| Player 1 |
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#player1 JJB John J. Bulten
#player2 TR Tracy Ruhlman
>JJB: CGNPRRX -CGNPRR +0 0
#note 0:37 [24:23] Six months ago, these two players also faced off in a tourney, immediately after lunch, and TR had a bingo challenged off, while JJB missed multiple bingos and fell behind; there seems to be some dynamite in this pairing. Today, JJB is now down one but can only lose two more out of eleven to maintain his rating; TR has lost all four previous games and is itching to make it up. The "grudge match" is off to a fine start and likely to continue the drama, with JJB's vowelless rack, and his election to keep X (+6.8) rather than keep CR (+7.2, .4 higher rating) or play grr 8 (-1.0, .2 higher).
>TR: ?EEGIOT 8B EGOTIsE +66 66
#note 0:13 [23:47] TR has her play ready but confuses JJB by designating an S instead of a safe Z. She also lines up at 8c but then sacks 2 points by switching to the defensive 8b (1.6 lower static value, as the defense only rates as saving .4). The phony's risk is 46.0 and its reward is -1.6 (negative, meaning nothing is gained by the phony). Call Z, and stick to 8c.
>JJB: FHMTUUX 7D MUX +27 27
#note 3:47 [20:36] JJB holds indefinitely with his second ugly rack. Without any hooks to help him determine if this word has a European spelling and without enough 4-voweled 7 practice, he decides to let it go and hope for the best, thus yielding TR the 66 points and getting only 1 point benefit to himself (mux 7d over mux 8g, given Quackle's opening-rack valuation).
>TR: ABEIILS I2 BIALIES +69 135
>TR: ABEIILS -- -69 66
#note 2:10 [21:37] Now TR adds on the pressure! Alibies/bailies/bialies all play at 7h for up to 65, but, vindicated in her first phony, she claims bialies/egotises* i2 69 instead (4 reward, 54.1 risk with a +10.9 rack).
>JJB: FHIOTUZ H7 F.Z +15 42
#note 2:15 [18:21] JJB is mildly conscious of bailies but both those other words look mighty sketchy sitting out there together. The two-for-one is enough to convince him to challenge, and TR is surprised to retract, but neither player knows for sure which is/are phony. All the same, Z does not play well here and several recommendations retain it, starting with thio 9a 22 (up by 15.4; fuze b5 18 is several points behind). JJB sees that futz 22 is risky (sibilate/tibiales), but does not notice that fez 15 still leaves bailies available if egotises* is valid, as well as opening up another bingo line for TR (and futz 16 has the same leave, for that matter). The simple fiz 7h 21 is indicated, as the highest-ranked play to block all bingos.
>TR: ABEIILS I2 ALIBIES +75 141
#note 1:30 [20:07] The real bingo is alibies/za i9 73. TR and JJB persist in their phony flirting, however, as she lays down egotises* again (reward 2, risk 62.1). (Egotize and erotize do not have alternates, but ebonise and elegise are valid.)
>JJB: FHINOTU J5 IF +30 72
#note 5:02 [13:19] TR knows how to use up JJB's time. On hold, distracted by rack pressure, and surprised by another anagram, he feels alibies/bailies must be correct but does not recall that it's a three-fer. If he suspects that bialies had been correct it is very simple and safe to challenge again now, but the overwhelming rightness of alibies makes the second challenge that much harder, so he eventually gives in sheepishly. Of course bialies is the plural of bialy, not of biali. TR has played three consecutive 4-voweled 7s phonily and gotten away with two. In performance calculations, TR gets back 2 lost points for the improvement over alibies/za, while JJB gives up the 75 points, less the difference between his reply (26.1) and the best reply after a challenge, fin 9b 21 (15.9). (He could rate 15.1 higher with tofu 40 here, but that's nothing compared to 64.8 opportunity lost by not challenging with fin 21 followup.)
>TR: Q 4H Q. +21 162
#note 1:47 [18:20] Continuing pressure.
>JJB: AHLNOTU J1 UH +26 98
#note 0:42 [12:37] JJB puts together the best word, ethanol, but does not click to find it at b8 for 36. The fish, however, is within 1.4 of that.
>TR: EGN K3 NEG +20 182
#note 1:11 [17:09]
>JJB: AAELNOT F6 A..L +13 111
#note 1:23 [11:14] Right spot, but how hard can it be to put down axion 16 with points and leave worth 8.8 more? The directed hook is not easy to bingo under!
>TR: CP 6E P.C +12 194
#note 0:48 [16:21]
>JJB: AEEINOT G8 .EA +16 127
#note 1:04 [10:10] Quackle seizes the hook now with oe 10e 18 (2 points better and 6.4 leave better, with AEINT +10.2 and EINOT +3.8).
>TR: DOOR 11D DOOR +13 207
#note 0:41 [15:40] The points are at l1 for rood/door 20, but TR is right to block JJB's rack: until she plays, he is holding his first playable bingo.
>JJB: DEIINOT E4 IN... +14 141
#note 2:48 [7:22] Stymied, he could still play edition for 20 at b8, but shows further inexplicable preference for the O and for extensions. Oi 12d 12 is worth 10.7 more and slightly improves bingo prospects on the board too, but input has no strategic value and is risky.
>TR: DOT 9B TOD +17 224
#note 1:12 [14:28] TR has held out long enough and is ready to slowly shut down lines, although not the S lines that she can use and JJB cannot.
>JJB: DEEIKOT D2 DIKE +32 173
#note 0:22 [7:00] JJB picked the K, the best tile for d4, even though oke/toke/keto rate better there. Oke d3 and 12d are equivalently best, 3.6 ahead, while kited 39 scores with slightly inferior leave. But these plays are close together and by static leave this is his second-best play so far, with worse to come.
>TR: BOR 12B BRO +16 240
#note 1:14 [13:14] Neglecting rob c1 21 without clear benefit.
>JJB: ENOPRTY 13A POETRY +34 207
#note 0:28 [6:32] Hurriedly claiming a decent play without noticing the better one. Upon reseeing the rack after the game, entropy here (92/70) becomes obvious, 57.8 higher. Something throws off JJB's bingo calculations in this kind of pressure.
>TR: AIMRSST L4 TSARISM +81 321
#note 0:57 [12:17] Meanwhile TR has cheerily found an equally difficult spot for 81. JJB holds proforma, but only to make sure that funny-looking spelling is oll korrect.
>JJB: INNOSTU H1 UN +12 219
#note 1:47 [4:45] The fog continues as JJB sees outsin and has outsinning/nonsuiting in the back of his mind but doesn't spot the bingo at 11i for 74. Un 12 is third place, behind pun a13, which should also be obvious but isn't.
>TR: ?AEEINR 14F ARENItE +67 388
#note 2:33 [9:44] Overlap testing would reveal aliener k7 71, but claiming a fourth 4-voweled 7 bingo (and keeping three) is quite an achievement.
>JJB: AILNOST 15H LATINOS +88 307
#note 0:47 [3:58] JJB finally spots both overlap bingos and takes the flashier. (However, Ed Morrison reports that elsewhere in this room today, in a lower division, his opponent played moderns/am/go/pod/one/sir/ten/ess under her own prior bingo. Or two bingos, counting posters.)
>TR: GUY 13L GUY +18 406
#note 1:43 [8:01]
>JJB: DEHLTWW 8K W.DTH +36 343
#note 1:19 [2:39] JJB is pretty sure of the best static play, but is hampered by TR overdrawing, 4 of 8 tiles instead of 3. From EJO he eventually returns J, sticking with his first guess and reasoning (simplistically) that he can use it if drawn. This does not agree with his consonant glut. While this decision seems important, it's not worth a full minute; it changes base simulation by less than half a percent. There seems to be an overall slight advantage to throwing back O with the rack otherwise unknown, in that unlike EJ it yields better bingo chances for JJB (despite his trouble with O before). The directed setup wile 8k 7 yields a massive score with any vowel draw and (with O or E) 8/9 odds of drawing at least one; two bingo lines are also open for now. While it's not easy, this seems to have almost 7% winning odds, more than wiled 27 or the E-retaining bingo setup wild 8, and well ahead of width with a half-percent chance. Hwyls 28 is cute but wins no games because of opponent response. However, given that TR is about to play areae, the only simulated hope of winning seems to be throwing back the E, because JO has the least synergy with AAE; wile wins about 3% of these games rather than 0% for other throws. Since this is a greater difference than with the racks with 2 known tiles, it appears that returning E is correct and worthwhile, because even without this knowledge TR can be assumed to have kept bingo tiles and that makes it more important to retain another E potential for JJB. So in the endgame throw back the tile you can bingo with best, and, for that, E is usually better than O.
>TR: AAEEO 7K A.EAE +22 428
#note 2:45 [5:16] Straightforward; TR wants to go out first and, given this rack and bag, has a high likelihood.
>JJB: CEJLNVW 15D JEW +30 373
#note 1:21 [1:18] Picking 4 consonants is highly unlikely, but it happens. There is nothing near an out in two, while TR has balanced to arvo but no single out. Jew 15d 30 is obvious and allows vat 14 or rev/vet/clit 6, but nothing else pairs anywhere near that because of the sole vowel problem.
>TR: AORV N10 VAR. +18 446
#note ~1:26 [~3:50] Now the pathway is pretty clear. The only improvement for TR is looking for another triple letter, which would yield var/kir f2 21 and 3 more points.
>JJB: CLNV 11M V.C +8 381
#note 0:48.4 [0:29.6] JJB was set with the correct vat 14, but sees that vac 8 has the same net value and throws that down just because it looks better to get rid of the extra tile. Although spread remains the same, depriving both players of an additional 6 hurts both their tournament average scores by a half-point: a last unconscious slight to both. (Even though averages aren't used as a tiebreak, and maybe they should be, they are still a backup consideration when win percentage and spread are both equal.)
>TR: O B12 ..O +10 456
#note ~0:28 [3:22]
>TR: (LN) +4 460
#note Although TR played phonies on 3 consecutive turns, JJB was the "greater fool" to take two of them. She then took two more valid bingos while he missed entropy and nonsuit; he also knocked out his last winning chance by not spotting that he could direct a very potent D hook to himself. TR is moving up while JJB as first seed is 1.5 games behind Tim Bottorff. Known points available: TR 17, JJB 69. Overall points available: TR 72.7+, JJB 279.7.
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