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WSC 2011 Commentary: Round 17

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Go to: Before the Tournament, Round 1, Round 2, Round 3, Round 4, Round 5, Round 6, Round 7, Round 8, Round 9, Round 10, Round 11, Round 12, Round 13, Round 14, Round 15, Round 16, Round 17, Round 18, Round 19, Round 20, Round 21, Round 22, Round 23, Round 24, Round 25, Round 26, Round 27, Round 28, Round 29, Round 30, Round 31, Round 32, Round 33, Round 34.

Good morning, everyone. Players were mostly on time arriving this morning, with only four latecomers' clocks being started, none for more than five minutes. We have two days (18 games) left in the main event, before the best-of-five finals on Sunday morning; and at this point, the field is dominated by Commonwealth countries. In the top ten, we have three players each from England, two from New Zealand, three from Australia, and one from Canada, with one lone American among them.

I went out for dinner last night with 11 members of the U.S. team and a few of their guests, and marvelled as they drank their way through several five-litre "beer tubes", wondering how they would play this morning. I shouldn't have worried - apart from when they were paired with each other, all but one of them won this round.

The English are in the lead in the average player ranking standings (used to adjust national allocations for the next WSC in 2013), with a mean rank of 23.3.

At Board 1, Mikki Nicholson (Eng) unseats Brett Smitheram (Eng) from first place, sending him down to third. At Board 2, Nigel Richards (Wru) defeats Howard Warner (NZL) 509-292 and climbs from fourth to second. The composition of the top ten does not change, but the top four are now all on 13-4, three at 12-5 and the rest 11-6. Words challenged: EIKONS DRAFTIER TROILED PIET SETWALL TANIST INTARSIA RELENTS BIDIS MUTING LOOLIES BAGHI BRASHING. Three phonies, three other words not acceptable in North America.