Palembang Trip : Indonesia Scrabble Challenge 2014 (Part Two)

Hi there! I'm gonna continue my story in Palembang in this SECOND PART of my PALEMBANG TRIP. In the first part, I've written about my first two days in Palembang for competing in Indonesia Scrabble Challenge (ISC) 2014 and so far it was an amazing trip! Now, it's time for the third and fourth day. Enjoy!

Third day

We were entering the second day of the competition. 8 games to be played in the second day. First, I met Harryadi Hermanto. A very close game with him, but in the end I managed to edge him 422-392 to get the first win of the day. In the next round, which was round 8, I was paired with Alexander Gozali. We had a slow start but my three bingos later secured a convincing victory 513-377 over him.

Round 7 - Harryadi Hermanto

Round 8 - Alexander Gozali

Moving on to round 9, I faced Julius Wilson for the second time of the tournament (the pairing was reset in each day, so we could meet the same opponent we've faced a day before). And again he beat me, he got four bingos to one. 519-357 to him. We were reaching the halfway line of the tournament as we started to play round 10 out of 20. I met Christian Oktavius also for the second time. Finally, I got a win over him and stopped his winning streak thanks to my great tiles. I could win bigger if knew the right word instead of making a phoney (illegal word). After playing the first four rounds, we had a lunch break before playing another four rounds.

Round 9 - Julius Wilson

Round 10 - Christian Oktavius

It was a quite good spell after lunch for me, beating the trio, Yuda Eka Prasetia (457-338), Inas Firhan Aziz (451-369) and Ahmad Ramadhan (493-318) to climb to the second place behind Christian Oktavius.
In the last game of the day, I met Christian Oktavius again (the pairing was forced to be reset since there were no possible pairings of two players haven't met before on that day for all participants in Master division ). I failed to close the day with a win in this nail-biting game. Lost the game in the last move where he countered my bingo with another bingo and the final score was 433-566.

Round 11 - Yuda Eka Prasetia

Round 12 - Inas Firhan Aziz

Round 13 - Ahmad Ramadhan

Round 14- Christian Oktavius

After the tournament, we had yet another meal at Pempek Ekspress (we were addicted, yes!). And of course another Pempek Lenggang :D I just couldn't move on from it, extremely delicious! :3. I spent the rest of the night just at mall near the hotel and the hotel room since I was a bit exhausted.

Fourth day
Last day of the competition! The race for National Champion was heated up. 6 more games to play in Indonesia Scrabble Challenge 2014. In the first match of the day, I played Steven Surya for the very first time in this tournament. With Steven was leading for most of the game, I should find a move to turn around things. Actually I did find it, but he blocked my possibly-winning move. I had to surrender a crucial point to him as he won 430-405. In the next round, I met Steven again (the pairing now could repeat) and directly aiming to pull one back. It didn't start well for me, Steven took an early lead ahead of me. Thankfully, I did better this time to turn around the game. I won comfortably by 555-381 score.

Round 15 - Steven Surya

Round 16 - Steven Surya

In round 17, I faced Christian Oktavius and that round was the decider, if I lost then Christian would be crowned as the Champion. Eventually, he did win the game 445-420 as I made a terrible..terrible blunder in the end of the game. Christian had cemented the top spot with three games to spare. So the attention had shifted to the runner-up place with me, Fadlan, Julius and Steven were vying for it. In round 18, I met Fadlan and Julius played against Steven. Had some dreadful combinations of tiles at first, but luckily I could play a string of high moves to snatch a win over Fadlan 401-379.

Round 17 - Christian Oktavius

Round 18 - Fadlan Satria

Round 19, the penultimate game, I still faced Fadlan as well as Julius and Steven. This time, Fadlan beat me well 498-351 and Julius also beat Steven. They both will meet each other in the last round and my chance to be the runner-up was almost impossible. In the last round I played Alexander Gozali, who leapfrogged Steven to the fifth place. With 4 bingos, I ended the tournament with a win 437-366 and sealed the third place (YAY!).

Round 19 - Fadlan Satria

Round 20 - Alexander Gozali

Open division winners

Master division winners

After we finished the tournament and closing ceremony, also packed our souvenirs (re : more pempek!) to be brought back to Jakarta, we took a meal again at Pempek Ekspress (we were about to get drunk with the sauce LOL, kidding). Then, we dropped by to the hotel to pick our luggage and headed straight to the airport to catch our flight back to Jakarta. We all landed safely and would face reality soon HAHA.

Personally, it was a great trip to Palembang, spent four magnificent days there. Thank you so much for all the friends there for your kindness and friendliness. I'm sure I'll miss Palembang (actually I already did).

Here are my personal scorecard in Indonesia Scrabble Challenge 2014 -> Albert Martono in Indonesia Scrabble Challenge 2014.
That concludes my journey in Palembang. Until we meet again, Palembang! :)

PALEMBANG TRIP : THE END

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