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#character-encoding UTF-8
#player1 Billy Billy
#player2 Carl Carl
>Billy: ADDEJ 8D JADED +44 44
#note Be forewarned: this is a stunningly bad game of Scrabble. Prepare to be scandalized.
>Carl: AAHILNT 9G HAIL +24 24
#note This is like the eighth bingo I've missed so far at NOLA, so what's going on here? It's probably a variety of factors. 1) I've had a lot on my mind unrelated to Scrabble, and haven't been studying as much. Due to severe personal upheaval (some bad, some good), I'm distracted and not in the usual frame of mind. 2) I studied many 8s before NOLA, but in reverse probability order. I made it through the first 20,000, but ANTHELIA is high-prob, so it's been almost a year since I've gone over it. 3) I'm seeing the wrong bingos, and they're throwing me off course. Here, I saw HALATION, INHALANT, AILANTHUS, AILANTHIC, and even THALASSIAN#, and these other words obscured ANTHELIA. 4) I'm not getting enough over-the-board practice. There's a process for looking for bingos, and I'm rusty at it. ANTHELIA is totally findable if I'd put in the time, but I got careless. (-34)
>Billy: OOOOOOO -OOOOOOO +0 44
#note I often struggle to sleep at tournaments, and the night after this game was no exception. It was around 3AM, in a classic case of l'esprit de l'escalier, that it dawned on me that I had missed ANTHELIA. It gets worse.
>Carl: AAENRRT 10I NARRATE +67 91
#note I don't like slating an E in the 3x3 lane, but third position isn't so bad. Besides which, Billy just traded 7. What's the worst that could happen?
>Billy: ?KLNPSU O8 SP.LUNKy +176 220
>Billy: ?KLNPSU -- -176 44
#note When the S came down at O8, I started sweating. One by one, the tiles came down, and I knew I was done for. The last tile was the blank, and I watched in astonishment as he designated it a Y, like the video game Spelunky. This is the biggest gift I've ever received over the board.
>Carl: DEILORY O8 RE.DY +39 130
#note And then I miss another bingo--ELYTROID. This time, I suspect that I was so dazed by what had just happened that I became hyperfocused on taking out the 3x3 by playing in the same spot, and not nextdoor. Then I got into analysis paralysis deciding between several candidate plays like REEDY vs. REEDILY. I don't recall ever looking for a bingo through the T. (-23.5)
>Billy: ?KLNPSU 11D UPLiNKS +84 128
>Carl: EGILOSU L9 E.UGO +12 142
#note And then I miss a third bingo! There's no excuse either; I spent forever on this play, just didn't think to look through the A for EULOGIAS. Holy crap I sucked at this tournament! (-45)
>Billy: UX M13 XU +36 164
>Carl: AEIILST 12B LITAI +20 162
#note F6 AID wins the sim. (-7)
>Billy: GMY 10B GYM +18 182
>Carl: AAEIIOS -AIIO +0 162
>Billy: GLOV 7L VLOG +20 202
>Carl: ?ACEEIS H11 .IECE +24 186
#note I actually didn't see CASEFIED F1, but I did see that anything there was probably not as good as NIECE. Billy has been playing all his moves very quickly (he's still well over 20 minutes at this point), and I'm starting to get into time trouble. CASEFIED actually does win the sim, but it's within a point. (-1)
>Billy: ABH 7E BAH +32 234
>Carl: ?AMOSSW 6D MOW +36 222
#note I saw TWASOMES but not SOMEWAYS. MOW has to be better than either. Sim prefers SOW 6D instead-- more likely to connect with 15A with just one S. (-1.5)
>Billy: INQ 14H .INQ +17 251
>Carl: ?AFNOSS 13A OAFS +32 254
#note This wins the sim, but I wondered if FAS C5 might be better as a decoy, keeping Billy away from Row 15. As it turned out, that might have done it.
>Billy: EP A13 .PE +15 266
#note No!
>Carl: ?ENOSTT N6 T.O +7 261
#note He blocked TEOSINTE, and there are no other bingos. I'm in serious time trouble now and getting very flustered. I even saw that I don't quite have ENTObLASTS J5 here. Sim winner here is TOES 5B, taking out the most dangerous bingo lane. As it turned out, that would have done it. (-11)
>Billy: ABEINRT B3 BERATIN. +63 329
>Carl: ?AENOST A3 ATONES +40 301
#note Now I'm really really really low on the clock but have to confirm that none of the 20+ 7s fit down column A. And if I play, for instance, BARONETS 3B, Column A is still there for Billy to use. After the game, Billy suggested that it's too late to forego the bingo; there's too many ways that it could go wrong drawing six tiles. But Quackle agrees with my play; it wins 4.5% more than any bingo.
>Billy: EOW C3 OWE +31 360
>Carl: ?EFIOVZ 15K IF +20 321
#note The game is basically over now; I see no way to come back, and I have less than a minute on my clock. Quackle sees something after VIE 15F, but I don't see it. (-14)
>Billy: DI B12 ..ID +21 381
>Carl: ?ENORVZ 15E ROV.N +10 331
#note I consider it a minor miracle that I came up with anything close to the right play in just a few seconds (ROVEN is 4th best). The right sequence is EVEN 15F, setting up ZORIL M3 or pREZ 13F. (-9)
>Billy: CEIRSTU 13H .RE +10 391
>Carl: ?EZ M4 ZEa. +13 344
#note Missing YEZ 2C. (-4)
>Carl: (CISTU) +14 358
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