| Player 1 |
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#player1 kacattac kacattac
#player2 Hercules Hercules
#description Created with Macondo
>kacattac: AEHIRTX 8G HEX +26 26
#note 17 February, 2021
Club 44
woogles.io
Game 2
Ugh, RETAX. Some players would play HEX here anyway. I'm not usually one of them.
>Hercules: AADOORR 7G ADO +25 25
>kacattac: AEGIRTU 6B GUITAR +19 45
#note At first 6I seemed like the obvious spot. It is indeed obvious to the sim. I became less convinced, however, about giving back too much too easily, and about staircasing. Among the 6I plays I considered, GI sims second-best and GAUR sims about the same as the play I ended up making. Sim's favorite is GUT, which keeps the R for R(AH) plays later, but is also hella unbalanced. I just couldn't get there. There's a human case to be made for my play, but it's tough to get to 5 points of sim equity.
>Hercules: ACDLORR 9H LORD +21 46
>kacattac: EMPRTUV K3 TRUMPE. +24 69
#note I have spotted TUMPE(D) early on, and after quite a bit of handwringing now I forget about it and go for max turnover. Neither option is great. The S(TUMPED) potential is too scarey for most human players, yet sim likes TUMPED quite a bit more than TRUMPED. With TRUMPED I float the R to opp instead of keeping it for myself, and I further exhaust the top half of the board after sacrificing on the previous turn to keep it open. K9 DUMP was def considered and sims quite well, but if you think opp might have an S after LORD then DUMP doesn't achieve much. D2 ERUV(I)M sims best, it elides most of the downsides of these other plays, I know it, and I missed it.
>Hercules: ABCIIRR 8K .RICA +24 70
>kacattac: CEEEOVW 10F WEE +19 88
#note I didn't see 4I CO(R)VEE, but keeping the W and slotting a blocking tile to the left of TRUMPED is not def what I wanted here. WEE is a slow-play soft-block, which is what aggressive players look for when we aren't drawing well early in the game. It sims well enough to be defensible.
>Hercules: BIIMRSS L6 MI.S +22 92
>kacattac: ACEEIOV E9 CAVIE +27 115
#note I lined up 11B VOICE and then looked for something better. This scores 2 more and floats an E that is not floating elsewhere, whereas VOICE restricts the GUITAR floaters and makes E and T hooks available under WE which are not available under DELE. I think CAVIE is clearly better, but sim prefers VOICE by 2+.
>Hercules: ABFIRSZ 5D BIZ +47 139
>kacattac: EINNOOP 4B PION +25 140
#note I thought maybe the nickname POON had been expunged along with its given name, but apparently it doesn't mean what I think it means and I should get my mind out of the gutter. Humph. I missed PINON at 4A, which is worth doing even though it's pretty scarey to continue keeping strange leaves here. Sim also likes ONION and PEON much better than my play, and this I have more trouble understanding.
>Hercules: ?ADFRSW 13D S.lFWARD +69 208
>kacattac: AEIJNOO 3I JE.ON +40 180
#note Best by every measure, and that in itself bodes quite poorly.
>Hercules: EENSTTV O7 N.VETTES +62 270
>kacattac: AAGILOY N10 YA +28 208
#note This now becomes a study in how to steal a game you have no business winning. To that end, I think that some of the informed equity sacrifices both of us make are justified, starting with this turn. All of the H12 and H13 plays outsim this, but I have often found that route to be a fool's errand. At the current deficit it's too easy for opp to block row 15 after I open it, and at that point the situation is hopeless. I think it makes more sense to slow-play here and force opp to find scoring plays that don't create new lanes. H12 is of little use to opp here since he doesn't want to open anything; I can assume that it is going to stay open, and that if it doesn't stay open that this actually serves my purposes more so than opp's. Perhaps if my rack were closer to bingoing it would make more sense to play there and hope to draw into a cheat sheet rack that can bingo through anything. As it is, I think I need to buy time for this rack to evolve into something useful.
>Hercules: EEFKNOQ C3 Q. +22 292
#note SK admires: sim likes other, longer, higher-scoring, non-Q plays here, but I think this play is perfect because it works precisely against the strategy I just outlined. Previously it was possible for me to envision cutting the deficit and opening the upper left with a pair of short scoring plays at 3A and A1; after QI that path is completely closed off.
>kacattac: AGHILOS N13 HOG +23 231
#note Continuing to slow-play. Sim wants just HO here, but that is a classic problem of the computer playing against itself, no? Unlike a computer, a human player is going to act against this opening, whatever opening it is, basically all of the time; so, let's not make it too easy to hit, let's make the blocks as low-scoring as possible, and let's get rid of our G to increase our chances of hitting at B6 while our human opp is focussed on the corner.
>Hercules: EEFIKNO H13 .OK +30 322
#note SK huffs: FML, this is the perfect poison, the only play in the pool that scores enough to outweigh the giveback while floating minimaly useful material. Even the Y would be much more useful since it is plausible as a terminal tile. It's not looking good for us, though the slow-play strategy has worked about as well as it can.
>kacattac: AIILLST M11 LIT +21 252
#note Now playing too slow...I can tack the A onto the front of this for 8 more points and unqualified endorsement from the robot. Both plays keep
-LI(K)E possibilities alive, which seems like my only (distant) hope.
>Hercules: EEEFINN 15H .NEEIN. +13 335
#note SK observes: so, we have at least succeeded in creating a bingo-or-nothing board, forcing opp to choose between three bad options: (1) this, taking out the -LI(K)E threat; (2) 11B NIE(V)E to block bingos starting with G (but also floating a fourth-position N, which I imagine is almost as useful); (3) 4J F(R)EE, which is by far the best score, highest equity, sim's fave, etc., but which kicks the can of defense further down the road of chance. If the leave were better I think FREE would be the play, but EINN can def lead to congestion without scoring, so KNEEING does seem like best of these bad options.
>kacattac: AILOOSU 2M OIL +8 260
#note The play I have spent the last three turns avoiding. Fourply no likey. It's comically bad, actually, per sim. But I don't see how exchanging is defensible here given the deficit and the bag tempo. Instead, I'm hoping that opp blew up his rack with KNEEING and can't respond to this opening. In a spread-relevant situation it is definitely better to punt here, but that is not the situation we are in.
>Hercules: AADEFNY L2 F.E +23 358
#note SK notes: this is fine and outdoes most auto-generated plays, but O1 F(L)AY seems defensible given that my max bingo score is not enough to overtake the deficit FLAY would create, that it leaves one in the bag, and that the AEDN leave pretty much guarantees maneuverability on opp's final turn.
>kacattac: ABOSTUU O1 U.U +9 269
#note FML. In my sim something seems to have hit, probably just once, after 6J U(MM)...but basically it's hopeless at this point.
>Hercules: AADGNRY 12C RA. +10 368
>kacattac: ?ABLOST J2 B. +10 279
#note This is the correct endgame path...if only I had a better mental machete.
>Hercules: ADEGNY 14J YE +31 399
>kacattac: ?ALOST 1G ALTOS +20 299
>Hercules: ADGN 2D DANG +11 410
>Hercules: (?) +0 410
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