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#character-encoding UTF-8
#player1 JJB John J. Bulten
#player2 NB Nancy Bowen
>JJB: EIIORRU 8D OURIE +12 12
#note 0:20 [24:40] (ourie 8h 12 +.4) With 6/10 players at 2-0 the late bird is anyone's tournament. Two of these, JJB and NB, now pair off again, with NB retaining the home-court advantage. JJB draws a vowel rack to start, but he only needs to remember the one word that stands out.
>NB: ABEGMNY D7 B.GEYMAN +82 82
#note 0:47 [24:13] JJB is flummoxed at NB's rack, but after the game he informs NB there was a second anagram, moneybag! And there is a third playable word, embaying, and a fourth unplayable, mangabey. What a find.
>JJB: BIILRRT 7G BRIT +19 31
#note 2:43 [21:57] JJB takes time to clear off the duplicates but he is not done drawing them yet.
>NB: ENZ C13 ZEN +48 130
#note 0:35 [23:38] (zen 9g 50 +2) Of all things, missing a higher spot for 2 more.
>JJB: AIILMRS K7 SIMILAR +75 106
#note 0:31 [21:26] JJB has now matched bingos and will catch up the rest of the score. The word similar plays in 4 places, and mistrial is available too.
>NB: FFW 12J W.FF +26 156
#note 1:37 [22:01] NB uses the tempo for an easy consonant dump.
>JJB: EEGLOQR 10J Q. +31 137
#note 0:13 [21:13] JJB also uses his own opening to effect, but still hasn't caught up. Here the leave is almost even (-.3) but the static points for qi are 15 ahead of the points and leave for a good generic play (e.g. golfer 24); the same is not true for a qi 11 play in general.
>NB: PU E12 UP +22 178
#note 2:08 [19:53] NB takes her time and hits the Z again, though 11e is now wide open.
>JJB: EEEGLOR 13K .EEL +23 160
#note 3:06 [18:07] (ree 13k 21 +.1) JJB takes his time, but is still outpointing his opponent and both are balancing their racks. Quackle rates ree and reel almost identically. JJB bypasses eger 21 and recognizes re-reel* is not a valid anagram of reeler.
>NB: CGIS F10 CIGS +34 212
#note 0:33 [19:20] Checking the score at 3 seconds, NB next works out that pluralizing zap is a better score than using 11e, true even if she had an A for cays or gays: great board vision. This is worth giving up her only S.
>JJB: EGORSVW O8 REVOWS +53 213
#note 1:01 [17:06] Now JJB sees vowers 44 (and probably also was subconsciously aware of overgrew 16), but he really wants to make up the points and puts down revows* instead for 53. He probably is still swimming in yesterday's game were reavowed and unavowed were real threats, mixed among tempting phonies as well. Will he get to keep this lead?
>NB: AI 15A AI. +9 221
#note 2:23 [16:57] (challenge +53; ai 6i 10 +1) NB may already have her second bingo on this rack, but she is likely loaded with vowels and peels off two of them with a good leave, without giving much thought to JJB's phony. The triple is one point behind the hidden parallel. Note that column H is about as fertile as any 9-letter opening can be, and there are other good bingo lines.
>JJB: AAAGRTT N5 ATTAR +11 224
#note 1:03 [16:03] (targa n4 10 +11.5) JJB makes his first sizable error by thinking only of attar and tatar but not targa. (Good extensions are regatta and agrafe.)
>NB: ?ADENOT H7 ..sONATED +80 301
#note 1:08 [15:49] NB now holds two easy-to-find nines (the other is renovated), and an -a play (anecdota), all of which score 80. Excellent find, solid lead, but this is only the first blank.
>JJB: AGNOTUV O1 GAVOT +32 256
#note 1:08 [14:55] This time JJB can put his own triple opening to good use; better find than vaunt 29.
>NB: HOT 14L THO +31 332
#note 1:42 [14:07] NB continues to show off her footwork with parallels, breaking up the identical fes.
>JJB: ?EIINPU M5 PIU +16 272
#note 2:18 [12:37] Now piu is indicated as the best word to dump, and fortunately it plays for 16 or 15; the former retains over 25% win odds, the latter 20%. However, with the need for points it's not far behind to open up with the helpful extension unsimilar 22!
>NB: OY 15N OY +18 350
#note 0:27 [13:40] Recounting after 2 seconds, NB proceeds to seal up another triple; her rack is still not that bad.
>JJB: ?DEEILN 1H bLEEDIN. +83 355
#note 0:37 [12:00] JJB doesn't need to search long; once he sees bleeding, nothing more is needed. He's right back to over 40% win odds. (There is one other live bingo line: deadline/fete 68.) But his lead is still slim; who will outdraw in the endgame with such good letters and no blanks?
>NB: JO 6F JO +30 380
#note 1:08 [12:32] Nothing like keeping up the thirties.
>JJB: ACEINSX 2I AX +52 407
#note 8:10 [3:50] JJB takes a deep think over an important decision. He toys with row 11 as he has all game, but it will only take narrow fits now like polypi or elysian. Obviously ax 52 will outpoint alternatives like expat 28, and less obviously it wins about 75% of games by outrunning the opponent and leaving bingo tiles. But that is a very easy opening for every unseen consonant whatsoever, and JJB can see words like handled/handler among the hidden tiles. All the next dozens of plays in simulation conserve the X and make obscurely placed waiting words, and yet they rank 50%-65%. So JJB plays ax 52 with some trepidation.
>NB: ADEHLNR 3C HANDLER +80 460
#note 1:04 [11:28] Indeed, even if JJB made a reasonable rack inference about NB holding the best tiles, such as AENR, his play is still best. It is only when NB actually holds one of the several playable bingos that he would knowingly prefer playing a long row 2 or row 15 play to clear out the bag and prepare for the endgame, even though that would risk other opponent bingos later. On this board, from JJB's perspective, NB could hold 36 bingos at 3c, plus duodena/ab, although that's a small percentage of 792 cases. But if JJB gave no new openings, there would still be 12 bingos in row 2 plus duodena, the most interesting of which is hoarded 80 with 6 overlaps; so he is already in potential trouble. And if he played expat 28, he would open up 45 new bingos besides the others. He could have shut down every bingo line by calculating a play like saice 2d (shutting down rows 2 and 3 and column C neatly all at once), but then he would trail by 15 and would have destroyed his best X spot. As it turns out, out of 792 draws NB held one of the very words JJB considered, and takes a lead of 53, putting 90% win odds on her side from her perspective, or 70% from JJB's perspective before drawing (after all, he might have left her with three bad tiles).
>JJB: CEIKNOS 4A KOINE +39 446
#note 2:51.1 [0:58.9] (sicken b1 42, used 1a 21+2 +1) JJB is horrified not only to see one of his greatest concerns manifest on the board but also to see that NB's further drawing skills have secured a 3-letter word (due) that will go out about anywhere. He takes the long path of calculating a parallel (which also closes down opponent's best spot), netting 18 after NB makes her best response. The only improvement is to coolly ignore the fact that he has drawn a loss on his last rack when a win was available, and to see the fortuitous hook c/handler. Sicken 42 slightly increases opponent's reply but still nets 19. (All the same, he might have drawn dickens/chandler 96 of all things!)
>NB: DEU 15J DUE +13 473
#note 0:25 [11:03] Winning with style.
>NB: (CS) +8 481
#note Uniquely, aside from one egregious error (not challenging revows*) and one serious error (missing targa/ab), the players made no knowable mistakes of more than 2 points on static leave and endgame value: an incredible feat. While NB was reveling in the success of her rack balancing and JJB was recriminating whether a block would have given better win chances (it wouldn't), it would be more appropriate for both sides to declare a moral victory: NB finds all the bingos and plays that she needs to win a very tightly fought game, and is in the top tier of the final round, and JJB has just beaten his record set in his immediately previous game with Mark Owens for fewest opportunity points lost: the Bowen-Owens combo has worked out for him. Known points available: JJB 1, NB 56. Overall points available: JJB 13.0, NB 56.0+.
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