A Salute to Alastair

Alastair Richards had a comfortable win against me in the tournament today. He played just 10 turns and even in just one game he played several interesting words. It seemed like an ideal chance for you to see if you could have found the same words that he did.

I am not giving you his actual racks, just the letters from each of the words he played.

ADEHOOP

AEITV

ADEIILMS

ORVW

FIKNOS

AIORRSU

?EEGNOY

BILNTZ

GHLLY

OX

Those are the letters of the 10 words he played. If you can’t at least get the last one then you are just not trying, but you should be able to get some of the others as well.

Stop here and write down the ones you can before moving on the the answers.

I was fortunate enough to know all the words he played, so I didn’t have to challenge any of them, but I certainly wouldn’t have found them all at the table as he did.

The Words Alastair Played

APEHOOD The state of being an ape.

VITAE Plural of VITA. You can also pluralise VITA with an S

IDEALISM The pursuit of noble goals. These letters also make MILADIES,

the plural of MILADY or MILADI, an English gentlewoman

VROW A Dutchwoman. It can also be spelled VROUW

FINSKO A reindeer skin boot. Also spelled FINNSKO or FINNESKO

OURARIS Plants that yield the drug curare

GEOGENY The science of the formation of the Earth’s crust

BLINTZ A thin, filled pancake

GHYLL A narrow ravine

OX A hoofed mammal

Some good finds weren’t there? Particularly GEOGENY, where even though you have a blank, there is no alternative anagram and you have to call the blank a duplicate of a letter you already have.

Happy Scrabbling Patrick