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#player1 Jim_Burlant Jim Burlant
#player2 Chris_Schneider Chris Schneider
>Jim_Burlant: DDEELTZ 8G ZED +26 26
#note Was excited as the rack came together, hoping for a third E...only to have the 7th tile be the Z. Oh well.
>Chris_Schneider: UW I6 WU. +8 8
>Jim_Burlant: DDEILLT 7H D.LL +8 34
#note I didn't like this play but didn't like blowing the rack apart with Quackle's suggestions of 6H TWILLED or 6I WILDED, either. I realized this potentially gave back some big plays, but if he plays at 8K as I expect, he's going to give me some nice floaters for my remaining DEIT. Q says this wins 2-1/2% less often than 6H TWILLED and sims roughly 6 points down.
>Chris_Schneider: ARX 9F RAX +34 42
>Jim_Burlant: ?ADEIIT K5 DI.ATIvE +82 116
#note Or FILIATED or CILIATED. 76% to win.
>Chris_Schneider: BCNOU L1 BUNCO +27 69
>Jim_Burlant: AAEJKRT 1L .AKE +30 146
#note I considered 4 plays here: JAUK 2J, BARK/BEAK/BAKE 1L. JAUK scores 31 and leaves AERT, but it stops one slot short of the double line, and if he's got a bunch of garbage that includes an S, I'm playing for 31 and giving back twice that much for no good reason. Thus, I opted to compromise by sacrificing rack building for a much safer board. As for why BEAK/BAKE instead of BARK - with 9 E's unseen as opposed to only 4 R's, I didn't need to be attached to my E, which reduced this to a choice between BEAK/BAKE. I liked this for the vowel placement. Q likes the risky JAUK 2J, and says it wins 82.3%; this wins 80 even and sims 8.3 points down. If I had it to do again I might play BEAK but I'd still turn down JAUK, but the difference between BEAK/BAKE is splitting hairs in the sim.
>Chris_Schneider: G G8 ..G +13 82
#note Uh oh. And, oh yeah - given that he's setting up the obvious S hook, it certainly makes me glad I didn't play JAUK per Quackle's suggestion on the last turn.
>Jim_Burlant: AEEJQRT 10J Q. +31 177
>Chris_Schneider: GILOOSU 12D ISOLOGU. +70 152
#note Nice find! Only bingo for Chris, and his winning chances are back up to 27% in a short sim.
>Jim_Burlant: AEEIJRT 2J JE. +26 203
#note With the balanced pool (5 N's, 4 R's, 3S's, 4 T's, and a bunch of other synergistic tiles available) I felt that 26 points plus the AEIRT leave made this the clear winner. The points available for plays like 2K JURAT and 11D TAJ cause the sim to take a couple hundred iterations to sort out. This play does poorly statically, but once it's simmed, this percolates its way up to the top. Quackle agrees - this is best. TAJ sims 2 points down, and JURAT 2K scores 14 more but wins 2-1/2% less often and sims 5 points down on this.
>Chris_Schneider: AH 2N AH +27 179
>Jim_Burlant: AEIIRRT D5 RETIARI. +59 262
#note RETIARII is the only bingo that plays on this board, and both placements (this and at D6) score identically. The sim says the D6 placement is better; Championship Player, OTOH, says this is my best choice and that D6 is a 4-point dog. 86% to win.
>Chris_Schneider: LMSU L12 SLUM +38 217
>Jim_Burlant: ?AGHRRT H11 T.RAH +24 286
#note The are no 7's in this collection of tiles, and the only 8's (GATHERER/REGATHER, and TRIGRAPH, the latter of which I'd have never found) don't play. I couldn't think of AARGH, which plays at 8K and is the only one of the top 4 choices which unloads the dreaded N-less G. However - with the row 15 3x3 open, neutralizing that and/or reducing the scope of the threat was probably more important. If I had it to do again, I'd play another word I couldn't think of, THARM 15H. It plays off the same tiles as this, unloads a duplicated R, elminates bingoes on row 15, and scores 30 to this play's 24. This is not terrible by any means, but THARM would have been a bit better.
>Chris_Schneider: ADOPSTV -ADOPTV +0 217
>Jim_Burlant: ?ACGORT 8K .GORA +24 310
#note The only 7's I saw were DOGCART and ARGOTIC (turns out those are the only two in the rack) and they don't play. And there are no 8's available, either. As for this choice - anything is as good as anything else. The top 8 choices (of which this is one) sim within 2 points and win within 0.4% of each other. Other viable plays are ACTOR 8K, ARGOT 8K, 3I GO, 8A ORGIC, H5 CODEX, L8 GO.
>Chris_Schneider: FOP C9 FOP +27 244
>Jim_Burlant: ?BCETTY N4 YTTE.BiC +66 376
#note The bingo did not jump out at me, and I was putting down BYTE E2. when I suddenly saw this. This only scores 66. But the only plays that leave CET? or CE? (14K BUTTY, F11 TOBY or 6A BYTE) only score 20 or 17 points - just too much given up to not put the bingo down. Not only that, this also shuts down the N and O columns. 99.5% to win in a short sim.
>Chris_Schneider: AIM 15L .AIM +24 268
>Jim_Burlant: EINNOOV 14C NOVEN. +11 387
#note Right idea, wrong execution. I wanted to kill row 14/15 bingos and hasten the end of the game by emptying as much of my rack as I could. I rejected VIA 14F and VINA 14E because I thought the leaves with VINA/VIA were *so* bad I might not be able to defend the northwest on the next turn if I played them. I realized plays like SPAY/FROW 15A were potential comebacks. But, with this pushing my lead to 119 points, at the time I felt I could live with giving back 50+ as the pool was too unbalanced IMO to support a sequence of 50/bingo on his end if I turned enough tiles. In retrospect, NO G14 would have blocked row 14/15 bingos and left a reasonably balanced EINOV. Or, better yet, LENO G12 for 15, keeping INOV with 5 E's unseen. If I had it to do again, LENO G12 would have been the play. FWIW, Quackle's suggestions are useless. The duck really likes VINO 3G and IONONE C2. He can come back at H1 and set up an undefendable board if I play VINO. And IONONE opens lines - kind of a stupid thing to do.
>Chris_Schneider: AENY 15A YEAN +29 297
>Jim_Burlant: EINOPTV E4 VETO +22 409
#note Quackle likes this a lot more than my last play - Quackle's number 1 choice is 14K PUNTO, and this is its runner up. PUNTO doesn't defend; this does. What I liked about this was that it killed row 5 and the C column and adds resistance to row 3. And, as a post-mortem check of Zyzzyva confirms, there is no 8 ending in Y with this pool, so I don't have to worry about the A column. Quackle notwithstanding, I'd make this play again.
>Chris_Schneider: O 5C O.. +3 300
>Jim_Burlant: EIINPSW 6C W.. +11 420
#note Well, it's safe to say that Chris has the S, and I have to make sure he doesn't hit REDFINS as an out bingo if I want to preserve spread. Q doesn't like this even against his rack of DEFINRS, but it gets the job done.
>Chris_Schneider: DEFINRS B2 FIND +21 321
>Jim_Burlant: EEIINPS A1 SIPE +33 453
>Chris_Schneider: ERS E10 ES. +19 340
#note ERS M3 scores 23.
>Jim_Burlant: EIN 4E .INE +8 461
>Jim_Burlant: (R) +2 463
#note Chris went over 30 seconds on time. Final score 463 - 330. Overall, quite pleased with this one - most of the equity slips (TORAH instead of THARM, BAKE instead of BEAK) were quite minor. The only play I got really wrong - and I didn't get burned for it - was NOVENA, was the wrong execution of the right idea. In short, I'll take this.
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