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#player1 Joshua_Sokol Joshua Sokol
#player2 Jason_Li Jason Li
>Joshua_Sokol: ALQUUYY 8E QUAY +32 32
#note This was a great game I had against Jason at club tournament. This position was chosen since I had another U for scoring next turn. Jason kibitzed that that had to be wrong with his professorial overconfidence. He was obviously biased!
>Jason_Li: ?DEGIOO H1 IDEOlOG. +89 89
>Joshua_Sokol: ALRRTUY E8 .UARRY +36 68
#note Well, I did think this was a great game. But things are never as they seem. The spot I set up for myself gave me tunnel vision and I didn't look for a spot to bingo. RURAL(I)TY is the easy find and ULTRA(D)RY is the pro find here! Boo me, already deserving to lose. Jason's opinion about my first move's position haunts me!
>Jason_Li: AACEIOR 5E COA.IER +32 121
>Joshua_Sokol: ?ILSSTU 3C LUStI.ST +68 136
#note Many bingos play for this score, and it's very hard to discern the little things that make one bingo better or worse than another!
>Jason_Li: ABNNTTU 12C TU.BAN +18 139
#note Jason said he considered TU(R)BAN and ABUT D12. I prefer this play to ABUT but I think I like 12D B(R)UNT best of all.
>Joshua_Sokol: AIJLMOW 4D MAW +34 170
#note But blocking JOWA(R) was inevitable. Unfortunately I missed a great opportunity to set up my J here. 11G MIAOW is decidedly the best play.
>Jason_Li: DEKNOOT H12 .OOK +24 163
#note C9 KNO(T)TED is available for 34, although that is quite dangerous. I think I like it best though, despite obvious flaws. Especially since Jason didn't think S(NOOK) was a word!
>Joshua_Sokol: GIIJLOP K4 P.IG +7 177
#note This is a very very interesting turn for me. I was completely stumped. I unfortunately missed, for the second time, a great opportunity to set up my J and get rid of junk with J5 E(P)ILOG. I was looking for that move exactly, but was unable to find it over the board. It's much better than my play. I considered 13B JO, C9 JIL(T), and I missed 15H (K)OJI, GOPI(K) and 10C JI(A)O. My idea here was to create a fake X setup, have Jason think hard about blocking, and instead set up JOLE L1 if I draw an E, T(A)J, R(A)J or H(A)J G11 if I draw one of those tiles, and JIL(T)ED or JIL(T)ER if I get especially fortunate. This was a crazy idea but I stand by it. Although EPILOG is just a really huge improvement.
>Jason_Li: DDELNTT 6G T.ND. +21 184
#note unfortunately, I gave Jason a great place to dump his consonants. Instant karma for a mistake. That's what I like to see in this game!
>Joshua_Sokol: FIJLNOO 13B JO +22 199
#note Now I can relatively safely set up points with my own O. Although responses to a JO overlap on the 15A triple are kind of problematic. Anyways, really my only decent option.
>Jason_Li: DEELLRT 1G T.LLERED +60 244
#note I was quite unhappy to see this come down, but this is still a game!
>Joshua_Sokol: AEFILNO 14A FOE +33 232
#note 14A ION is a counterintuitive option that does very well here. This is the regular play, but I like ION the more I look at things. Sets up huge points for myself!
>Jason_Li: EOTTVVX 10D V.V +17 261
>Joshua_Sokol: AGILNNS M1 .ANLINGS +72 304
#note I didn't think LOANINGS was valid. Alas, it is! It's a marginal difference but 13G LOANINGS is a bit better than this, I would say. Maybe not. EANLINGS does great things to the board.
>Jason_Li: AEMOTTX 15A ETA +38 299
#note Good play by Jason. He's gonna need something to happen to win at this point, though.
>Joshua_Sokol: EHIIPRZ I13 HI +20 324
#note ouch. Bad overlook of PHI in the same spot. This has the merit of setting up Z(A)P for 26, but that's not good enough to outdo PHI.
>Jason_Li: AEHMOTX F12 .OX +33 332
#note That H draw was great for Jason. He now has basically a free lane at N8. But wait, Jason has a slick play here that both he and I missed! (I had correctly inferred Jason had the X from the time it took to play ETA, so I was looking for plays that could hurt so I could see how to respond) 4K (P)H(L)OX is 50 and keeps a decent scoring leave. The score alone makes it a better play than this, though BOX has great merits of its own.
>Joshua_Sokol: CEIPRSZ 2B PEC +23 347
#note I immediately regretted playing HI here, not cause I saw PHI but cause I also considered PI in the same spot for a short time. I knew it wasn't a better play but I didn't like HI. I noted that had I played PI, I would have a devastating SCHERZI at 11H for 101, putting the game out of reach. I was pretty sure SNOOK was a word, too.
So I first looked at ZIPS at J10 and 6B. It seemed 6B was better since it didn't give back as much and didn't interfered with S(NOOK). But then I looked harder, and tried to see if playing G11 Z(A) had any merit as a fish, but it didn't seem like I could draw into much if anything at all. An E draw doesn't yield me any bingos and that was good enough to discard Z(A). I also knew that if I could score elsewhere and keep the SZ combo, that would be great. Then I saw PEC at 2B. That was fantastic to see, since it sets up an unblockable spot for my S. That spot will stay there all game, since there are no O's and U's to hook the P at B1. That was good enough for me.
>Jason_Li: AEHIMNT N8 HEMATIN +91 423
#note And then Jason laid this down, and my hopes and dreams crashed right before my eyes... What an incredibly bad case scenario for me! Now there are two huge huge spots open and I cannot bingo.
>Joshua_Sokol: BEIRSWZ O5 WIZES +71 418
#note I was just decimated here! All seemed lost. It seemed like I was doomed if Jason had the F. But unfortunately I made a really bad calculation error here, which is unusual. I calculated FEED at 15L as a 75-point play, adding HEMATINE 3 times as if the N was right above the triple! Given this I actually thought I couldn't even score enough if I drew into a 90-ish point bingo at A2. I also didn't initially see anything I could draw into, but I really only looked at the likely draws before making the flawed calculation. I was considering W(I)Z or B(I)Z at M13 for wins that included drawing into a bingo. B(I)Z is less intuitive but yields me 1 more point if I get a bingo, since the W would be tripled and in W(I)Z's case it's only doubled. But after the bad calculation, which had Jason at 498 after FEED with me having to get 115 or 117 points for my bingo, I tried to find bingos with the Z and couldn't see any either. Had I not miscalculated, I would find that FEED brings Jason to 472, so my bingo would need to score 89 to win, which is within the realm of possibility. Also, had I kept my head straight, I would have concluded that logically, Jason would never go at L15 if I had a bingo, since it would play on column O for even more points. ANYWAYS...
The real issue is how much Jason would be scoring on column O next turn. Given that, I am not drawing into a bingo with a Z. I am only drawing into SIDEBAR at A2. That is the only thing that plays and would maybe score enough to win, after W(I)Z. WIZ brings me to 377, and SIDEBAR brings me to 471. So Jason's cumulative score for next turn would have to be superior to 48 points to win. He would have REFINE O3 for 48. I would get 2 points from his leftover E and win by 2! (Knowing me, I would miss SIDEBAR as I have in the past, play SEABIRD and lose!
Instead I chose the spread-saving play and hoped for the F, which I did draw in due time.
Instead
>Jason_Li: ADEEENR 15J EARNED +37 460
#note O10 RANEE, but Jason mistracked.
>Joshua_Sokol: BFIR M11 FIB +31 449
#note scored as 29 I think
>Jason_Li: E N1 .E +10 470
>Jason_Li: (R) +2 472
#note Well in the end, I didn't play nearly as well as I expected I did. Jason played much better than me and therefore deserved to win. But this was still a great game to analyze! I hope you enjoyed. I went 1-3 that night and my average was a whopping 434-452.
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