A Three-Title Weekend

TigerBlog is part of a four-person text group that plays Wordle every morning.

If you like puzzles and haven't played Wordle, then you should start immediately. Basically, you get six chances to guess a five-letter word, and with each guess, you're told if 1) the letters you selected are in the final word and 2) if they are in the right spot in the final word. 

In TB's group, the person who gets the word in the fewest guesses chooses the starting word for the next day. If there's a tie, then the person who has gone the longest without choosing gets to do so.

TB, by the way, is the only person in the group who has actually met the other three. Intriguing, no? Well, not really. One of the other three is Miss Blog. There's also her dear friend Jen, as well as TB's longtime friend and University colleague Dan Day. 

Last week, one of the starting words was "enure." TigerBlog had no idea this was a word, but it actually is. Its definition: (legal term) to come into operation; to take place, have effect; to be available; to be applied (to the use or benefit of a person).

TigerBlog had the opportunity to choose the starting word Sunday. In honor of the Super Bowl, he came up with something different: If the 49ers won, the starting word would be "Brock;" if the Chiefs won, the starting word would be "Swift."

Anyway, it was "Swift." TigerBlog won't spend a lot of time on the Super Bowl, but he will say this:

* the last 30 minutes of the 4.5 hour game were very dramatic, obviously; other than that, it was a sloppy game that happened to be close
* the fact that the Niners kicker missed an extra point had exactly zero impact on the way the game turned out
* the only good part of any commercial was Matt Damon's role in the Ben Afleck one; the rest seemed to have been cut from the "find a celebrity, any celebrity, and then nobody cares how stupid the actual content is" mold
* you have to know the rules
* TB believes that Tony Romo isn't as bad as most people seem to think, and he enjoys listening to him as much as any other color commentator since John Madden (nobody will ever be better)
* and last but not least, never, ever, ever, ever doubt Pat Mahomes with the game on the line

By the way, today's group Wordle starting word was "puppy," and TB got it in four, while everyone else got it in fifve. What should tomorrow's word be? How about "three," as in the number of Ivy League championships Princeton won this past weekend.

TigerBlog was in his office on Jadwin's E Level Saturday afternoon just in time to see the end of the fourth game of the final match of Princeton's men's squash match against Penn. He would have gone up two flights to watch it, but the gallery was just packed. 

Instead, he watched the stream, and he turned it on at the right moment. Princeton and Penn were tied at 4-4, and the No. 1 match was going to decide the winner. If Penn won, it would have the outright Ivy championship. If Princeton won, then the teams would share the championship.

For a little background, this would be the final day of squash competition in Jadwin Gym's history, since the teams are moving across the lake to a new squash center next season. Also, Penn had won four of the first five matches completed (Zain Ahmed at No. 8 had given Princeton its only win in those first five), which meant Princeton had to go 4 for 4 from then on to win.

Avi Agarwal finished off a 3-0 win for the Tigers at No. 6, making it 4-2. Gordon Lam at No. 9 finished off his match in four games, winning the final two to make it 4-3.

Ahmed Hussein won a grueling five-game match at No. 4, taking the final game 12-10. Now it was even.

The No. 1 match was between Princeton's Karim Elbarbary and Penn's Salman Khalil. Elbarbary won the first two games 11-7 and 11-3. Khalil came back with an 11-3 win and then an 11-9 win. Now it was one game to decide it all.

The two went back and forth in a tense, emotional fifth game. In the end, it was Elbarbary 11-9, and it was Princeton 5-4. 

The other two Ivy titles came Sunday, in men's and women's fencing at the Ivy round-robin at Columbia. To show you how good Ivy fencing is, both the men's side and women's side ended in three-way ties, with very little to separate any of the top teams.

On the men's side, Princeton got its first championship since 2017. The Tigers lost 15-12 to Harvard, who lost 15-12 to Columbia, who lost 15-12 to Princeton. That's about as even as it gets.

Then there's the women. Princeton lost to Penn 14-13, but Penn lost to Columbia 14-13 as well. Princeton beat Columbia 16-11.