From David Postal:
Inspired by the winter season quintuple NASPA events held over the last few years in Wilmington, Delaware during the holiday break, twenty-three players participated in six individual one day tournaments over December 25 – 30 in Palm Springs California. Although the weather was borderline meh, we still managed to get a fair number of games played outdoors as hoped. “A” Division was won respectively by Joel Elkins, David Pearl, John Karris, David Pearl and David Weiss on Days 1-5 with Laurie Cohen taking top honors in a combined division A&B on Day 6. Gary Moss strung together three strong victories in Division B on December 25,26,27 while Bennett Jacobstein fended off a six-way divisional tie to pickup Division B honors on Day 4. It was back to Garys on Day 5, this time with Gary Smart dropping an undefeated tournament on Division B.
Other oddities included a 3-blank game (the tiles were removed from circulation after the game as they were an odd font with flat wood on both sides and one blank was an actual letter) and John Karris pulling the unexpected feat of coming in 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th over the six days. Debbie Bloom made her Scrabble tournament debut and launched a 104 point play of MAIDENS in game 1 enroute to a first game victory. She proved to be a formidable opponent throughout the events. Welcome Debbie
There were other games to play at night including estimate wist, Clabbers, Set and Scattegories. We also received a tutorial in mah jongg and Wally turned us to a card game he invented called “Doppleganger” which was pretty entertaining. Overall it felt closer to normal and a wonderful respite from the isolation. And a great way to close out the year. Happy 2022, hopefully there will be more opportunities to host events around Southern California in the future.
1st Place Div A: Joel Elkins 4-2 +414
1st Place Div B: Gary Moss 4-2 + 255
December 26
1st Place Div A: David Pearl 5-1 +427
1st Place Div B: Gary Moss 4-2 +145
December 27
1st Place Div A: John Karris 6-0 +570
1st Place Div B: Gary Moss 5-1 +50
1st Place Div A: David Pearl 5-1 + 457
1st Place Div B: Bennett Jacobstein 4-2 +214
1st Place Div A: David Weiss 5-1 +327
1st Place Div B: Gary Smart 6-0 +546
December 30
1st Place: Laurie Cohen 6-0 +515