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#player1 Darrell_Day Darrell Day
#player2 Jim_Burlant Jim Burlant
>Darrell_Day: AEMOORT 8F TEAROOM +74 74
>Jim_Burlant: DEEFILP I7 P.EFILED +69 69
#note Or I3 PILFERED. 38% to win.
>Darrell_Day: AADEGLT 11E GLAD.ATE +90 164
#note Other bingo options are GALEATED at 13F and 13C for 72, and TALLAGED at 12F and 12G, also for 72, and GALEATED down the G column for 64 or 62 points. This is his best bingo and he wins 82% in a short sim.
>Jim_Burlant: EEIIPSU H13 PIU +22 91
#note The sim says this is best because the leave (EEIS) is a bit better than the EISU leave that PIE in the same location would have yielded. However, given Darrell's tendencies to shut the board down quickly, I wonder if I should have made bingo-friendliness the priority and played H13 PIE keeping unique letters. Given my next rack, the difference between PIE/PIU was a moot point.
>Darrell_Day: KZ G7 Z.K +31 195
>Jim_Burlant: EEEIOOS -EEIOO +0 91
#note The only non-exchange in the first 6 options is LOOIE F11, and it just isn't worth playing for only 7 points. This is my best play, and I'm 9% to win.
>Darrell_Day: LNOR 7K LORN +11 206
>Jim_Burlant: ??EGISS M1 StInGE.S +74 165
#note A zillion bingos play at M1 and they all score 74 points. GrIStERS is apparently best. This wins 17.85%, and GRISTERS wins 18.35 and sims 1-1/4 points ahead of this.
>Darrell_Day: ARV 1J VAR. +8 214
>Jim_Burlant: ELNNOOU 5I LOUN.E +14 179
#note Darn - I was hoping he had an ING bingo he had to put down on row 5 so I could hit him with UNLOOSEN for 131 and be back in the game. No matter, his play of VAR was the break I was looking for. When Darrell starts playing ultradefensively and shuts lines down for cheap, I counter by emphasizing scoring over building bingo racks because my experience with him has been that, more often than not, by the time the bingo racks show up, the board is dead. Doing this both keeps me in the game and prevents the game from becoming an exercise in frustration. While I won't deliberately hamstring myself by leaving myself hideous VKU combos, I'll just look to score points and keep a mix of vowels and consonants that will hopefully allow me to play 2s, 3's, and 4's that score on each turn in this kind of game. As for this play, I chose this to fork the board. While the O column doesn't provide any bingo lines, I figured he'd be more worried about defending against the 70-point bingos and I could hopefully nickel and dime my way back in by trading 20 for 30 on a series of turns. And if he defends against a bingo, maybe I'll luck box my way into something like CHEFS for 59 while he's blocking the bingo for 15 or 20 points. Q doesn't like this a whole lot, preferring that I simply play H7 EAU, but I don't think the LNNOO leave is going to help once Darrell smothers the board on his next turn. Q says this is a 3-point dog and that it wins 18-1/2% whle EAU ostensibly wins 20.5.
>Darrell_Day: AGY 4H GAY +16 230
>Jim_Burlant: DEINNOT O1 TONED +30 209
#note A good play, but not best. There was a cool extension available which would have made this a much more open game than the closed-board affair it became: 1H INVARS, which scores 27, leaves a nice DENOT both for the O column hook if he blocks the bingo line, or a nice bingo line for me to hit on row 2. INVARS, which I never saw, wins 28.3%, and this wins 23-1/2 and sims 7 points down. No matter, I'm still crawling back in.
>Darrell_Day: AIR 12I .AIR +16 246
#note Darrell is obviously running into the same sort of problems I was running into in my round 3 game against Chris Cree: he's encountering rack after rack that doesn't score and can't keep up with anything I've got.
>Jim_Burlant: BBIIJNO 12D JOIN +29 238
#note Strong choice, but not quite best in Quackle's eyes. Q prefers that I play BIOG H1 for 21, but that may not do me any good if I still have the J and don't draw another O. See my previous comment about taking points over rack building. Back up to 25% to win.
>Darrell_Day: AEM L1 .AME. +21 267
>Jim_Burlant: ABBCEIS 3G CAB +24 262
#note And my strategy is paying off - if you check the progression of the score, post-STINGERS, I've outscored him by 36 points and his lead has been reduced to barely 5 points, even though I have neither hit a bingo nor had a play above 30 since STINGERS. As for this turn, Q agrees with me - this is best. No real point playing for the bingo with JIBB. 36% to win.
>Darrell_Day: RT H1 TR.. +15 282
#note I held for a couple of minutes and overthought this. My gut told me this was bogus. But I know that Darrell had spent several weeks before nationals going through the 4's and I couldn't believe he'd blatantly try to pull a fast one. So now, I'm doubting myself. I don't want to lose my potential comeback of VIBE 10B. Also, I notice that TRAG* does what I can't do by defending against H1 plays like QUAG. So with him defending the board for me, not scoring well while he's doing it, I figured the prudent course was to trade 15 for 21 and not risk the turn.
>Jim_Burlant: BEEEISV 10B VIBE +21 283
#note Best, winning 45%. Next best is F11 LIEVE, which wins 37.8%.
>Darrell_Day: DU D8 DU. +8 290
>Jim_Burlant: CEEORSX 9C X. +34 317
#note This wasn't autopilot - I spent a few minutes double-checking the tracking before playing here and debated between EXED 8A and this. Ultimately I didn't want to part with both E's, even if I wasn't worried about bingoing. And outside of WHINIEST, I don't see much else in that pool to be afraid of on row 1. This is best, and I'm now winning 76% - hard to believe this was the case given the start this game.
>Darrell_Day: AQ 14F QA.. +34 324
>Jim_Burlant: CEEHORS 13B RHO +21 338
#note Not even one of the original choices, this rapidly shoots up to the runner-up position. It took a couple of minutes for me to figure this one out because I initially saw 13A plays like ECHO that were non-starters. I put this down because I saw the O back-hook to the J and was absolutely paranoid that the spot would disappear. What's best? I never saw it, but Darrell did:
>Darrell_Day: HS J11 ..HS +34 358
#note Damn - I should have looked harder for that play on the previous turn.
>Jim_Burlant: CEEINSW 14A CEE +19 357
#note One factor was coming into play that I haven't mentioned until now: time. Between my taking a couple of minutes to find my opening rack bingo, to having to find the bingo with both blanks, to evaluating whether to challenge TRAG*, to figuring out my last turn and this one, I burned a LOT of time, which hurt me later. As for this - I saw WEE but saw the 15A EF comeback, which I wanted to prevent. With this I take the bag down to 1. As for playing off the C, I felt the W was probably going to be more flexible for the impending end game. Q wants me to just fish the W with J4 YOW, saying that wins 56%. As far as I can tell that only works if I draw the N for NESCIENT - that's a 1 in 4 shot if it's in the bag, and a wild goose chase if it's in his rack.
>Darrell_Day: FIT C7 FI..T +22 380
>Jim_Burlant: IINOSWY 15C YONI +28 385
#note Another tough play to find - probably took me over a minute to find this. Ths is the only winning play I have - everything else loses. Time on my clock when this went down: 00:20.
>Darrell_Day: ENTUW 1F TU. +3 383
>Jim_Burlant: ISW J4 ..W +17 402
#note And my cumulative time mismanagement does me in. While I knew that, sitting on ENTUW I knew he'd do something to block my WIS out, I hadn't left myself anywhere near enough time to figure out the right sequence; all I could do since I was in rush mode since I wasn't even sure if he had an out was to dump the W and deal with the rest later. I think it's a safe bet that if I manage my time better and leave 1:30 on my clock before this turn, I find WIZ and find the win. And with 4 or 5 minutes maybe I even find the inspired PEHS/TIS. But I just didn't leave myself enough time to do more than have this outcome:
>Darrell_Day: ENW 13L NEW +15 398
>Darrell_Day: (IS) +4 402
#note On the one hand, I felt like I'd accomplished something by just being in this game after the dreadful start that I couldn't do a whole lot about. On the flip side, I burned way too much time and didn't leave myself enough time to think out the end game. Even letting him get away with the phony TRAG, this was still winnable; I just didn't manage my time well enough to play the end game correctly. Win, lose, or draw, this was an incredibly fun game - it utterly amazed me how we kept both milking this seemingly dead board for points turn after turn with neither side backing down with plays like AHS, FIXIT, and YONI.
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