672.87    Ellen Miller            1399.97    Myron Feld
  - 1670.91    Gregg Foster

The =,+,- compare 4-digit club ratings with the previous season.

In this past season, the highest game score was 686 by Mark Fidler. Other over-600 games were: 638 by John Van Pelt, 631 by Rod MacNeil, 636 by Gerri Martin, 611 and 601 by Richard Buck. The club record is 709 by Mike Wolfberg on 4-Nov-82.

The highest losing score for the season was Judy Horn's 460 on 2-Nov-00; the winner of that game was Elaine Patterson, with a 477. Other losses over 450: Judy Horn's 456 to Mike Wolfberg's 484, Richard Buck's 454 to Mike Wolfberg's 465, and Joel Horn's 451 to Joey Mallick's 458. The club record is 480 by Merrill Kaitz, losing to Mike Wolfberg's 493 on 12-Jan-89.

The highest total points in a game for this season was 985: On 5-Apr-01, Dean Cullen defeated Richard Buck 536-449. The club record is 1062, when Steve Root defeated Jere Mead 677-385.

On 4-Jan-01, Arnie Horowitz made a non-bingo which scored quite high. One column to the right of the center column, OY was in row 12 and M was in row 13. Arnie played JEEZ vertically, ending on the middle square of the bottom row. The score was 109, and his words were so appropriate! We are uncertain if this is a club record, but that is likely.

On 7-Jun-01, there were 8 games in which the winner exceeded 500: Arnie Horowitz (596), Joey Mallick (590, 532, and 521), John Van Pelt (545), Joel Horn (514), Judy Horn (506), Ron Mignery (505). The record for our club is 9 such games set on 19-Feb-98 by 7 of the 20 players in attendance: Jere Mead (560), Rod MacNeil (559), Mark Fidler (536 and 501), Judy Horn (532), John Van Pelt (530 and 506), Joel Horn (525), and Merrill Kaitz (504). It is interesting to note the loser in 4 of these games was one of these 7 high scorers.

On 12-Jul-01 the club's attendance record was set with 27 players, and this did not include any visiting out-of-towners.