| Player 1 |
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#character-encoding UTF-8
#player1 JJB John J. Bulten
#player2 DW David Weisberg
>JJB: ?AGNOQS 8D QuANGOS +102 102
#note 0:21 [24:39] JJB finally gets to face off DW, a club supporter and the other top seed, but DW has not had the greatest tournament so far, and this continues with JJB's first draw. JJB finds it polite to warn the other player as soon as he's confident of a bingo, and here he proceeds immediately to circle the U and to say, "I've got it this time!" An unforgettable opening rack, but not a guarantee of a win.
>DW: ADEIRTT J2 TARDIE.T +63 63
#note 2:25 [22:35] DW is unperturbed and must know that he will bingo too with an old standard. However, he takes his time to select the best choice, and to notify the opponent. Attired plays through "men's closet".
>JJB: ABCGRUU I7 B.URG +22 124
#note 2:21 [22:18] Strong overlap, retaining the AC combo that JJB likes to employ, but a better leave by 3.4 is GR with the great dump aucuba 3j 20; opening lanes is no issue to either player here.
>DW: DFIOPUW G4 UPWI.D +15 78
#note 1:48 [20:47] DW held the only key choice here to be upwind versus windup; but FO -4.9 is not as good a leave as it looks. The I has the power to hit the Q again for pfui 21 (leaving DOW -3.0, rating 7.9 ahead). Frow, upo/ut/pa/or, fugio, and waif also score well enough to offset their leave; but there it can be hard to agree with the computed values and FO can get some gut preference.
>JJB: AACEILU D8 .UAIL +28 152
#note 1:51 [20:27] JJB notes that if each letter on the board were read as inverted, auriculae would play for a quadruple! Yet this doesn't help him favor qualia over quail, a diff of 2.9.
>DW: ?DFFOOR E11 DOFF +30 108
#note 1:17 [19:30] Having picked up the blank, DW can be confident of significant comeback, being able to score 30 and leave another 30.4 in OR?. Striking distance is present.
>JJB: ACEEITV 3I C.VIE +26 178
#note 4:49 [15:38] JJB's only miscalculation here is not to review column H, where evite might have commended itself on 34 points. The leaves AC and AET are equally tame, so the diff is 8.3, right in line with the score diff of 8. And JJB would prefer the C anyway, but was somehow lured by the one-pointers.
>DW: ?CEGKOR 5J .OCK +22 130
#note 1:38 [17:52] Quackle spots a chance to clear the rack nicely for a bingo equivalent, with gecks/doffs 59, leaving OR but no blank. Retaining the blank, grok 2l 23 and dock 5j 22 are right behind, by up to 2.9. Would you cash the case blank to get within 11 points of opponent?
>JJB: AAEEOTZ H11 AZOTE +75 253
#note 0:25 [15:13] JJB makes good on the triple lanes with his own bingo equivalent, a full 35.9 ahead of second-place azo/ka 38.
>DW: ?AEEGIR F12 GAE +22 152
#note 5:02 [12:50] With another tantalizing rack DW calculates the best parallel and leave and still has high hopes.
>JJB: AEEINOY K9 AIYEE +19 272
#note 0:39 [14:34] Another classic dump commends itself: also JJB's fifth 5-letter word in a row.
>DW: ?DEINRW F2 WIN +16 168
#note 3:44 [9:06] Perhaps DW answers the question of whether he would cash a blank cheaply, because here he notes rightly the bingo is not the best move. He spots rewinder 63, but questions both whether the singular is invalid and whether the plural is valid. Rewinded is also good (plus rewidens), which would remove the hook quandary at least. But DW correctly judges that retaining the blank with synergy is better than a low 60. Given that, though, he elects to go as low as win f2 16, rather than say win i13 23. But he can do still better than that with three plays that outpoint all the bingos, all scoring 30 and also leaving 30 (up to 11.9 ahead). Believe it or not, those are drew/ed/er 32, the shocking dew/fado/feet/we 31, and at the top dew/id/ye/ew 32. Other alternatives to win/nu were available too.
>JJB: AIJNOOY J13 AJI +28 300
#note 1:56 [12:38] JJB continues to draw non-bingo racks that require creative justification for their leaves; but many of them are near 30 and one was a bingo equivalent after all. He neglects the top spot (6m 32), reasoning that with DW adverting the T hook (before drawing the T!) it is time to start shutting down. Another competitive opener would have been enjoy 12k 38.
>DW: ?ADERTV 15G D.R.VATEs +89 257
#note 1:02 [8:04] Speaking of adverts (and quite unconsciously), it is DW's highest play here, along with averted. However, DW elects to retain this hook for later because a much showier play is available at only 1 point less and will not be as likely to be reusable: derivates 89. Excellent bingo sight and validity judgment; he had probably already seen derivate 62 before it was "blocked". He recovers 89 of his greatest deficit of 132.
>JJB: AENOOPY 14L PAY +32 332
#note 3:13 [9:25] If JJB has the guts to score with poopy/wino 31, it evaluates 10.4 better than the overlap, based on AEN versus ENOO; it would be much likelier to end his imbalances.
>DW: BHINOST 2L HOB +23 280
#note 0:54 [7:10] A very palpable cold draw. Hob 23 is second-best and has great synergy with INST 17.5 (again, both players prefer openness). It would be foolish to turn over obits/doffs 36 with only HN 2.0, or bishop/wino 33 with only NT 2.2 instead. But there is a play for turnover, points, and leave together: the hidden hook henbit/haji 38! OS 5.9 overcomes DW's great leave by only 3.4.
>JJB: EELNOOR O1 LONER +27 359
#note 2:22 [7:03] EO is such a bad leave (-6.3) that JJB's notion of maximizing points is very misguided. Simply knock off nolo/loon 24 for 4.3 better value, and never obsess about undoubling the E like one would with any other letter. JJB writes the leaves for loon and loner and then makes the wrong choice.
>DW: EIMSTTX 1D MITTS +37 317
#note 3:10 [4:00] Now is the time to cash the SX together with mixes/doffs 57, rated better by 12.8. Perhaps DW rapidly dismissed the TT leave (-3.4) and overvalued the EX leave (only 3.8). At any rate, many other higher-value scorers are available, including tix/twin 37, text/te/docker 42, ex/ye/ex 41, and items/doffs 42.
>JJB: EELMORU N4 REM +26 385
#note 2:27 [4:36] JJB pretty well seems to have given up on leave, allowing ELOU -4.6. Top play here for leave is meou 25, rating 16.5 better. But given the unseen tiles JJB is convinced that column N is the last big bingo risk and needs to be put out of commission rather than left for a bingo or triple response (column O is doable but rare). Rem is Quackle's 21st recommendation but the first to accomplish this objective. The only remaining risk is the SX synergy, particularly in row 15, but the point difference may be enough to defeat that too. (JJB should probably not be given credit for loner setting up docker as a block while nolo/loon would be much harder to block, as that appears to have arisen unconsciously.) But Quackle simulation disagrees with this conclusion, rejecting significant column N risk, and recommending a 3-tile play at 13m (mel leads at about 94% wins, above elm, leu, rem, and ore); or else relume to empty the bag, which is surely a reviewable conclusion! Birds also favor well in N, namely emeu and merl(e). Rem reportedly has only about 86% win chances; apparently the O column with -ss potential needs to be defeated more than the N column with all kinds of -e- potential?
>DW: ENNOSSX L10 SOX +45 362
#note 2:42 [1:18] At any rate, 12l and row 15 are demonstrably X risks, unaddressed by 13m plays, and DW pulls out the stops for 45 points, leaving his case S in abeyance. Quackle prefers exons 51 by 3.9, but this uses up all the goods at once. Simulation rejects both bag-emptiers, giving xu 9c 17 a slim 20% win chance, consistently ahead of competition. Apparently this is consistent with the possibility of drawing I for nosiness.
>JJB: EELLNOU D1 .ELON +14 399
#note 3:26 [1:10] JJB again has more leisure than usual to review affairs, now that DW has revealed his rack (EHINNRS has no seven but plays through EITY, no bingo here). He correctly assesses that heirs (hires, herns) 39 is the biggest single play in response, not enough to overcome two easy outs. It suffices for him that leu plays nicely at 13m for 18, and also elsewhere, albeit melon/lone/leno all play in only one place. So melon 14 goes down first, allowing heirs 39, leu 18+4, net of -3 off an existing lead of 23. Opponent could equally reply with hexers 31, forcing lune 8+6 for the same net. Sufficient for the win, but best? First up is mullen 16, heirs 39, oe 16+4; but that's the same spread (doubling the same tiles). Surprisingly, no other pairs of plays are comparable! So that would mean melon and mullen are equally optimal, while other plays would still win.
>DW: EHINNRS 15A HEIRS +39 401
#note 0:17 [1:01] DW comments later about wanting shinner* to be a word, but the narrow win percentage did not materialize. Perhaps almost all that win chance would have arisen from playing off xu and fishing for the one remaining available bingo in column O, nosiness; the I was in the bag after all. At least both players have an optimal endgame, a rarity.
>JJB: ELU 13M LEU +18 417
#note 0:10 [1:00] DW takes defeat with a grin, knowing that he recovered well after a 102-point opener, successfully replying with a 89-point niner himself.
>JJB: (NN) +4 421
#note While some slippages occurred, no serious errors were made by either player, giving both of them results in the high-expert range (and in most cases evaluations can be disputed due to idiosyncratic Quackle methodology): this is a rare game that can be broadly recommended for study purposes. JJB adds to his significant defense performance the consolation of playing only odd-length main words the whole game. Known points available: JJB 4, DW 8. Overall points available: DW 43.8, JJB 49.8. |
