| Player 1 |
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#player1 Will Will
#player2 Carl Carl
>Will: ABLM 8F BALM +16 16
>Carl: ABGGHNT 7G BAHT +36 36
#note I'd finally caught up on sleep, and got to bed relatively early the night before... but then all of a sudden I woke up at 3AM and couldn't get back to sleep. This was the most important day of my Scrabble career since 2001, and I would have to play the entire day's games from a foggy, sluggish mental state. Also, my supply of fresh fruit had turned. I ended up eating half a spoiled apple for breakfast. And I felt faint again, like I did at my last Reno tournament where I collapsed. Throughout the day I spritzed water on my face, and that seemed to help a little.
>Will: IZ F8 .IZ +34 50
>Carl: GGINOPS 6H GOING +25 61
#note GIP is totally the play here, especially seeing as Will will hit Row 11 pretty hard and I can't stop him. (-5)
>Will: EENRTUV 11E VENTURE +105 155
>Carl: LOPRSVY H11 .YPOS +42 103
>Will: ?AENNQR I10 Q.EAN +27 182
>Carl: ILORUVW L4 VI.OUR +22 125
#note I talked myself out of VENTURER, thinking that it might be Collins. I must have been thinking of AVENTURE#. #wordknowledgelarge (-12)
>Will: ?EINRRT 15A pRINTER. +74 256
>Carl: AFILORW 5J WA.F +30 155
#note Plays like FOLIAR B10 or LOAF 14C are of no use because they reduce my long-term bingo options. WAIF forks the board, and pretty much has to be right at this desperate score. (-4?)
>Will: AEELTTU 13G E..ULET +20 276
>Carl: IIILOOR -IIILOO +0 155
>Will: AHIIKTU 12L HAIK +44 320
>Carl: EFGORSS B10 FORGE. +36 191
#note This play appears to win a 4-ply sim in terms of valuation, but Quackle says 9E FIG or N2 FOGS win slightly more often.
>Will: DIITX A7 DIXIT +46 366
>Carl: ENOOSSW O12 .NOW +33 224
#note Now is no time to take the points. N1 ENOWS gives me a fighting chance for a miracle 3x3 in two spots, quintupling my win percentage (from 0.2% to 1%). That being said, I'm no longer trying to win this game, I'm trying to stanch the bleeding: I make the finals so long as Will doesn't gain 500 spread points on me in this round and the next. ENOWS makes that a lot easier for him.
>Will: EJLP 8K J.LEP +42 408
>Carl: AEIOSSS 10K OSSIA +20 244
#note Conrad recommended SORA here; it does sim a little better. At least I didn't try OASISES* against the great Wanderer. (-1) #strategysmall
>Will: ADEILRU 5C AUDILE +19 427
>Carl: EEEMOST 4D METE +27 271
>Will: ANOY 13A A.ONY +18 445
#note This about sums it up. To make the finals, all I had to do was not let Will catch up on spread by 500 points over two games. In this game, I gave him 340 points. Not cool.
>Carl: ?CDDEOS N1 CODES +27 298
#note Maybe I was too tired to be angry, but I think I fully prepared myself to accept the possibility of this kind of outcome. Perhaps things would fall apart for me today, as they did for Joey at SWILLLNS, or Mike at California Open. What goes around comes around. And if you look at it this way, if it takes me 29 rounds before I get massacred like this, that's an extremely lucky tournament. You figure a game like this is in the 20th percentile of unluckiness, the chance of a game like this *not* happening in 28 rounds is .8^28 = about 1 in 517. So I have nothing to complain about even if I bust out in third place. Third would be a very respectable finish for me, way above expectations.
>Will: ACR 3C CAR +19 464
>Will: (?D) +4 468
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