From: Sherrie Saint John <saint@MIT.EDU>
Date: Sun, 6 Jul 1997 21:28:56 -0400
Subject: Albany FULL RESULTS
Message-id: <v03007801afe5a9b3ac98@[205.181.94.83]>
Who needed fireworks? A wonderful time was had by all at the annual Albany tournament. Some color afterwards if my fingers can handle it.
1st Tournament Entry Jessie Mercer
Winner of the "How Many Challenge Slips Will We Gather By The Tourney's End" Award David Abolafia (he guessed 479 and 471 were counted)
Winner of the Most Outrageous Guess Vicki Kahn (she guessed 12,000)
Awards were given to the 6 WORLDS contenders:
Boys, Sherman, Logan, Tiekert, Graham, Wapnick (they won blue fanny packs)
Novice Joan Brown 571 pts Inters Don Drumm 525 Expert Randy Greenspan 612 Adam Logan 627 (they both won for having SUCH high scores)
N Joan Brown 95pts HURLING I Dave Lieberfarb 131 RELATERS (SQUINTED/128 close second G. Foster) E Linda Espalardo 131 NEARLIER
Alright Already, enough small prize detail! Here are the results:
1. Kurt Kopitz 9-3 +654 $200 2. Alan Raczka 9-3 +482 $150 3. Ben Loiterstein 8-4 +894 $100 4. Joan Brown 8-4 +664 $50The rest was what was posted (and I'm not sure who had larger spreads), but some last game results were not in, so there are some gaps.
Frani Newman 8-4 William Pizer 8-4 Jane Clark 7-5 Emma Lewarkeno 7-5 Marion Pizer 7-5 Muriel Reedy 7-5 Neva Slater 7-5 Samuel Agboh 6-6 Les Hipenbecker 6-6 Margaret Olson 6-6 Wendell Smith 6-6 Roberta Wechter 6-6 Janet Benoit 5-7 Sandy Loiterstein 5-7 Joan Perico 5-7 Karen Zakriski 5-7 Glenn Andrews 4-8 Jessie Mercer 4-8 Julia Rambo 4-8 Lori Zanotelli 4-8 Phyllis Singer 0-8 Ben Henkewick Final game results not available Jacquita Ladson " Ellen Massey " Roger Steward " Irene Zeleniuk "
1. Joan Kelly 10-2 +735 $260 2. Paul Winke 9-3 +323 $160 3. Dave Lieberfarb 8-4 +499 $100 4. Vivian Minden 8-4 +227 $50 Not sure about spreads on all these: Lois Cappellano 8-4 +122 Lynne Mitchnick 8-4 +159 Joanne Cohen 7-5 -105 John Venditti 7-5 Fern Lindzon 7-5 +191 Betty Burton 6-6 Don Drumm 6-6 Fred Gottlieb 6-6 Sherrie Saint John 6-6 Jerry Mory 5.5-6.5 Jessica Mercantante 5.5-6.5 Peggy Whitten 5-7 Ruth Nabi 5-7 Greg McCormick 5-7 Laurie Cohen 5-7 Gregg Foster 4-8 Don Hallenback 4-8 Lois Kahan 4-8 Lisa Thomas 4-8 Hilda Siegel 1-11
1. Adam Logan 9-3 +944 $400 2. Joel Sherman 9-3 +688 $225 3. David Boys 9-3 +513 $125 4. Ron Tiekert 8-4 +606 $50 (last year's Expert winner) 5. Ed Halper 8-4 +404 6. Jack Eichenbaum 8-4 +209 7. Randy Greenspan 7-5 +707 8. David Abolafia 7-5 +330 (under 1850 award winner) 9. Richard Buck 7-5 +283 10. Carol Halper 7-5 +133 No particular order: Matt Graham 7-5 Avi Moss 7-5 Rich Baker 6-6 Bernard Gottlieb 6-6 Matt Laufer 6-6 Steve Oliger 6-6 Fran Silver 6-6 Joel Wapnick 6-6 Joe Weinike 6-6 Judy Steward 5-7 Susi Tiekert 5-7 Jill Pfeiffer 5-7 Vicki Kahn 5-7 Judy Horn 5-7 (these two actually share Joel Horn 5-7 hot fudge sundaes!) Heather Drumm 5-7 Linda Espallardo 4-8 Charlie Merlis 4-8 Charlene White 4-8 Andrew Golding 3-9 Max Garfinkle 3-9 Shirley Fliesser 3-9Please forgive me for mispelling (ha ha) and any omissions. I did this by hand.
Um, some tidbits:
As the expert winners were announced, Annette gave them "extra" gifts with their envelopes--swanky aluminum travel mugs and the like--and when David Boys got his turn, he took the HUGE electric blanket! It was fun seeing him with his little white envelope and that huge blanket. I guess he needs it for those chilly winter nights up in Canada Land.
The battle for first in the expert division was fierce with many players (at least the top 4 and I think even the top 6)) at 8-3 going into the last game. Adam ended up with a win over Ron after bingoing twice early in their game. His giganto spread was helped mightily with a Friday night victory in game 3 with a 404 point spread!!!! Some win!
The tournament was most ably run by Annette Tedesco (and her younger sister Joan), Steve Pfeiffer, John Morse, and Dave Goodman.
I'm sure GIJoe will add some colorful commentary once he's able. He left the tourney site in a flurry to catch a plane to Reno where he was to meet his Dad and bro. He looked at Albany as a "warm up"!
Several different newspaper reporters and photographers showed up over the weekend and one even carried a photo (of Joel Sherman and another's back...) and an article today. I'll let Andrew Golding post the line that ruined the "credibility factor" in paragraph two.... Another photographer got Adam and David to quickly throw together a game for a photo op. They proceeded to finish a SOWPODS quickie in under 10 minutes total (complete with an informal lookup challenge or two!).
Joel Sherman entertained the masses of women by playing show tunes on the foyer piano Saturday night--it was really wonderful to see and hear. People were heard exclaiming, "Not only can he play wonderfully but he has a marvelous voice to boot!" and "with all that kvetching, you'd never know he could sing like an angel!"
Joel Wapnick will lay low for the next few months in Worlds preparation--it was great that he made the trip down for this event. If anyone is reading down this far and knows how I could get a copy of his book (I wasn't in Scrabble when it came out), let me know!
I hope more people send in anecdotes. I sure had a lot of fun!
Sherrie
saint@mit.edu