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#player1 JJB John J. Bulten
#player2 IW Ian Weinstein
>JJB: ACEGPRT 8G GAP +12 12
#note 0:30 [24:30] In this tournament's championship match, IW leads by one game and +230. If IW wins, JJB takes third place or lower; if he draws or loses by up to 114, JJB gets second place; 115 shares prizes equally, and JJB gets first prize with a win of 116 or more. The match was anticipated and spectated. On the opening rack, for once, Quackle prefers the longer play, parget 24, by 1.4, but JJB is bingo-hunting from the start.
>IW: DENORSU J2 ENDUROS +69 69
#note 0:38 [24:22] IW spots many of the 15 possibilities and agonizes for all of 38 seconds, and doubts the best play afterwards. Best scores are undoers j4 and enduros j8, 71, and undoers is more centralized, but centralization hurts full-game valuation, and so enduros j8 leads most simulations by win percentage due to volatility.
>JJB: ACEFRTT 2I F.T +6 18
#note ~3:00 [~21:30] JJB knows it's not fractate* but thinks that means there's no word rather than that it's a signal to keep trying. The study system should have, and did not, yield artefact 101 (76.0 diff). So the game starts with a very big oversight, and just gets more interesting from there. Also recommended are feat k2 28 and fracted/crafted 4d 28.
>IW: ADIQ 1F QADI +47 116
#note 0:17 [24:05] As IW likes to mutter, "third-best play on the board": in haste he misses qaid/qadi hooking feta for 55!
>JJB: ACENRTT 5H TR.NCATE +70 88
#note ~1:46 [19:44] JJB finally gets into a list he knows well, finds all the bingos, and plays the best.
>IW: EMW 4M MEW +27 143
#note 4:41 [19:24] IW uses up clock to select this; he's not holding a typical bingo leave and does not find anything stronger than double-double parallelism.
>JJB: ?ADIIMS 2A MISlAID +88 176
#note 1:05 [18:39] JJB is very happy but the hidden play was ascidium/smew l3 94.
>IW: EGHOOPY 1A HOO +43 186
#note 2:23 [17:01] IW is about to play omophagy for a million, he says later, except that it's one letter off and scores a mere 248. The correct play is straightforward but not a rack improvement.
>JJB: DEIILOV O1 VIE..D +39 215
#note 0:22 [18:17] JJB bangs down a play to keep up time pressure, missing only ivied 1k 41 (4.9 diff).
>IW: EGNPRTY D1 P.ENTY +38 224
#note 0:44 [16:17] Again best.
>JJB: EIILOOV 9E OVOLI +21 236
#note 1:06 [17:11] JJB also makes good turnover and leave with the best play.
>IW: ACGIORR 3L GOR. +23 247
#note 2:08 [14:09]
>JJB: AEILLST 10H TAILLES +69 305
#note 0:50 [16:21] The only tough choice is between tailles/tallies. One could argue that the hook tailless indicates tallies is safer for a 58-point lead, or that tailles is more sketchy and unnerving. JJB, having forgotten the hook, makes his decision on completely other grounds: he just doesn't want an I in a double column.
>IW: ACEIRSX M9 X.RIC +44 291
#note 1:54 [12:15] IW holds for long enough for JJB to draw and track, and is troubled by not finding a recall for this word. He concludes that JJB must know something for the well-known hook to be available, and that his response is certainly helpful enough, so lets the word pass. (If challenge had succeeded, raxes 41 scores almost the same, but suffers much in leave.)
>JJB: BEEJNRY 8A BEERY +38 343
#note 0:57 [15:24]
>IW: ABEENRS L8 BE. +17 308
#note 2:36 [9:39] Beaners* is IW's reminder that there is no 7. The mnemonic is bean-ers: volts. Quackle puts bales l8 35 at .8 ahead.
>JJB: IJKNTUW 10B JUNK +41 384
#note 0:18 [15:06] JJB's response is ready, but he needs either to shut down bingos or to make good on every turn through the end. This 76-point lead is his highest of the game.
>IW: AENORSU 11E EAU +28 336
#note 1:39 [8:00] JJB has offered yet another good opening. Onus 11b 43 (5.9 diff), 4-overlap, would probably be even more in IW's style.
>JJB: AHIIOTW 11B OH +19 403
#note 2:25 [12:41] With 8 tiles in the bag (actual: AAFGLNUZ), exchanging 7 actually ranks in the top 10 and well above JJB's choice, but it is highly likely IW has filtered all the best unseen (indeed, he holds EENORS?) so this sometimes useful note is not a consideration today. Top plays are the quirky lithia k10 18 (11.4 diff), owie b5 15, whoa 12f 21. However, JJB is seeking plays that weaken bingo lines, and in this game makes a poor choice (whoa wins on that standard). If he had valued the S hook he would have needed something like trio 11l 12.
>IW: ?EENORS O9 EStRONE +79 415
#note 0:27 [7:33] IW shocks JJB by hooking his own bingo. Reshone is available but equal because all the Os for o8 are gone.
>JJB: AIILTWZ 3G ZA +44 447
#note 2:33 [10:08] The players were able to postmortem this one pretty fully. JJB first tracked, but was hampered by the fact that his double-check agreed on the wrong rack: both notes and board seemed to say that IW held D instead of G (maybe the two Ds close together blurred the search!). He spots za 44 with no outplay and anticipates a lead of 32, reasoning that he can still overcome IW's counterplay in the time allowed. He even sees fauna (fanga is also held), but totally neglects his latest opening at a11. In reality, the players rapidly discover that fauna properly ties za. However, IW's best play nets 33 (JJB loses by 1), so za has net of only 11. The sheer preponderance of Z plays, including ziti in 3 lines, indicates JJB should have kept looking. IW points out the first order of business, besides total retracking in true Polatnick style, should have been finding and blocking fauna: namely with jowl 14, JJB adds. Among za blocks, postmortem shows aft h3 does not block, fa 4g allows zit 6f, and fat is still deeply buried. However, the surprise gnu 4f 8, zag l1 30, alfa 13a 14+6 comes close, netting 16 (JJB wins by 4). But with za, JJB has no win.
>IW: AAFGNU A11 FAUNA +36 451
#note 1:17 [6:16] IW calculates that fauna 36, jow 18, gi 6+8 will net 32, a tie, and proceeds on that basis. However, he does not put together the alternative: fanga 39, jow 18, un 4+8, net of 33, a win! His play has the same win potential as JJB's: none.
>JJB: IILTW 12E LIT +19 466
#note 7:29 [2:39] JJB now makes a comedy of errors. He has first misadded za as 445, not 447. He cannot see IW's rack as other than D, not G; so he cannot see his duty as other than blocking yoked 13. He also misses ad/ed and sees IW's backup as de 5. He compares yokel e8 12, li 12e 16, wily 6a 12, and lit 12e 19 in his notes, considering everything as losing, and concludes that lit will net 4 but that he is down by 6. The reality, found minutes later, is very different. Lit 19, jog 14+10 will net -5, loss by 9. The block needed was simply jow 18, gi 6+8, net of 4, tie. With this move JJB releases hold on even the tying possibility.
>IW: G 12A .G +14 465
#note 0:22 [5:54] IW first confirms score as always before the denouement, and says, "I have you at 466," and JJB, who had spent 8 minutes calculating a loss by 2, hears it as assigning him exactly the 2 missing points; he replies sharply, "Oh, do you?" looking IW straight in the eye, thinking he has just heard news that he has drawn instead of lost. Next, IW confirms, JJB corrects his score, and IW plunks down the last tile, a G for 14. JJB is shocked again and goes back into loss mode. After the smoke clears it's -9 and he fittingly has IW on his rack. The players lapse into banter, paperwork, and postmortem with a sigh of relieved stress, made more complicated by JJB's recount running underneath and throughout. One spectator said there are hardly any pros who would have resisted the bait of za and correctly found jowl.
>IW: (IW) +10 475
#note These players knew they were likely to meet twice today, and, with JJB taking the first, IW takes the second game, converting a late-game deficit of 76 into a win of 9. IW claims first prize and JJB third prize. JJB missed artefact 101 when his system should have indicated it and several other known words, while IW missed the feta hook and indicated fuzziness on tailles and fanga. In JJB's previous game, both players made losing plays on their last moves; this game, both players made non-winning plays on their second-to-last moves, but JJB's endgame errors were more serious. Perhaps in honor of Steve Polatnick, IW shocked JJB the most with estrone, the singular of the word JJB had played against Joanne Cohen that morning; the words you see, you will play. Points improvable based on tiles played: IW 11, JJB 20. Points improvable based on values: IW 17.7+, JJB 113.7.
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