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#player1 Jim_Burlant Jim Burlant
#player2 Jonathan_Lindh Jonathan Lindh
>Jim_Burlant: BCIOOUY 8F BUOY +18 18
#note Context: 3rd to last round. To this point, I'm 3-0 on the day and two of my three preceding wins were grinders against intermediate players. Had I drawn the same tiles against an expert that I had drawn against those players, I would have had no chance. In two of those three games, I had to exchange multiple times and things just didn't jell. Now to this game. As for this, it's obviously this word. Since I couldn't avoid vowel placement issues, I wanted to make sure he couldn't hook an S down the K column. At 2000+ iterations a 2-ply sim says that eitehr this or the 8G placement is as good as the other.
>Jonathan_Lindh: AHJ 7H HAJ +25 25
>Jim_Burlant: CEIIOOR K5 COIR +26 44
#note All I saw was K5/K7 ICIER and this. Couldn't think of OORIE K4, which is clearly better. That said, nothing I played here would have stopped him from bingiong...nor would it have changed my next turn very much:
>Jonathan_Lindh: ?AAMNOT 5D ANATOMi. +72 97
#note 9B ANATOMy scores 78.
>Jim_Burlant: EIOOOOU -IOOOOU +0 44
#note Even if I had played OORIE and left myself CI, drawing OOOU would have forced an exchange anyway. At this piont, unaware that I had whiffed on OORIE, I was fighting the, "here we go again" self-pitying sentiment. The correct play is to either exchange 6 keeping the E (my choice) or exchange 7. As regular readers of my games know, my personal philosophy is that there is almost never a good reason to exchange your only E.
>Jonathan_Lindh: BFL D3 FL.B +18 115
>Jim_Burlant: DEEENOW 8K .EWED +30 74
#note A lot of equally strong choices available. 4G EWE, 6D BOW, and this top a sim. 6F WE is also good, though IMO it's a hair too early to worry about the X just yet. With EEW blocked by FLAB, I felt this looked best, both for score and to match some of his tempo. The duck agrees - this is best.
>Jonathan_Lindh: AGINV M8 .AVING +28 143
>Jim_Burlant: ?AEIMNO O8 .OpAMINE +89 163
#note Best bingo. Other options include MELANOID, DOMINATE, DEMONIAC, all at O1/O8. Back to 50% to win.
>Jonathan_Lindh: AGP 9E GAP +20 163
>Jim_Burlant: ADEEGNS 6D .EG +19 182
#note Or DEBAG 6B if you don't mind breaking up a bit more of the rack. DEBAG wins 1-1/2% more often than this, and the late game would have surely been less suspenseful if I had played that.
>Jonathan_Lindh: DEIIRRT 3A DRI.TIER +76 239
#note Only bingo for Jonathan. He's 75% to win...but not for long:
>Jim_Burlant: ADEHNST 2G HANDSET +72 254
#note Board blindness. The E in REWED looked shut off, so I whiffed on HASTENED, which scores 82 at N2. This could have been a costly error, but I got away with it.
>Jonathan_Lindh: AKLOTTU 1L TALK +32 271
#note Actual rack - HANDSET blocked OUTTALK (well, HASTENED would have blocked that too), and his best play looks to be OTAKU 1K.
>Jim_Burlant: ELNPRRU A1 UN.ER +21 275
#note Saw DRUPEL but wasn't sure about it; DRUPEL A3 is best. As for this, I should have thought of NUDER, and you'll see why in a few turns:
>Jonathan_Lindh: OOT 1G TOO +26 297
>Jim_Burlant: AILPRSW 15H SLIPWAR. +101 376
#note Kapow! Held, but released. A short sim says I'm 93% to win, but with SXZ unseen and given how this tournament had gone, I stll felt like I had work to do.
>Jonathan_Lindh: FIQU N4 FIQU. +37 334
>Jim_Burlant: DEELOSY 10F YODEL +40 416
#note Or YODLE in the same location. Post-mortem Jonathan told me that he viewed YODEL as a killer; he never expected me to come back for 40 in that spot. 30, yes. But not 40.
>Jonathan_Lindh: EISZ A1 .....SIZE +57 391
#note Nice! But - what is he doing with SIZE if I play DEBAG a few turns ago instead of "BEG"?
>Jim_Burlant: EEIRSUV J10 .IVE +7 423
#note In retrospect I should be glad he played UNDERSIZE. I had intended to play UNDERSERVE...except a check of ZYZZYVA shows that UNDERSERVE* is phony! With possible X bonbs at 14J, the play is to block those while setting myself up to go out in two. This was the wrong execution of the right idea; while I blocked EX, I didn't block OXIC 11H. While that still won't win him the game, it still coughs up 17 more points of spread than EVIL I12, which would have been the right execution of the right idea. Fortunately for me he never found OXIC.
>Jonathan_Lindh: CENOTX 13H EX.C +21 412
>Jim_Burlant: ERSU 11C RUES +17 440
>Jim_Burlant: (NOT) +6 446
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