15th Brand Crossword Game King's Cup 2000

The Brands' King's Cup 2000 was held in Rajamangala University Indoor Stadium, Bangkok on the 29th June to 2nd July 2000.

Michael Tang of Malaysia sent his report:

Nigel Richards has done it again, winning the King's Cup Tournament  in Bangkok beating Jakkrit in straight sets in the best-of-three  final. With his US$6,000 prize money, Nigel's total prize money for  year 2000 after 7 consecutive victory now stands at US$22,000!!

Below please find the report and results of the final day in Bangkok 

(which I extracted from Emy Yap's home page)

Reports and results for the final day - July 2nd

Before giving you the result of the final game, I have here the list  of the prizes from 1st to 10th position. 

1st prize - US$6,000 2nd - 70,000 Baht, 3rd - 30,000 Baht, 4th - 

15,000 Baht, 5th - 10,000 Baht, 6th - 5,000 Baht, 7th & 8th - 3,000 

Baht, 9th & 10th - 2,000 Baht.

Now, for the news of the evening from Bangkok, Thailand........It is 

Nigel Richards again! Yes, he made it into the final easily enough  two games before the 2nd person qualified. And that turned out to be  Jakkrit Klapajone. Nigel beat him in 2 straight games with a  brilliant second game of 488-485 score. The game was not dissimilar  to the Nyman - Richards finals in January last year. A total of 7  bingos were played between the two of them. They were cOROTATE,  BLEACHED and ENFROZE by Jakkrit and CURDIEST, TREFOIL, PILLAGE and  SWANkIEST by Nigel. The annotated games will be posted later by Siu  Hean.

On other news, DENIZENS was played by Tony Malonzo with a score of  293 points! It took the highest bingo score award for the tournament. Sam Kantimathi played VARIORUm which is quite a find using the blank as the M.

Now the final top 15 standing after Game 28.

1. Nigel Richards 19 1757
2. Jakkrit K 19 634 
3. Pakorn N 18 530
4. Charnwit S 18 460
5. Gerry Carter 17 758
6. Ganesh A 17 629
7. Odette Rio 17 323
8. Joel Sherman 16 745
9. Azu Ogbogu 16 632
10. Tony Sim 16 353
11. Cheah Siu Hean 15 696
12. Manop P 15 522
13. Nattakrit K 15 505
14. Femi Awowade 15 351
15. Richardo Gonzalez 15 60

There is a THANK YOU PARTY held at the hotel for all the overseas 
players, gotta go..

The recorded annotation was provided by Cheah Siu Hean of Singapore.

Game 1: 

NR: ACEHMOP H8 POACH +32 32
JK: ABINNUX I7 NIX +40 40

NR: AEEMNRV 10G V(A)E +17 49
JK: AABENUY F9 BUNYA +21 61

NR: AAEMNOR J6 MANO +29 78
JK: AEEFOOR 8H (PIN)AFORE +51 112

NR: AEGIMRT O1 EMIGRAT(E) +89 167
JK: ADDEEEP N6 PA(R)ED +30 142

NR: ?CDNTTU 13C DUC(A)T +18 185
JK: DEEEEEU L8 (F)EUED +18 160

NR: ?BIINOT 4H OrBITIN(G) +72 257
JK: AEEEIII -AEEIII +0 160

NR: EGLLORV K10 GROVEL +30 287
JK: EGIRUWW M7 W(O)W +37 197

NR: AEIJLRT 15H JIL(L)ET +42 329
JK: EGIORSU 13I GU(V) +9 206

NR: AILORRS N1 ROA(N) +20 349
JK: AEIORSS N13 IOS +20 226

NR: FIKLQRS M3 K(I)F +34 383
JK: ?AENORS E3 SERrANO +66 292

NR: IILQRSZ D12 Q(U)IZ +64 447
JK: AEINSTT 4D T(E) +4 296

NR: EHILRSY 7D H(A) +5 452
JK: AEILNST C1 ENTAILS +76 372

NR: EEILRSY 15A SEI(Z)ER +45 497
JK: D 13M D(I) +6 378
JK:  (LY) +10 388

Final Score: Nigel 497; Jakkrit 388

Game 2: (# corresponds to the Blogger's Notes)

JK: ?AEOOTT 8G TATOOEd +64 64
JK: ?AEOOTT --  -64 0

#The word was challenged off the board
NR: AABEIRV H4 BRAVE +26 26

JK: ?AEOOTT 5F cO(R)OTATE +64 64

#Missing the best scoring move of AmO(R)ETTO 5E 78 points
NR: AEEIIPS 4K PIE +20 46

JK: ABEEOTU H1 OUT(BRAVE) +39 103
NR: AEEGISU 3L AGUE +21 67

JK: ABDEEHL F1 BLEA(c)HED +73 176

#Difficult to spot was BEHE(A)DAL £ 6D for 100 points
NR: CDEIRST N2 C(U)RDIEST +91 158

#Best. Other choices would be D(E)SERTIC E6 +86 and equally nice 9-letter word TRIS(E)C(T)ED. Other easy find would be DIRECTS at 9H, E7 or N5.

JK: EFINOQZ 8L QI(S) +22 198

#Here, there were other choices like FOIN or FOEN O7 +34 or FOINE(D) 8A +33, but the chosen move by Jakkrit disposed the Q.
NR: EFILORT I8 TREFOIL +64 222

#LOFTIER I8 at the same spot would be more defensive, but Nigel played otherwise.

JK: EEFNORZ O9 ENFROZE +112 310

#Best
NR: AEGILLP E7 PILLAGE +77 299

#Only bingo spot.

JK: ACJSUUW 15F JAWS +53 363
NR: AIMNRSY J10 MY +31 330

JK: CKNNUUX 14M CU(Z) +28 391
NR: AGIINRS F10 AGIN +19 349

JK: DKNNOUX L8 (Q)UONK +36 427
NR: IIMRSSY J2 MIS(T)Y +31 380

#Nice play

JK: DDNORWX 3E N(E)X(T) +19 446
NR: ?EINNRS 11D N(AG) +4 384

#66 points down at this point, Nigel's play of N(AG) gave him slim chance of winning. 5 out of 12 to draw either A, O or T in case Jakkrit would block the opening like WH(ID), Nigel could play a bingo next turn and hope for a good tile pick-up for his final rack.

The board position looked like this:

Nigel's Last Play: NAG 11d

Nigel's Score: 384

Jakkrit's Score: 446

Jakkrit's Lead: +62

Unseen Tiles from Jakkrit's Point of View: ?AAEINOORST (4 tiles in the bag)

Jakkrit needs to be careful on his next move in order to force the match to game 3. Let's find out!

The game continued as follows:

JK: DDHIRVW 8C WH(ID) +15 461
NR: ?AEINRS C7 S(W)ANkIER +78 462

#In what a turn of event, Nigel drew the A from the bag and spotted SWANkIER, hooking the blank to NAG to make it kNAG. Jakkrit's challenge was upheld, and the word was valid. What an outstanding play!

JK: DDIOORV 14A RO(R)ID +24 485

#What an agonizing situation for Jakkrit! The V was a hindrance in this endgame.
NR: AT 2M A(C)T +12 474

#Nigel put the nailing in the coffin.
NR:  (DOV) +14 488

Final Score: Nigel: 488; Jakkrit 485

Analysis:

The Maven engine suggested that WHID/ PILLAGED 14b despite emptying the bag and leaving the open lane for Nigel could have maximized the winning chances for Jakkrit even if Nigel played down a bingo on his last turn. Take a look:

JK: DDHIRVW 14b WHID +34 480

NR: ?AEINRS c5 gAINERS +63 447

NR: (ADOORTV) +22 469

With that second win, Nigel triumphed anew!