| Player 1 |
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#player1 Chris_Cree Chris Cree
#player2 Jim_Burlant Jim Burlant
>Chris_Cree: AMO 8F MOA +10 10
>Jim_Burlant: AAEOORT 9E AORTA +16 16
#note No clue what to do with this. TOEA leaving OAR felt too vowel overloaded, I didn't want to float the E with AORTAE, fishing with MOA/OMA didn't appeal...so I compromised with this. Even Quackle can't decide - the sim thinks MOA is best, and Championship Player thinks OAT 7E is best. <>
>Chris_Cree: EIL 10D LEI +14 24
>Jim_Burlant: EENORRU J6 ROUE +12 28
>Chris_Cree: EE D10 .EE +6 30
>Jim_Burlant: CEGINRV 7I V.G +11 39
#note Q hates this, feeling that I should just play V(LEI) and keep the G. Considering how the game panned out, Q may have a point:
>Chris_Cree: AAEEINT 13D TAENIAE +63 93
>Jim_Burlant: CDEFINR 14J FINED +47 86
#note So far, I've had minor differences of opinion with the duck, but my plays have been generally in the ballpark. What happened here typified the tournament I was having:
>Chris_Cree: AEQRU M9 QUAER. +50 143
#note Foiled. He's just blocked my impending bingo...and this was where I threw away any chance I had of staying in this game, much less winning it.
>Jim_Burlant: ACDEORR H11 ER.CA +24 110
#note He's just blocked CORRADED and no bingoes play. What did me in here was my inability to think of CAIRD in the same location. If, for argument's sake, there were still 10 E's unseen, then ERICA would be reasonable. But, with only 3 E's remaining in the pool, I really need to keep my E. This equity slip killed the game, as you'll see in a second.
>Chris_Cree: BHSU L4 HUBS +26 169
>Jim_Burlant: ?DDIORT M2 DOIT +17 127
#note There is no playable bingo here. And if I'd played CAIRD like I should have, I'd be sitting on DEIORT? and would be playing TREnDOID on row 15 and I'd be winning 50 - 55%. Instead, I've screwed myself into a position where my best play barely wins 31%. This barely wins 27. The duck prefers DROIT overlapping the Q - looks right. I put this down to try and open the northeast since I didn't want to give back easy points down the O column. Hopefully some tile turnover will land some vowels, or so went my thinking.
>Chris_Cree: JPU 11J PUJ. +26 195
>Jim_Burlant: ?BDINRT 12C B.D +9 136
#note While I'm playing putridly, the sim confirms that the tile bag isn't helping me either. It's so bad that, even in possession of the blank, my best play of BIG K5 barely wins 20% when my last turn won 27. I put this down to open another line and keep my only vowel since the pool is fairly vowel depleted.
>Chris_Cree: GHIN K2 NIGH +35 230
>Jim_Burlant: ?INRRTZ -RZ +0 136
#note Now I'm brain locking. Yet another putrid draw.The N column plays are so dangerous that, blank or not, I can't bring myself to play them, and I also felt the pressure to bingo with the blank ASAP. This is absolutely putrid on my end but like I said, I was brain locked. The sim confirms my options absolutely all suck - Q likes 3M OR, N8 RIN/ZIN. I just thought that maybe I could bingo down the G column or down the B column or on row 15 and let him deal with the Z on this board. Surprisingly this isn't that bad relative to the other options, but that's more of a reflection of how limited my choices are than the strength of this play.
>Chris_Cree: EVX N1 VEX +41 271
>Jim_Burlant: ?INPRTW N8 WIT +23 159
#note At this point I just gave up - the only place to score and turn tiles was here, so I did just that. Maybe TWIN to turn more of the rack and prevent Chris's next comeback, not that it really mattered by this point:
>Chris_Cree: EIKSY O5 YIKES +63 334
>Jim_Burlant: ?NNNPRS K10 N.N +3 162
#note Q wants me to play at 15G with PANS...I still held out the slim hop that I could at least bingo there. Realistically this is as good as anything I can do.
>Chris_Cree: ACFIL B11 CALIF +27 361
>Jim_Burlant: ?EMNPRS 6N M. +10 172
#note And SPEARMAN is blocked. AT this point I was still convinced I could bingo and didn't want to part with my E. I should probably concede to reality and play A14 ME for 31 if only to save spread.
>Chris_Cree: GO A14 GO +27 388
>Jim_Burlant: ?EINPRS N8 ...S +21 193
#note Amazingly, no bingos play.
>Chris_Cree: DRT 15G D.RT +11 399
>Jim_Burlant: ?EINOPR J2 OP +14 207
#note Totally blind to the tile pool and beyond caring what happened by this point. I should have just played JEON for the points and given up on my pipe dream. Instead, I threw even more gasoline on the fire:
>Chris_Cree: ?LOTYZ 1E ZLOTYs +55 454
>Jim_Burlant: ?EINORS E1 .ONER +28 235
>Chris_Cree: ALW D2 LAW +26 480
>Chris_Cree: (IS?) +4 484
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