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#player1 Darrell_Day Darrell Day
#player2 Jim_Burlant Jim Burlant
>Darrell_Day: AEFRU 8D FEUAR +24 24
>Jim_Burlant: AMNORST E5 TON.ARMS +90 90
#note The context: this is the final round KOTH game. I'm in first place with 4 wins, and nobody has more than 3 wins. If I win the game, I win the tournament, period. If I lose, I may not finish in the money. As for this rack: bingoes all over the place with this, but this scores 90 and none of the others (D8 FORMANTS, 7G MATRONS, I4 TRANSOM, etc.) score above the 70's. This is best.
>Darrell_Day: EGI F4 GIE +12 36
>Jim_Burlant: ?ALSTUU 12D U.UAL +12 102
#note FAIL. I suspected I missd something but the duplicated U's take this rack way past any probability range I have ever studied. I saw mUTUALS but wasn't sure if MUTUAL took the S. I never saw the anagram, UMLAUTS, and didn't know SUTURAL and would have never thought to look for pUSTULAR. The best non-bingo if I want to live dangerously is ULU D12. Glad I only saw this given his next rack:
>Darrell_Day: ACEIKLS 13G SACLIKE +89 125
#note Clearly the best bingo for Darrell - of note is the sick 5A EKISTICAL. Darrell is 55% to win with this, but not for long.
>Jim_Burlant: ?AARSTW K7 WiSTAR.A +70 172
#note Surprisingly, nothing available for more than 70 points here. That said, 10B WARRANTS looks a hair better - I never saw it. Other options include M6 RADWASTE, M8 AWAITERS, and M7 TEAWARES/SEAWATER. This was held, but released. 65% to win.
>Darrell_Day: DOO 10B DOO. +9 134
>Jim_Burlant: DEENNPQ 8J P.NNED +27 199
#note Good, but apparently not best. Quackle says I should play the other E for 4 more points with L3 PENNED. Regardless, this worked out. 70% to win.
>Darrell_Day: FNO 7G FON +22 156
>Jim_Burlant: EIILQRT 9I QI. +26 225
#note Believe it or not, I almost missed this, as I had been fixated on playing QI 9A for defense. If my lead were on the order of two bingoes I might do that, because in that situation, I could afford to give up 42 for TRANQ so long as I didn't give back a bingo. But with the game this close, the play gives up too much. Quackle agrees: this is best, and the 9A placement wins 6% less often and sims nearly 14 points down. 84% to win.
>Darrell_Day: AGR 9A RAG +14 170
>Jim_Burlant: EILOORT A4 LOOTE. +21 246
#note It was getting late in the day, and as tough as the latter half of the Holser and Early games had been, I was starting to wear down. I initially considered WOO 7K to balance the rack. While that play does well statically, it fares terribly in the sim. I rejected it because I thought that if I played WOO and he took out the A column, I'd have a no-go. At the time I put this down, I was content with it - 5 tiles turned, IR leave (probably the best thing I could salvage given this position). When his next play came down, I realized I'd made a pretty bad mistake. LOITER, TOILER, or ROOTIER are better choices.
>Darrell_Day: AIRY B3 AIRY +32 202
#note Just desserts - and if there were justice he'd have hit a huge X bomb on this turn.
>Jim_Burlant: BDIRSTU 2B DUB +30 276
#note I was very upset when he put down AIRY - not because he had the tiles to score there, but because I'd made the sort of mistake that I flat-out know better than to make when I played LOOTER instead of LOITER or ROOTIER. And this caused an even bigger blunder, as I never recognized the 7 in this rack. Sad, but true. I briefly looked for 8's (there are none in this rack) and just didn't look hard enough to find the 7. I'm still 94% to win, but I should have been 100%. This is pathetic!
>Darrell_Day: BEM H11 B..ME +27 229
>Jim_Burlant: ?IORSTV 15A VIRTuOS. +83 359
#note And lucky for me, this is Scrabble - it doesn't matter how poorly you play when you double-blank luck-bag your opponent. TRAVOISE in the same location scores 92 but whatever - this one's over but for the final score. And at this point I lost whatever focus I had and just moved tiles to end the game. Quackle never ceases to amuse me - my winning chances are 99.66%. What miracle can Darrell conjure up to win this game?
>Darrell_Day: ILV M12 V.IL +7 236
>Jim_Burlant: ADEINYZ 1D AZIDE +53 412
#note And when it rains, it pours. I wondered if I should keep the A in reserve for later, but I looked at the pool, decided that, since AZIDE didn't give back any easy 7's, I should just hasten the end of the game.
>Darrell_Day: IJ 7C JI. +23 259
>Jim_Burlant: EEGNTXY 15M .EX +30 442
#note Auto-pilot at this point. Best is a play I didn't exactly look very hard to find: 14B TEENY 54.
>Darrell_Day: EHINOPT J11 HE.P +32 291
>Jim_Burlant: EEGHNTY 3B .NY +24 466
#note Cute, but TEENY 14B scores 54. Yeah, you could say I lost focus once I knew the tournament was clinched.
>Darrell_Day: CEEIOTW 2H TOW +16 307
>Jim_Burlant: EGHNT 3I HENT +25 491
#note TIGHTEN goes out for 22.
>Darrell_Day: CEEI O8 .EICE +9 316
>Darrell_Day: (G) +4 320
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