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#player1 Will Will
#player2 Dave Dave
>Will: ADMOPVW 8G VOW +18 18
#note DK: This game was livestreamed with excellent commentary by Geoff Thevenot and Jesse Day here: https://youtu.be/W-7DWzeGRyo . I will include my own analysis, which is partially informed by what I was thinking during the game and partially a response to the commentary, prefixed by "DK". Additionally, Will Anderson previously posted the game with a few of his own comments, which I have included prefixed with "WA".
>Dave: ABEEGGN 7H GEEBAG +22 22
#note DK: On the commentary Geoff Thevenot and Jesse Day had an interesting debate about the placement of GEEBAG along with a little bit of discussion of making some shorter plays. I have my own opinions about this which are a little bit different than theirs, but a wrinkle is that I considered the difference between the two placements of GEEBAG to be small, and I would have gone with whichever one scored more. I chose the placement that I did specifically because I miscounted the F4 placement as being one point less. If I had realized they were the same score, I might have chosen it. That said, I do not think my placement was a bad choice, and I think the commentary slightly exaggerates the risk involved. The really interesting question here is whether to play GEEBAG or BEG. BEG scores four points less and leaves AEGN, which cross-tables rates at a leave value of 5.3, whereas GEEBAG scores four points more and leaves N, which cross-tables rates at a leave value of 1.3. That means that numerically speaking the leave versus points calculation is identical for these two plays. I did not know those numbers in my head, but I can say that my intuition told me that the equity difference between the two plays was likely to be very small. This gets at one of my biases/tendencies in the game. If I'm not sure between two plays, I tend to err on the side of the one that scores more. So I decided on playing GEEBAG before I decided which placement. As Jesse pointed out, the place I played GEEBAG creates a lot more openings, but that is not necessarily a bad thing. The thing about this placement is that Will is unlikely to cover them all at once. So while his expected score is going up on the next turn, so is mine. What I don't like about GEEBAG F4 as much is that he might make a play from E3 down to E5/6 in response, scoring well and leaving a board on which I cannot score that much. There's also the issue that the E is by far the most dangerous of the floaters for 8 letter bingos. The F4 placement leaves the E's open, whereas 7H does not leave them open. These are small differences that somewhat offset the higher average score of his next turn after my placement, but I would always choose the higher scoring option of two similar choices like this when the scores were unequal, as I mistakenly thought.
>Will: ADFIMNP 8L DIMP +41 59
>Dave: ACELNRU 6C NUCLEAR +71 93
#note DK: I did not know the pretty nine letter bingo NEURALGIC. Of course I would play it here if I knew and saw it. The extra points are more than worth it, even though it opens the triple line. I don't remember if I noticed that LUCARNE/AVOW scored two more than the other bingos, but it's probably not worth taking only two points and opening both double-doubles like that. For me, this was a debate between playing NUCLEAR/UNCLEAR in either position. Jesse's comment about taking out the 6J spot was right on. The score is the same for both placements, and the other defensive considerations are approximately the same, (both plays dangle only the N, U, C, as floaters and in positions where they can be no later than sixth in an eight letter word) so there's no good reason not to take it out.
>Will: AAFNOOR 9M FOO +29 88
>Dave: AFGIRTU 10J FRATI +33 126
#note DK: I did think about FAUTING and TURFING as alternatives, but I decided that there was no need to rip open the board in that friendly a way for him. I don't think I considered AGUTI in the same spot as FRATI, which is a reasonable alternative, as it keeps a more promising FR leave than the GU that I did keep. But I think I would have chosen FRATI anyway, both because I like playing point greedy and because REW takes a front G but not a front F. I did consider AUF/AVOW, but I generally don't like plays like that on a board like this. The GIRT leave isn't terrible, but it's not nearly as bingo prone as it looks, especially since eight letter -ING words won't fit on the C column. The thing about leaves like GIRT is they could develop into a bingo with a good draw, but with a bad draw they could easily develop into a leave that doesn't bingo and doesn't score well. I would rather keep taking whatever points I can get and playing for rapid turnover unless I can keep very promising leaves, meaning more promising than any that have developed in this game so far.
>Will: AAIINRS E5 A.RASIN +36 124
>Dave: GIISTTU 12B GIUST +22 148
#note DK: The commentators were surprised that I made this move fast, but it came down to two things for me: I don't have many opportunities for a very good leave here, and there is only one spot on the board to use an S hook, so there's not a whole lot to save it for. I don't think I thought about AGUTI off of the A in FRATI, which is the only reasonable choice to keep my best leave of IST, and it does strengthen my S. It would be a great play to make if I were trailing and needed to create a board more conducive for comebacks. But at a close score like this, I do not think it is called for to sacrifice 10 points and create all those openings for him. I would rather just score what I can and keep the rack moving along with a decently balanced IT leave, which at least has the hook letter for TREW.
>Will: EEENNOS G11 EON +11 135
#note WA: VENENOSE would've been nice to get down. Here I take a slight equity hit to set a decent S hook on the board, and maybe +5 for GIUSTO. DK: I had forgotten about GIUSTO when I played GIUST, but after Will played it and I thought for a moment, it looked familiar as a musical term. (GIUST is a verb, a weird spelling of JOUST.) I did not think that GIUSTO took an S, but I was just unsure enough of it to be worried about the possibility later in the game.
>Dave: HIINRTU B8 UNRI.HT +26 174
#note DK: Jesse was again surprised at the rapidness of my play and said that he would have preferred HUTIA 8A. This time I think he did better than I did. My reason for playing UNRIGHT was simply that I did not see HUTIA, and even if I had, I'm not sure I would have remembered it was a word. Without HUTIA, there were no other plays that scored enough and kept a decent enough leave to be worth considering. A play like D8 HI is exactly what I hate doing. A leave like RUTIN will bingo sometimes (not that much on this board) but when it doesn't you just won't be able to score. I did consider that EON implied he had a leave of all one pointers including an S, so he was more likely to have an S ending bingo at 14A rather than the high point tiles needed to take advantage of the A8 spot. I had already chosen UNRIGHT as my preferred play before he put down EON, and these extra concerns only made me prefer it more, so that's why I was able to throw it down so quickly. But again, if I knew and saw HUTIA, I would have chosen it, both because it scores one point more and because keeping the R and N is nice, especially since half of each of those consonants have already been played.
>Will: EEKNPSY A4 PESKY +66 201
#note DK: My intuition was actually right on about Will's leave. He had kept EENS behind, which normally would mean that the A column wasn't that dangerous a spot, but the KPY he happened to draw turned it into a very profitable one.
>Dave: BEHIOSV D8 HOB +27 201
#note DK: BOVINE or even BOVINES is a reasonable alternative here, especially because the extra turnover is valuable with both blanks still unseen.
>Will: AEINOTU A13 EAU +16 217
#note WA: I didn't see F10 TATOU, which looks nice, especially if I read HOB as a Z setup; though keeping the T for TREW is helpful as well. I'll go ahead and say #visionsmall.
>Dave: EIIJLSV B1 JIVE +32 233
#note DK: Not much to think about here. I definitely want to score what I can, shed the J and V, and go for turnover. The only other play I would seriously consider is JIVES, believe it or not. Though it looks crazy to play off the last S, the race to the blanks is becoming very important.
>Will: ?CDINOT 5I CONDuIT +77 294
>Dave: ILLMRSZ F10 ZI. +69 302
#note DK: I saw the Z spot I was creating when I played HOB, but my brain played tricks on me for a few minutes and for some reason I thought that I needed ZE to hit it instead of ZI. (ZETA would have worked, but not zet*.) That is why I took more time on this turn than most of the others in this game. I was looking for ways to turn over a lot of tiles and give me a shot to score big with the Z. Fortunately, I corrected my misperception in time and then took the easy points. It was funny to see comments on the Twitch stream after the fact in which people were so perplexed about why I was taking so much time on this play. We're all fallible humans who don't always see all the plays right away. I saw a lot of things quickly and accurately on many plays of this game, but I was a bit slower this time around.
>Will: EILNORW 1B .OWLIER +63 357
>Dave: ELLMRSX N2 REM.X +60 362
#note DK: On the other hand, this play I was able to slap down right away, as I saw that nothing else scored close to it and that the tempo was right. (I left four in the bag and did not empty it, as Jesse temporarily thought in the commentary.)
>Will: AADENOT 2E ODA +19 376
#note WA: Tricky move here. I surely considered H13 ADO/ODA and maybe that's what I have to do, but it seemed like a fair number of the bingos I could draw would still play with underlaps on row 3 after 2E ODA and the extra 5 points were also very nice in such a close game.
>Dave: ?AELLQS 3J QuAL. +26 388
#note DK: Before Will made his play, I considered that just dropping QI to allow myself to bingo out might be my best play. But at this point I noticed that ATTENDEE was a possible out bingo for him. VENDETTA would also fit with that rack. I fortuitously made a play that blocked both, but I didn't notice VENDETTA. My reasoning was not only to take out the lane, but also that any tile I could draw would give me a four letter outplay hooking both EONS and SCREW. QUALE is in fact the only play that wins 100% of the time for me.
>Will: AEENTTY H13 ANY +20 396
#note WA: Out of time. No wins; best was 3E YETT. #endgamemedium
>Dave: DELS 4F DELS +16 404
#note DK: Knowing I had a won game, I relaxed and didn't look hard for my best play. I did see ELDS instead of DELS, but the slightest bit of doubt as to whether ELD took the S caused me to take the word I was more sure of. But if I had looked harder, I wouldn't have hesitated to play VELDS/LOD/IDS for 10 more points.
>Dave: (EETT) +8 412
#note DK: This game was a pleasure to play, and it was equally a pleasure to watch Geoff's and Jesse's commentary after the game. Jesse commented about what a great learning experience it was for him to get to watch other top players play. It was also a great learning experience for me to get to watch other top players commenting on my play. I don't want to jump to any great conclusions about differences in playing style based on their comments, as I am aware that they were produced quickly off the cuff, and I had the benefit of thinking about my turns during my opponents' time, while they were usually commenting on Will's rack and play at that time. But if I did notice any difference, it did seem to me that they were more concerned with rack leave and board shape over score on many of my plays, whereas I weigh score heavily in the calculation. Of course I will sometimes sacrifice points for leave or other factors, but I need to be convinced that it is a good sacrifice. This is not to say I always make the right decisions. More often than not, when I do make a play that Quackle thinks is an error, it is because I chose a higher scoring one instead.
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