Articles about Words With Friends
Rhett Miller of the Old 97s Dedicates Words With Friends Tournament Performance to His Grandma
(This is the first of four mini-profiles of the semifinalists of the D Magazine Words With Friends Tournament. Rhett Miller will face Trennis Jones in one of our two semifinals on June 9. Read to the jump to see this member of our Finally Four answer the same questions as our 10 Most Beautiful Women in Dallas nominees.)
Rhett Miller
39, Musician
Lives in: Upstate New York, with frequent trips home to Dallas
The question remains open: Is Rhett Miller just an all-round more impressive human being than you are? He’s already been a rock star for years, garnering a legion of adoring fans. Add to that the simple fact that he’s advanced all the way to the semifinals of the D Magazine Words With Friends Tournament, and he’s already achieved more in his time on this planet than a good percentage of the population ever will.
Finally, There Are Only Four in the D Magazine Words With Friends Tournament
We started on Tuesday with 64 players. Sixty-four players, united by a dream: to dominate the competition and to be declared the Best Words With Friends Player in Dallas. Today only four remain in the D Magazine tournament:
- Rhett Miller, age 39, musician
- Trennis Jones, age 28, sports agent
- Rich Goff, age 42, promotions manager
- Chris Cree, age 55, local businessman and Scrabble bigshot
More to come next week before Wednesday evening’s semifinals and finals. It’s important to note again that the matches that remain will be played in a one-minute-per-turn format. The championship is there for the taking, for any of these competitors.
Congratulations to each of them for their performances so far. And thanks to all 64 of our players. We have some lovely parting gifts for you.
Sports Agent Trennis Jones Ruins Lauren Lapeyre’s Day at the Beach to Advance to Words With Friends Tournament Semifinals
Don’t feel too bad for Lauren Lapeyre of the Ritz-Carlton. She was already down on the coast for some early weekend fun as she ran up against sports agent Trennis Jones in the D Magazine Words With Friends Tournament and suffered a 460 to 311 defeat. Here’s Trennis’ account of the match:
Lauren and I went back and forth with 40-50 point words for the 1st 6 plays or so…she had some great plays with “Pugh”, “Mowed”, and “Bulls”….I countered with “Zincs”, “Dobies”, and “Amirs”. Though I was lucky enough to win and advance, I was very jealous of her; as I was playing her from work and she was on the beach in South Padre.
Trennis has made our Finally Four and will compete in the semifinal showdown on Wednesday. Congratulations to him.
See the board after the jump.
Scrabble Champ Chris Cree ‘Bags’ His Way into D Magazine Words With Friends Semifinals
In a not-at-all-surprising result, Chris Cree — local businessman and master Scrabble player — punched his golden ticket to the Finally Four of the D Magazine Words With Friends Tournament today with a 463 to 328 win over the exuberant Luis Ellis. Tuxedo-clad Jesus apparently wasn’t on Luis’ side today. Here’s Cree’s breakdown of the action:
Luis made very nice plays with PEON and BOLETI and is obviously another very good player. The match turned on WITCH and Luis not having the case S and then me getting both the X and Z and then a third bingo (TEARABLE). This could best be described as a “bagging”. I got both blanks and had reasonable balance toward the end when the bag was vowel heavy.
Our first semifinal, to be played live as a speed match on the evening of June 9, is set. Chris Cree will face off against Rich Goff.
Jump for the Cree-Ellis final board.
WFAA’s Rich Goff Knocks Off D Magazine’s Zac Crain in the Words With Friends Tournament
OK, call off the D Magazine Words With Friends Tournament. We tried to fix this thing so that only our close friends and celebrities had a chance of winning. But here comes some “average joe” — Rich Goff, a promotions manager for television station WFAA — and he goes and spoils our fun. Goff beat D Magazine senior editor Zac Crain by a score of 395 to 383 to be the first to claim a spot in our Finally Four. I mean what’s the point of us carrying on, right?
Anyway, here’s what Goff has to say for himself:
This was a VERY tough game–one where you play your last tiles hoping your opponent has enough left on his rack to put you over the top. Zac played a great game–lead by more than 100 points early on. As anyone can tell you, though–luck plays a big role in this, and while Lady Luck wasn’t smiling on me in the beginning, she wasn’t smiling on Zac down the stretch. It seems I had nothing but vowels through the first third of the game, and he had nothing but consonants in the end. So yes, I give LUCK a lot of credit for this win, as it could’ve gone either way.
In all seriousness, congratulations to Rich, who will play in our live Words With Friends showdown the evening of June 9. You’ll hear more about that next week. Goff will want to spend between now and Wednesday practicing his speed game. Our semifinals and finals will be played in a one-minute-per-turn format.
Zac, what excuses can you offer us?
Luis Ellis Eliminates The Ticket’s Dan McDowell in D Magazine Words With Friends
Luis Ellis certainly seems to have enjoyed his 449 to 339 over Dan McDowell of the Ticket:
It was a historical matchup between current Ticket employee Dan McDowell vs ex-Ticket employee Luis Ellis. In the end, it was proven that Luis indeed likes to party more than Dan. Luis jumped out of the “Box” with a 55 pointer which was a lead that Dan couldn’t overcome. Dan made a bold move by utilizing his Ticket venacular when he played the word “poop” but he still couldn’t overcome Luis’ domination of the TWS.
Dan has ultimate bragging rights, though, since he gets to go back to his gig at America’s favorite radio station while Luis gets to go get slapped around by scrabble champ Chris Cree and return to slavery in corporate America.
We have our Elect Eight.
Frisco’s Dark Magic Does in American Way Editor in D Magazine Words With Friends Tournament
First the Ticket’s Gordon Keith was done in by the Collin County-based witchcraft of Frisco Mayor Pro Tem Jeff Cheney. Now it’s magazine editor Jessica Jones who’s fallen from our Words With Friends tournament. By a score of 364 to 347, Cheney advanced to the Elect Eight to face off tomorrow against Rhett Miller (who, by the way, is playing (music, not WWF) at the Belmont Hotel tonight.)
Here’s what Jessica says about the loss:
What a heartbreaker (well, for me). We were neck and neck pretty much the entire game. It was a *very* tough board, forcing us to take turns playing two letters at a time for the majority of the second half. And technical difficulties — app crashing, slow load times — only made the back and forth that much more tense. But Jeff had an incredible knack for making one letter here and there count big. No triple-digit plays this game, just a steady pace of 20 and 30 pointers. This time, I can’t blame the power letters; I got almost all of them. But I CAN blame the letter gods for being extremely stingy with the vowels. WTF, WWF?
I kid. Great game Jeff.
Tim Rogers Gets Reprieve From the Words With Friends Gods, Still Loses in D Magazine Tournament
And so Zac Crain knows he’ll be facing Rich Goff, a promotions manager for WFAA, in a fight tomorrow for a spot in our Finally Four. That’s because Goff beat Tim Rogers — more than once, apparently. The final score was 403 to 298. Here’s Tim’s account of what happened:
To be honest, Rich beat me twice. A quarter of the way through our game, the Newtoy servers had a hiccup, and we lost our game. Gone. When it vanished, Rich was killing me. So we started another game. You know what happened there. I drew all the big letters yet couldn’t score with them — partly because I’m not that good, but mostly because I think Rich was playing (and bingoing) in a way that was designed to thwart big scores with the Z, Q, and J. The game was never close. Zac is going to have his hands full tomorrow.
Now read what Rich has to say about what transpired. Do you detect the same note of skepticism that I do about that server “hiccup”?
After our first game mysteriously disappeared, (something about a NewToy server update), we re-started at around 1:15 in the afternoon. I was fortunate enough to get some good letters and score a bingo off the top…Tim has warned me that Zac will be a formidable opponent tomorrow, and I believe him. To quote a great movie:
1) We gotta play ‘em one day at a time.
2) I’m just happy to be here. Hope I can help the ballclub.
3) I just want to give it my best shot, and the good Lord willing, things will work out.
As far as I know, Rich: no, Tim didn’t signal his good buddies Paul and David Bettner to turn off the juice when things weren’t going his way. As far as I know.
Rhett Miller of the Old 97s Advances, Believes He Was Playing Mad Men Star at Words With Friends
Musician Rhett Miller has joined the Elect Eight in the D Magazine Words With Friends Tournament. Though a presumed misspelling on Rhett’s official report to the tournament director suggests that he may have played actress Christina Hendricks, we’re prettty sure that he actually took on his assigned opponent for Round 3, Cristen Hixson of UT-Dallas.
In any event, he came out ahead, 426 to 335, after a six-hour match. Here’s what he had to say:
PerkieGirl commanded the game forever. I finally got some luck in the last five or so plays. Back to back 47’s. I was able to seal the victory with a 76 point bingo, feasters.
Jump for the board.
Zac ‘Cheap Bingo’ Crain Scoots Past TWU Grad Student in Words With Friends Tournament
D Magazine’s own Zac Crain advanced to Round 4 of our tournament with a hard-fought 385 to 368 win over Sandra Silva, an MBA student at Texas Woman’s University. From Zac:
It was back and forth pretty much all the way. Never could get ahead by much, especially since I got the cheapest bingo in the history of cheap bingos (PRICERS, for something like 45 points). I thought I was sunk when Sandra played TRIVIAL for 42 with only a couple of tiles left. But I was able to overcome that on my last two turns, winning on my very last play. She was tough. I’d say I did it for Evan Grant, but he’s a no-good turncoat.
Board-jump.
Sports Agent Knocks Out Opera Singer in Round 3 of D Magazine Words With Friends Tournament
Trennis Jones put a stop to the Jolie Stratton Express, beating the opera-singing theology student by a score of 460 to 367. Game notes from Trennis:
Jolie was a phenomenal player/competitor, and I was definitely lucky with some of the letters I got at crucial points in the game
This sets up an Elect Eight matchup tomorrow between Trennis and Lauren Lapeyre with a trip to the Finally Four on the line. See the Jones-Stratton board after the jump.
Ben of Ben and Skin Loses in Third Round of D Magazine Words With Friends Tournament
Lauren Lapeyre of the Ritz-Carlton became the second player in our tournament to punch a ticket to the Elect Eight, with a 374 to 343 win over Ben Rogers of ESPN Radio’s Ben and Skin Show:
When Ben saw Lauren’s double double-word play with ‘marge’, he exclaimed “Brilliant… I did not even consider that… My eye was on the tripple words…” He also called the game an “Old school shoot out!! Big scores every time!!”
If you want the board, follow me.
Scrabble Champ Chris Cree Survives Scare Against David Higbee in D Magazine Words With Friends
Chris Cree was going to be traveling today, so he and David Higbee worked in their Round 3 match last night. It’s clear that Krista’s husband has got game. Cree calls Higbee “quite the boardsman” after claiming a narrow 397 to 380 victory. He considers himself lucky that he didn’t have to encounter the environmental consultant in the semifinals of our contest — which will be played as a one-minute-per-turn speed match.
Here’s Cree’s account of the fun:
David Higbee is another superb player; quite the boardsman. This was an extremely tense and exciting game that came down to the last draws. The Q, which I exchanged early on, was the key factor in late game decisions and, ultimately, the game. I decided that I needed to pass up a cheap bingo (58 points) late, instead, playing ETH for 32, knocking out a QI dump spot and keeping IRS? to have the best chance to win. David made a beautiful blocking setup for the Q, which I suppose he must have drawn on the previous 3 in 9 scenario, by playing CON, taking out two bingo alleys while at the same time setting up QI/ICON. Fortunately, I had the tiles to block that setup. I cannot fathom any way to have intuited any part of this endgame in a one minute time limit game. – whew!!
Krista should be proud. Board after jump.
D Magazine Words With Friends Tournament Round 3 Wrap-up: the Winners Speak
Our field of 64 players has been culled down to the Saccharine 16. Eight games tomorrow, but here’s more about today’s action.
Luis Ellis would like to thank his own personal Jesus for a 399-379 victory over legal assistant Tasha Cathey:
One of the most intense WWF games ever played! This game needed overtime, but when it was all said and done it was proven that Jesus must have his tuxedo t-shirt on since Luis pulled out the W. It started rough for Tasha when Luis used all of his letters on the first move. Although a valiant effort was given by Tasha but she could not overcome the early deficit. One thing is clear: This is going to be one epic Tournament!
Ben of ESPN Radio’s Ben and Skin Show, The Ticket’s Dan McDowell Advance in D Magazine Words With Friends Tournament
Dan McDowell of the Ticket finished off high school science teacher Nick Sanchez by a score of 397 to 379 in our tournament. Fellow radio star Ben Rogers of the Ben and Skin Show also punched a ticket to the Saccharine 16, with a 355 to 245 win over carsick photojournalist Mike Fuentes. Let the story that Ben tells be a lesson to you, kids: don’t WWF and drive:
Our game started late due to me being stuck in meetings in the early afternoon following our award-winning show/ear gift. Because of my work delays, we were forced to squeeze in a speed match. Because of a work related road trip on his end, Mike was forced to play while stuck in a car en route to Houston for a photo shoot in an oil field. He took an early lead but eventually suffered a setback due to car sickness from speed-playing while in motion. The turning point was the double word style – triple word play of Oaks with the S joining the strange word for Hew for some sweet double plural triple time good times.
Want the board? Jump.
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