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#player1 Jim_Burlant Jim Burlant
#player2 Cesar_del_Solar Cesar del Solar
>Jim_Burlant: DFGGORU 8F FRUG +16 16
#note Best of a weak lot.
>Cesar_del_Solar: HIILOSU 9H HI +15 15
#note briefly considered IGLU. i think it might actually be right. i have some ugly choices unfortunately. HOURI is the other one. i'm not actually sure what i wish i'd played, but i wonder if it makes enough of a difference. i wanted to just keep the board fairly tight. -1
>Jim_Burlant: DDGILNO 7G OD +14 30
#note A bunch of 8's in this rack, but none of them play. In this position the play is to keep things tight while unloading the letters impeding the rack. In this case, that's the duplicated D and the O. This is best.
>Cesar_del_Solar: EILOOSU F8 .OU +8 23
#note this is hard to play after his last move. perhaps i should exchange?
>Jim_Burlant: ADGIKLN 11C KAIL +23 53
#note I don't like this position. I initially saw LAKING 11F and didn't like it; even if there's only one F unseen I just didn't like what it gave back. Same for ILK 11E (even if I keep an A for ILKA hooks on the next turn) or ILKA 11E. And it goes against my grain to open up lines for easy 7's, which is another strike against ILKA. And fishing didn't seem right. So I held my nose and put this down. Not sure what I'd do if I had this turn to do again.
>Cesar_del_Solar: EEILORS C5 ROSELI.E +64 87
#note Only bingo for Cesar.
>Jim_Burlant: ADEGNRR 10I GRANDER +68 121
#note Or GNARRED in the same location. I thought the R would be marginally less dangerous to slot in the 3rd position than the D (not to mention that it gives up 3 fewer scoreboard points if he takes out the O column), but the duck indicates this is not the case. GNARRED wins roughly 0.7% more often than my choice. 55.4% to win.
>Cesar_del_Solar: EIMOPUW O4 IMPOWE. +45 132
>Jim_Burlant: ?GJLNTW 6B J.WL +30 151
#note I debated between 12B JEW and this. While JEW scores 6 more and doesn't open the Y hook, I felt it worth the risk to play JOWL for a couple of reasons. First, keeping the blank, I wanted to unload the extra consonant. Also - with lines open down the right side, I felt that giving him another distraction would ensure I'd have a place to bingo with a reasonable draw. The duck says JEW was the play. I admit this was a bit risky, but this worked out.
>Cesar_del_Solar: AAEEITU 5E EAU +10 142
#note this turn seems somewhat crucial. i got too scared, i think. i wanted to play M8 AUDITEE, and it seems kind of obvious. is that for sure right here? i was about to play it and then thought i could still play a more controlled board and try to go for a bingo. but AEIT is a crappy leave (i still bingo 29% according to quackle). this is a pretty bad move. -12
>Jim_Burlant: ?GNNSTU L4 STUNNi.G +68 219
#note Not quite the draw I was expecting, but this still worked out fine. I chose this primarily for its defense: it shuts down the K, L, and M columns and it also adds a small bit of resistance to row 4. Quackle prefers J6 UNSTRUNG/UNSTRING, which I never saw. The J column plays may indeed be a bit better, but there's nothing terrible about this. If he doesn't have an S, a 4 ending in EX or EZ, or a 5 ending in X, he doesn't have anywhere he can score more than 30 points while he's about to trail by 77 points.
>Cesar_del_Solar: AEEIPTT M3 PIETA +25 167
#note and i blocked my own PEATIEST. Play incorrectly scored as 26.
>Jim_Burlant: ACMNRSY F4 C.Y +42 261
#note Obviously it's CAY or MAY. Why CAY? I'd normally prefer to keep the C, but I have the case M and a C is still unseen, so I should play off the C first. That's why the duck gives a slim preference to CAY.
>Cesar_del_Solar: ?EEIOTV 8A VE. +18 185
#note oh interesting - N1 VOE. easy to block though and then there are no lanes. sigh. maybe M10 DOVE? i am pretty screwed. -7
>Jim_Burlant: ACMNRRS D11 .RM +14 275
#note I struggled here, and a sim makes clear why: my options all suck. And Quackle isn't much help here. With me sitting on a 76-point lead, the duck wants me to score peanuts and open up all sorts of high-probability hooks for him with plays like D10 NARC and REM 12B. So I debated between ARM D11 and the purely defensive REM N9. I rejected the N9 play because it was too early to get that cheap. I rationalized this by thinking that I did have the S and if he did somehow hit on row 13, it was going to be cheap. Given the situation it's my opinion this is as good as anything else I have. That said the only real hit in this position is equity; I'm still just under 96% to win and this barely sims 4-1/2 points down on NARC.
>Cesar_del_Solar: ?AAEIOT 13D .ETAnOIA +61 246
#note Nice find! Cesar wasn't thrilled about bingoing for only 61, but a sim confirms he doesn't have the luxury of passing up the bingo. He's 16% to win.
>Jim_Burlant: ACNORST J2 CANTORS +76 351
#note Sloppy - the worst of my 4 choices because of the unseen Z, but again the difference is still equity. 98.5% to win. CRATONS or CONTRAS are best here.
>Cesar_del_Solar: ADEIQSV 10B Q. +31 277
#note Cesar is getting screwed by his tiles. He was very reluctant to put this down, and for good reason: the A column provides his best chance at gettin back into the game, and this dump shuts it down. That said, had he not played there I would have probably dumped the X in that same spot.
>Jim_Burlant: BFILOTX H3 FOX +25 376
#note At this point I'm simply looking to not open anything for him. This scores decently (25) and shuts down air balls on row 2. Quackle prefers the insane B12 FIXT, the almost as reckless B12 FIX (a T is unseen to me), and the needlessly volatile 14J FIXT. If all the S's were out, I'd play FIXT 14J immediately. However, the unseen pool contains ZEATINS. With only 13 tiles in the bag, I now have to assume the worst case is the fairly probable case. Given the situation I'm fine with FOX, Quackle notwithstanding.
>Cesar_del_Solar: ADEEISV 14J DEAVE +35 312
#note This is a terrific play by Cesar. He has to create threats and he's done just that while he's scored well.
>Jim_Burlant: BIILNTT H11 BI.IT +21 397
#note I now face a situation where the threat isn't clear. Is it ZEDA O12? BANDIES on row 15? The only thing to do here is score 21 with BINIT, take the bag to one, and see what happens. Worst case, if he hits the threat I don't block, I'm still in position to (hopefully) outrun him. Q agrees - this is clearly my best play.
>Cesar_del_Solar: ADEEINS 15B ANDESI.E +61 373
#note He took a long time here before shrugging his shoulders and putting this down. I don't think Quackle is much help to him here - it thinks he should just fish with B6 JEE, which is stupid IMO. He thought he might have been better off fishing with ICE 2I, but even that doesn't help once I know for sure what he's sitting on. In reality, his not having picked the Z until the bitter end doomed him.
>Jim_Burlant: BHLNOTY 14A BY +24 421
#note HYLA B12 is better here, but I was starting to run low on time and I was under a minute by now.
>Cesar_del_Solar: Z - +0 373
>Jim_Burlant: HLNOT 15N HO +20 441
>Cesar_del_Solar: Z - +0 373
>Jim_Burlant: LNT 12G L. +4 445
>Cesar_del_Solar: Z - +0 373
>Jim_Burlant: NT 14G T. +6 451
>Cesar_del_Solar: Z - +0 373
>Jim_Burlant: N N10 .N +2 453
#note Was down to 3 seconds when this went down. Better would have been 12G LIN.
>Jim_Burlant: (Z) +20 473
#note Final score recorded as 473 - 374.
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