EISO12 plays 4 S(trand)’s & 4 bingos



Like the world-class player that it is, MISO12 has played all 4 S’s to great effect. This provisional board (click on image to enlarge) and the below analysis of MISO12’s game of duplicate Scrabble tells you exactly how.

 

Sporting Strand

MISO12 is an opening to the WORLD(d8) of competitive Scrabble in English. Since 2008, 270 players from as many as 27 nations have entered MISO.

 

Among the reasons for this success are the allure of FIFTY(b2) games staggered in a TRIO(l10) of CSW15 & WESPA-rated tourneys (a 1-Day Early Bird (9 games) on 26 April, a 3-Day Main Event (25 games) on 27-29 April, and a 2-Day Late Bird (16 games) on 1-2 May), and the combined security and ingenuity of JOHN(b6) CHEW(d5), the Tournament & Technical Director under whose stewardship MISO12 is guaranteed to run smoothly for those making the proceedings and equally for those watching them to the tune of continuous live online updates and video streaming of the event as it unfolds.

 

Just as a game is spiked by a bingo so too will MISO12 climax the moment players morph into CHEERERS(h11) who animate the presentation of €4000 in prize-money together with inscribed trophies and certificates to well over twenty of their fellow participants.

 

Social Strand

The locus of this triple LUTZ(l7) is the nearly homonymous Luzzu, offering conference, restaurant and lido facilities in one complex, and boasting a highly successful hosting of MISO11 in 2018.

 

Away from the playing table, players and guests will be engaged most savourily with their plate and their PALATE(h1) as they MIX(g9) briefly during tea/coffee breaks in the social area, including on an outdoor terrace, to share their playing vicissitudes while getting a light TAN(h5), and, with greater breadth of time and discussion, in the Luzzu Restaurant for a rich and revitalising buffet lunch.

 

When, at the first signs of dusk, tired players call it a day, the prospect of a sumptuous dinner at the elegant Coral Cove or It-Tokk restaurants, or under a clear evening sky on the terrace of Luzzu Restaurant, where players, organisers and guests can BOND(k13) ever more closely together, will be hard to resist. With such good food and good company ready at hand, evenings like these cannot but be lived JOCOSELY(b6), though with the possible sequela of an enhanced AMU(h4). (This acronym has been cheekily changed to ‘Adipose Mass Unit’.)

 

Scenic Strand

When the following morning players reassemble in pairs to play Scrabble, and even later when they gather for refreshments and lunch, that sweet aftertaste from the previous evening will find a strong synaesthetic resonance in those luminous windows of AZURES(o6) that run along and aloft the whole seaward side of the Luzzu complex.

 

These tantalizing views of the world outside the large comfy Scrabble bubble will goad many a player and guest to jump on the tOurISM bandwagon on the last day of April to visit a myriad of QUAINT(m2) rural, urban and maritime towns, villages and hamlets that are scattered around the archipelago of MALTA(i4).

 

One place to DISCOVER(h8) is the island’s major BELT(g6) (vernacular for ‘city’), the nerve centre of Malta’s administrative and cultural life named after its founding knight, the French Grandmaster Jean de Valette.  

 

Soothing Strand

The best BALM(g6) after the competitive, social and touristic travails of a MISO12 day will be a DIP(o1) in a velvety pool or a NAP(f1) in a soft snug bed at the Seashells Resort at Suncrest, a 4-star hotel situated slightly inland from Luzzu. Here players and guests can count on the same management and staff who earlier on served their playing and culinary activities at Luzzu being ready to meet them on the lower register of their need to rest and relax.  

 

Those with a bit more energy to spare will elect to SAUNTER(j2) along the seafront in Qawra as the sun sets and twilight falls on another memorable MISO12 day.

 

(penned, 'played' & published by Nicky Vella Laurenti)