It's been awhile....

I salvaged a sixth place finish at this year's US Scrabble Open. Landsberg (Mr. 770) told me that he and I were the only two players among the top 28 finishers who failed to break 500 in any game for the tournament. I did get routed a few times, though. It was a strange event, to say the least. I had a negative point spread for most of the tournament. After round 15, I was 8-7, minus 578. I was able to finish in the plus, in double figures. It's hard to say what happened this event. I didn't record the racks, so I can't say whether or not I was playing well this event. I felt like I was, but that doesn't necessarily mean I was. It's easy to be fooled into thinking that. Staying in the right frame of mind and not losing sight of the objective can be hard when getting routed in the losses and falling further and further behind the leaders. It's easy to want to phone it in. I'm known for big second half rallies, but I attribute this in part to having had to make the money for the plane fare back home when I was a starving college student.

I haven't been doing much in the market. I felt a little snakebitten after May and June, and I did pay more attention to studying for the tournament through July. The market seems to be shaping up a bit better now. Recent buys are Motorola and Nokia.

It looks like I will be working again soon. I'll provide more details when it happens.

As for the fantasy baseball, I'm in second in both leagues. In the 6x6 head to head, there's no explanation. My team is very erratic, and it's getting a lot of breaks from the vagaries of the head to head format. There is no feeling of domination. If it was roto, I would have been done long ago. The loss of Sheffield has been hard to overcome. My team is:

V-Mart
Delgado
Roberts
Hanley Ramirez
Rolen
Carlos Lee
Ibanez
Little Sarge
Adrian Gonzalez

Peavy
Contreras
Sheets
Josh Johnson
Felix Hernandez
Jeff Francis
Mariano
BJ Ryan
Otsuka
Putz
Saito

The hitting needs some changes, I think. The bullpen has been more than solid, and the starting has been inconsistent. Trying to trade a front line closer for a front line starter is easier said than done. Last week the starters had a great week, but they sucked this week. My opponent sends five starters to the mound tomorrow. If they do well, and my offense collapses tomorrow, the rout is on.

As for the 5x5 roto weekly lineup league, I'm about 10-11 points out. My team has been dead last or near last in batting average. There are 11 teams. It is in 7th place in runs scored. So I needed runs and batting average. I made some big trades at the deadline. One thing right now is that there is no starting pitching to be found on the waiver wire. Because of that, I have been able to trade some of my second tier starters for great hitters. I got the ball rolling by trading Halladay (though he's first tier, obviously) for Jeter. I got a gift in Tejada for John Maine, also. Maine has been holding up his end of the bargain, though. I also unloaded Jeremy Sowers for Carl Crawford. Crawford was a great fit for my team. I've never been big on Crawford because he doesn't draw walks and he plays for a terrible team, but I needed average in a big way. Don't get me wrong, I know this was a good trade for me. The team I traded with didn't have room for Crawford. The trade happened right before the deadline.

This team is:

McCann
Giambi
Roberts
Jeter
Nomar
Vlad
Berkman
Crawford
Tejada

Carpenter
Peavy
Chris Young
Jerred Weaver
K-Rod
Francisco Cordero
Pat Neshek (a Twin setup guy with a ridiculous K ratio and other great numbers)
Liriano is on the DL. I hope he makes it back and pitches well.

I should be able to gain in runs and average down the home stretch. Whether I erase the 11 point deficit remains to be seen.