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#player1 Darrell_Day Darrell Day
#player2 Jim_Burlant Jim Burlant
>Darrell_Day: JO 8G JO +18 18
#note Context: this is the king of the hill game. Darrell and I both have 4 wins. 3rd place is 1 win behind me and trails me by roughly 225 spread points. Bottom line: win the game, win the tournament. Lose the game and don't get blown out, I'm probably finishing second.
>Jim_Burlant: ADIOPUU G6 PU.A +15 15
#note Yuck. I didn't like any of the row 9 plays because of what they potentially gave back, and AUDIO H4 didn't seem worth it. If Q is to be believed, I need to suck it up and concede the position as a lost cause by playing AUDIO 9C. The consolation: no matter what I put down here, he was going to bingo on this turn.
>Darrell_Day: ?DEIMRV 6E IM.RoVED +79 97
#note Had I put down AUDIO he'd have still hit MARAVEDI down the C column.
>Jim_Burlant: ?ADINOU K6 .UDAImON +66 81
#note It's this or varying placements of AUDITION down the E column. 33% to win.
>Darrell_Day: BEIOSTU 13H BOU.TIES +72 169
#note Ouch!
>Jim_Burlant: AAGORRS 5A AGORA +16 97
#note Spent a while here because I couldn't recall if AGORA took the back S. I've seen AGORAE played many times but could not recall if I had ever seen AGORAS played. Seriously. With the tournament win on the line, I was taking no chances. As for this instead of playing at 12D: Darrell plays a very defensive style reminiscent of what David Gibson is known for. Between being fixated on unloading the G and knownig his tendencies, I played this to ensure that the board stayed alive. The sim confirms my hunches: AGORAS is definitely best; this is a mistake I can live with, though if I had it to do again, AGORAS would have been better.
>Darrell_Day: QT A4 Q.T +22 191
#note I don't recall his rack, but he told me post mortem that he passed up a play in the neighborhood of 35 - 40 points down the right side of the board to shut this down. See my previous comment about his defensive tendencies.
>Jim_Burlant: GLNNRSU 8K .UNGS +24 121
#note You gotta know it to play it. NURSLING (p > 145000) plays at M8 and scores 60. NURSLING wins 20%; this wins 9.
>Darrell_Day: EEPTW H1 PEWTE. +36 227
>Jim_Burlant: AEELNNR H13 .EN +15 136
#note This time I saw the 8's (ANNEALER and LANNERET), and neither of them play. This leaves me a very strong combo and, more importantly, gives me yet another line for an 8. Q agrees - this is best. Not quite 7% to win.
>Darrell_Day: OTY I8 TOY +17 244
>Jim_Burlant: AEFILNR 2A FLANERI. +76 212
#note A number of bingoes are available here: FINAGLER N4, INFERNAL on row 15, and this word both at 2A and 14A. I chose this placement beause it looked less likely to give back easy points than the row 14 placement. It takes a while for the sim to sort out, but Q agrees with me: this is best. 17% to win.
>Darrell_Day: CEINRTT O2 CENTRI.T +61 305
#note Darrell told me post-mortem he was only 50/50 on whether CITTERN took the S and preferred to take the guaranteed 61 instead of possibly playing for 0. He's still in excellent shape - he's 93% to win.
>Jim_Burlant: AABCFLW 3K FABL. +20 232
#note No real clue what to do here. You would think that, with this collection of tiles, I should be able to score 30 - 35 points, but Quackle confirms that none of my better plays scores more than 20 - 23 points. As for this: I never saw FAWN, FLEW N12 looked wrong. Why I decided on this: maybe it's too early for me to be thinking this way, but with the bag down to 25 and the game entering the 4th quarter, a bingo isn't going to be enough. I needed a bingo AND something big - perhaps with the X?. And, at a bare minimum, I've guaranteed myself 30-some points for the W on the next turn. A sim makes it clear why I struggled: everything wins within 1% and sims within 2 points of the best option. Nothing really stands out and this comes down to style preference.
>Darrell_Day: GIILSVX 4L XI +40 345
#note Actual rack. Post-mortem Darrell chastised himself for this play. With multiple spots for the X, he realized his mistake, telling me that he should have played 10B VIGILS, and his analysis is spot on. Why? Not only does it score well (34 points), but if he plays VIGILS, all he has to do to kill the board is play something at 14B or 14C, which will limit bingo opportunities to disconnected 9's. And it turns 6 tiles, thus hastening the end of the game. Quackle agrees with his post-mortem analysis. While he's still 98% to win, VIGILS wins that hair extra and sims nearly 4 points better.
>Jim_Burlant: ACEHHIW O11 WI.HA +36 268
#note Best, but it's looking bleak. 1-1/2% to win.
>Darrell_Day: GILSVZ C1 Z.G +26 371
#note I don't know the 7th tile here, but Quackle says that, from this rack fragment he should have played 10D VIGS, primarily for the same reasons he should have played on row 10 the previous turn.
>Jim_Burlant: ACEHINS 10A CHAINES +86 354
#note Throwing up a flare. This also plays on row 11 for 81 points to this play's 86. It wasn't just the 5 extra points that swayed me towards this choice. The deciding factor was that the row 11 placement just didn't feel like it would yield enough scoring opportunities after his comeback play for me to make up the ground. I put this down, crossed my fingers that I could draw the K and that, maybe, just maybe, I'd catch him with his pants down and he'd have to come back for cheap and I could claw my way back in. The sim agrees with me, saying that this wins 2-1/2% more often than the 11C placement. That said, this is still looking bleak: I'm barely 14% to win.
>Darrell_Day: EILOSV A10 .LOVES +36 407
>Jim_Burlant: EKLMORR C9 M.RKER +30 384
#note Championship Player confirms I don't have a win. My thought process: Darrell has taken the bag down to 1, and this play guarantees me an out on the next turn no matter which tile I draw out of the bag. Champ confirms: this is best.
>Darrell_Day: ADEEIOY L10 DEI.Y +26 433
#note Or KEYED 12C.
>Jim_Burlant: DLO 2J DOL +23 407
>Jim_Burlant: (AEO) +6 413
#note This may have been potentially winnable for a player with stronger word knowledge, but I'm not hanging my head over this one. The only real mistakes were (a) not taking a chance on a word I wasn't sure of and (b) missing a low-probability bingo I've never seen played or encountered in study.
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