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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Palembang Trip : Indonesia Scrabble Challenge 2014 (Part One)

Yes! This is my first trip since I started to write blog. In this post, I'll share my trip and my experience during the trip :D. My trip this time wasn't intended only for holiday purpose, but the main purpose was for joining National Championship of Scrabble in Indonesia. The National Championship is called Indonesia Scrabble Challenge (ISC) and this year is fourth edition, having been organized annually since 2011.

2013 edition of ISC was held in Jakarta, so this year we planned to hold it outside Jakarta. Palembang and the organizer (Universitas Sriwijaya) there were the readiest, therefore we decided to choose Palembang as the 2014's host.

Finally, Palembang as my latest destination trip! I was so excited since it was my first time to go to Palembang. The Indonesia Scrabble Challenge 2014 itself was held on May 24th-26th.

First Day

Woke up in joy because I knew I would go to Palembang, all packed up and ready to go. Took a plane to Palembang and after one-hour flight I arrived at Sultan Mahmud Badaruddin II International Airport Palembang.

The airport there was a decent one and the weather was no different with Jakarta. From the airport, I took TransMusi (bus rapid transit system in Palembang) to the central of the city. Had to transit twice before taking taxi to Palembang Square, where my hotel was nearby there. The taxi driver from B*lido (I guess it's a local taxi service) forced me and my friend to pay IDR 30k as minimum fare he said. We were a bit tired and hungry that time, we just paid for the amount he asked, ignored whatever he said and got out the taxi as soon as possible. How pity he was. Then, I dropped my luggage at the hotel and picked up another friends who were arrived earlier to found something to eat. After roaming around Palembang Square for a while, we hadn't found anything to eat yet and we were starving so bad. We opted Pempek Ekspress as soon as we saw it. First meal in town would be (and should be) its iconic food HAHA. We had a quite troublesome time while ordering, the waitress only used local language I guess. It was quite annoying and more, the Tekwan and Mie Celor - which we chose to order earlier - were sold out. One of my friend even quite disappointed and moved to another restaurant (not in too serious way). I had Model Ikan and Pempek Crispy. The Model Ikan was nice and tender with eggs in it and the soup was tasty. The fried onions here came in big cut, which I like very much, yay!

Pempek Crispy turned out to be one of my favorite, it's almost the same with the one we know as pempek kulit (skin). Its crispiness was perfect and a bit chewy, the spicy vinegar sauce made it so delicious!

After our tummies were satisfied, we went to Wisma Faeyza Syakira, the competition venue to meet the organizer and to oversee and check preparation progress then headed back to the hotel for a quick rest. At night, we took an angkot (public transportation) to Taman Ampera. Love the atmosphere and the ambiance there. From there, I could see the famous Ampera Bridge of Palembang. The view was just breathtaking at night. At the park, there were many hawker foods and beverages to enjoy. I had fried noodles and grilled skewered meatballs.

Next we went back to the hotel to have some rest and to prepare for the competition next day. I had a great and adventurous first day in Palembang :D.

Second Day

Here we go! The first day of the competition! The first round pairing wasn't like I expected, I faced the 2012 Champion, Christian Oktavius already! He got the better of tiles and beat me 511-410. In the second round, I was paired with one of the students from Lampung, Inas Firhan Aziz. My game was balanced, scored pretty well in each turn and I won the game with the final score 507-409.

Round 1 - Christian Oktavius

Round 2 - Inas Firhan Aziz

Third round, just before lunch, I met a Palembang player, who was actually the chairman of this year ISC, Ahmad Ramadhan. I won pretty comfortably 567-332, thanks to my triple-triple AEQUORIN for 199pts, which eventually became the High Word of the tournament. Then we had lunch that had been prepared by the committees. After lunch, it wasn't the result I wanted, I lost twice in a row to top Indonesian players, Julius Wilson and Fadlan Satria, 363-404 and 352-474 respectively.

Round 3 - Ahmad Ramadhan

Round 4 - Julius Wilson

I should go back to winning ways in the last round of the day and I did. I beat Yuda Eka Prasetia with a comfortable score 476-266. 3 wins and 3 losses, clearly it wasn't my best performance and should improve in the next day of competition.

Round 5 - Fadlan Satria

Round 6 - Yuda Eka Prasetia

Playing Scrabble drained our energy a lot, after the competition we directly headed to another Pempek Ekspress (AGAIN!) to have late afternoon meal. This time I tried Pempek Lenggang. At first, I thought it was just like the other ordinary pempek but it was SO YUMMY! I could say it was like a pempek omelette, and of course with the authentic vinegar sauce. You should try this when you visit Palembang (I MISSED IT ALREADY!).

We soon went back to the hotel to rest before took another walk to Palembang Indah Mall. We did nothing in particular, just looking around and searching for dinner. We returned earlier to the hotel because we wanted to watch Champions League Final between Real Madrid and Atletico Madrid at midnight. But it turned out we overslept and didn't wake up to watch the final XD.

I'm done with the first part of my Palembang trip *big grin*

TO BE CONTINUED...

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