| Player 1 |
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#player1 Carl Carl Johnson
#player2 Alec Alec Sjoholm
>Carl: EKOORTV 8D VOTER +24 24
#note This was a fascinating opening rack, and the first of many difficult decisions this game. I didn't particularly like playing VOTER, and tanked for a few minutes looking for something beter. It seemed suboptimal because it gave Alec some good parallel opportunities as well as bingo tiles to play through. The commentators recommended RETOOK, which I didn't see. Even though it's a common word, it doesn't come up very often. I think I've never played it before, and it would have required some creativity to find it. I suppose in that moment it wasn't in my lexicon. The only other play I considered was OK. Even though it only scores 12 points, I recognized that EORTV was a deceptively strong leave. And OK doesn't give back as much for Alec. Ultimately, I didn't think keeping EORTV vs KO was worth 12 points. RETOOK narrowly wins the sim, followed by OK (-2), and VOTER (-4). And maybe if I had found RETOOK, a butterfly would have flapped its wings and I would be the champion.
>Alec: DEERTUW 7E WUD +21 21
#note Wow, I had no idea DERTU was so good. 7G WE is best. #strategymedium
>Carl: BEEKNOU 6F BONE +27 51
#note I ruled out BONK here. It scores 4 points more but keeps three vowels, which is dreadful. Despite this, BONK is worth considering, because it can be hooked only with an S, whereas BONE takes a variety of hooks that will make it easy for Alec to score, most notably the Y. For these reasons, NEB 9E is better than either BONK/BONE. I don't think I saw NEB. If I did see it, then I might have disregarded it because EKOU is a worse leave than EKU, but failed to notice the positional advantages of NEB. This is the kind of mistake I'm most likely to make. I focus so intently on maximizing my score and keeping a good leave that I don't give enough consideration to what opportunities I offer my opponent. It's a critical leak in my game. (-4) #strategymedium
>Alec: EEINRRT 5G RENTIER +73 94
>Carl: AEEKORU 4D EUREKA +51 102
>Alec: CDEFNPR L1 FENC.D +32 126
>Carl: EEJORST N3 RESOJET +74 176
#note I seriously considered JO or JEON at 3I, passing up the bingo just because it gives back so much for Alec. In the end, I decided the bingo was worth it because both blanks were unseen, and RESOJET opens up a second lane at O4. I also noticed JEERS J2 but ruled it out because it kept a poor leave, and seemed inferior in every way to JO/JEON. This is correct, but this is a rare situation where it's correct to forgo an early bingo. The benefits of JO and the positional inferiority of RESOJET make JO the winner here. I just wasn't courageous enough to do something so unorthodox.
>Alec: ?AGLPRY 2F PLAYGo.R +73 199
#note The hotspot at O8 is so lucrative that it is worth the 34-point sacrifice to block with 8J GRAPEY. I didn't see GRAPEY, but even GLEY is worth playing there as well. And AGLEY, and GREY, and PLAYER.... #tacticsmedium
>Carl: AAEIMST 1G AMA +34 210
#note As much as I would love to play something at O8, this seemed too good to pass up. EIST is one of the best possible 4-tile combinations, and seemed especially useful for bingoing from the R at H8. Quackle prefers just MA O8. With more than half the As unseen at this point, I was worried about drawing an unbalanced rack next turn. Plus, it's usually wrong to keep more vowels than consonants. That being said, O8 is such a huge hotspot that it's decisively worth it to play there. Quackle even prefers MISATE O8 to AMA G1, even though it destroys my bingo-prone rack.
>Alec: AEHIMNW O8 WAHINE +56 255
>Carl: DEIIOST 12H SEDITIO. +70 280
>Alec: ADMOOQS K10 QA.D +28 283
#note I missed an opportunity to fish for 11K QI, QAT, or QUA/QUASI with IIIIITTUU unseen and a backup of E3 QUA in case 11K is blocked. Quackle likes 14K DOOMS, but that opens a lucrative lane on row 15; I like 1L FOOD, which takes an easy scoring spot. #tacticssmall
>Carl: BIOPTXY H10 XY.TOI +48 328
#note C: FOXY at 1L looks pretty great. I saw this as well as BOX 13G, but figured XYSTOI, sacrificing 5 points, was much better for several reasons. First, I'll be up a tempo after XYSTOI, and this play seemed to restrict Alec's long term options. The board will be dead to 7s, and my plan is to play on Row 14 next turn and close down the rest of the lanes. By contrast, after FOXY, Alec will have access to several key bingo lanes next turn. Next, I saw that there were many I's left to draw, so getting rid of my I had value. Also, it seemed like Alec was less likely to be able to bingo through the I. (In fact, he did have one there.) Finally, with less than a third of the tiles remaining, and strong tiles like ?SSZ still out there, it seemed better to draw five tiles instead of three. These perceived benefits made XYSTOI seem clearly better than FOXY at the time, and I played it confidently. In reality, FOXY wins the sim by 2 points and 0.5% win percentage. Whatever positional advantages there are with XYSTOI (if any) don't quite compensate for those 5 points I'm sacrificing in the immediate term.
#note A: This is the most obvious candidate for the championship-losing play; 1L FOXY probably would have won Carl the game given my rack.
>Alec: ALMNOOS 15B MOONSA.L +61 344
#note What do I do after FOXY? Quackle reveals 14J OSMOL, which I doubt I would have found.
>Carl: BCEFIPU 14A PUB +26 354
#note FUB might seem better at first because P is usually a better tile than F. On this board, PUB is clearly better, since it keeps, at the very least, DIF K13. But with the right draw, I might well hit something at O1, like CLEF or even CHEF. Another good option is UPBY 11E. It gives back less than PUB, since PUB can be paralleled. However, it scores 4 points less. Quackle considers PUB/UPBY to be even.
>Alec: AGGHLTV 13B VAT +30 374
#note Quackle prefers HALT, which scores two more points and unloads one more consonant, but keeps the V, which has less scoring potential than the H. At least HALT keeps E3 VUG and M11 VIG for next turn. #strategysmall I guess
>Carl: CEFIINU 10D UNFI. +23 377
#note I spent too long looking for plays that didn't burn the F; there just aren't many. UNI L8 is the best among those, scoring decently, ridding my rack of the duplicate I, and again drawing to CLEF/CHEF. UNFIX is a good scoring play, hoping to draw something decent and outrun Alec in the endgame. But the star play is CUIF 3A, which scores the same but threatens a 3x3 if the right tiles are out.
>Alec: AGGHLSZ 14L ZAGS +41 415
#note Yet another example of Quackle being bad at pre-endgames: it says three plays win 100%, namely this, 1L FAGS, and M11 ZIG; and FAGS has by far the highest valuation. Upon further investigation, FAGS loses when I draw an I (3/8) and Carl plays 14L LEIs setting up 13J ODIC(!), which I cannot block without being Z-stuck. ZIG and ZAGS win 100%, and ZIG is slightly better, threatening plays at 1L-1O and 5B-5E. #tacticssmall (-0.5)
>Carl: CEIIILO 1L .OCI +29 406
#note A: The blank was the last tile in the bag.
>Alec: ?GHL L9 GiL. +16 431
>Carl: EIIL J12 .IE +9 415
>Alec: H E4 .H +10 441
>Alec: (IL) +4 445
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