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Notes from the organizer: All together now!

C is for the candy trimmed around the Christmas tree
H is for the happiness with all the family
R is for the reindeer prancing by the window pane
I is for the icing on the cake as sweet as sugar cane
S is for the stocking on the chimney wall
H is for the hope you haven't got at all
A is for the alphabet too generous by far
R is for removal of the letters you debar
E is for excitement as I tot up all the scores
Be competent, be frugal and the victory can be yours!

For Game Seven, I'd like you to play a Touchdown Letters Attack. Your score will be your game score plus 3 points for every letter of the alphabet that doesn't appear in any of your declarations. The highest such score will win. The first tie-break criterion is number of unique letters (fewest wins), followed by most maxes. Any further ties will be resolved at my sole discretion.

WARNING

You must declare a word with at least 4 (FOUR) unique letters in each round. It doesn't matter whether this word is valid or not, you simply have to make a declaration in line with this rule. For each round in which you don't do this, you'll incur a 12-point penalty.

Illustrative examples:

A) Quentin declares SHOE in each round. This is fine. He scores 4 points each time SHOE is a gettable word, and nothing each time it isn't. He incurs no penalties, and gets 3 points for each of the 22 letters of the alphabet he didn't use.
B) Mavis declares COW in one round. This is not fine. She is given a 12-point deduction.
C) Deirdre declares POOP in one round. This is not fine. She is given a 12-point deduction.
D) Terence declares whizzbang in one round. This is fine. He is given no deductions, but has now used W, H, I, Z, B, A, N and G, so won't get the three points for not using any of those letters.
E) Janet declares aaaa in every round. This is not fine. She scores nothing for her game and incurs a 240-point deduction. Silly Janet.

I look forward to someone finding an amusing loophole in these rules that makes it profitable to break them under a specific set of circumstances. If this happens, it's a feature, not a bug.

The BONUS TOURNAMENT POINT is awarded to any player who (a) incurs no deductions and (b) uses at most three different vowels in their game. For our purposes, the vowels are A, E, I, O and U.

If you have any questions about the rules, scoring, or anything else pertaining to this tourney, please feel free to ask.

Here is a spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1qrXdHVIji1Da3xrqASiccHQIou1LJMM8k1j5iDfNaNw/edit#gid=0

Ran from: 16 December 2023 – 1 January 2024. Format: Touchdown Letters Attack. Matches: One-off. Approved.

Fixtures: 36. Completed: 36.

Results and fixtures

Key. Green: winner. Red: loser. Grey: tie. (Stripes: provisional, match in progress.)