| Player 1 |
|
#character-encoding UTF-8
#player1 Josh_Sokol Josh Sokol
#player2 Matthew_Tunnicliffe Matthew Tunnicliffe
>Josh_Sokol: IUUUU -UUUUI +0 0
>Matthew_Tunnicliffe: AEPRTTV 8D VATTER +26 26
>Josh_Sokol: HIORRT H7 H.RITOR +11 11
>Matthew_Tunnicliffe: AAIIINP 13F PI.AI +9 35
#note Truthfully I had trouble being sure of the various spellings and pluralizations quirks of the word RAPINI and just decided to take an equity hit to avoid it entirely
>Josh_Sokol: NQ J12 Q.N +14 25
>Matthew_Tunnicliffe: ACEEIIN D4 INCA.I +22 57
>Matthew_Tunnicliffe: DEEHLNT (challenge) +5 62
#note I figured he was more likely to challenge than INCAVE, but i also thought incave was nwl so...
>Josh_Sokol: EIMPR C9 PRIME +31 56
>Matthew_Tunnicliffe: DEEHLNT E6 HE.TED +34 96
#note HANDLE is 4 pts less for a more promising leave. Definitely a small error
>Josh_Sokol: EEW F10 WEE. +33 89
>Matthew_Tunnicliffe: DDLNNTU 10H .NDULT +11 107
>Josh_Sokol: AEGR D12 AREG +24 113
>Matthew_Tunnicliffe: ADEENSZ 15D .AZED +48 155
#note I deciced keeping SEN was worth the pts sacrifice. Which is probably just barely true. Realistically, Josh is likely to give +5 for SEAZED which would make that the play
>Josh_Sokol: BELOUV L8 VO.UBLE +32 145
>Josh_Sokol: OOX (challenge) +5 150
#note mm
>Matthew_Tunnicliffe: AEFIJNS K9 J.N +33 188
>Josh_Sokol: OOX M13 OXO +33 183
>Matthew_Tunnicliffe: AEFGIMS 4A GAM.FIES +67 255
>Josh_Sokol: CEIOSTW N5 COWIEST +76 259
>Matthew_Tunnicliffe: ?ALSUUY A4 .UAYULeS +83 338
#note setting up a fat Y spot, but not floating the A likely AUGUSTLY does. In the end, there was a chance that augustly would be phony so i took this
>Josh_Sokol: FOO N13 OOF +40 299
>Matthew_Tunnicliffe: ADLNORY 5H OLDY +18 356
#note Even with high scores like B1 DONARY available, I always lose to a bingo reply. I can leave a tile in the bag with (PRIME)R, but I almost never outrun his bingo with this line of play. More importantly, I give him a chance to fish a tile if he happens to be sitting on a bingoless rack. So it's easy to discard outrunning and 1-tile plays as viable options. I must block as best as I can. Fortunately, blocking is still relatively straightforward in that blocking his bingos will always win. He has some scary 50+ plays looming with some of his non-bingo racks, but as long as I hold him off a bingo, I always pull out at least a narrow win. It's also straightforward in that the clear spot for blocks is underneath GAMIFIES, obstructing both the GAMIFIES overlaps and VATTERS S-hooks at the same time. So unless there is some trickery I missed entirely, the three blocking plays to consider here are DRONY, LORDY, and OLDY underneath GAMIFIES. These three options are similar but have key differences. They are similar in that all three of them expose the word ISO as a bingo line (as well as DSO, which matters for the ?ESKING iteration). They are different in that all three of them put a different letter at 5G, exposing different possibilities for the letter than can be placed at G3. They are also different in the letter they expose at J5, which will still be available as a bingo floater. With a blank as one of the unseen tiles, I don't know if I'm quick enough to iterate all 36 possibilities quickly enough to determine which block stimies the most bingo racks. If the task is just finding playable sevens, maybe I can do that. But there are a few racks that do annoying things like O1 BANShIE or B1 tIKANGAS or NAGApIES and I'll need to be sharp enough to recognise those as well. In the end, I took a shortcut and just looked for the natural bingo threats. The natural bingo threats are the scariest simply because they will necessarily be available with 8 different combinations in the pool. For example, if BAKINGS is a threat, so is bAKINGS, BaKINGS, BAkINGS, BAKiNGS, etc. So the natural bingo threat most relevant for these blocking plays is SINKAGE. Both DRONY and LORDY fail to block SINKAGE, by virtue of allowing the S to slot at G3 (forming SEL or SER). OLDY blocks SINKAGE thanks to SE*. OLDY actually blocks all natural bingo threats, while DRONY and LORDY still fall victim to SINKAGE and all 7 of its alternate iterations with the blank. You would think that the SINKAGE consideration would be enough to push OLDY to the top, but unfortunately I did not spend enough time on a consideration I mentioned earlier: the J5 floater. OLDY (and LORDY) puts a D in that spot, whereas DRONY slots the much blockier Y. This means that OLDY loses to the BGS?AEI rack (ABRIDGES) and KNS?AEI rack (KNAIDELS). The Y in DRONY yields no additional wins for Josh. The other consideration is that, while OLDY prevents bingos starting with SI-, it still allows bingos starting with other letter combinations. BIKiNGS, BISNAGa, BINGErS, and BrISKEN all play after OLDY but not DRONY. I also failed to notice how many of the SINKAGE iterations still defeat OLDY thanks to sneaky bingo fits elsewhere (tIKANGAS, NAGApIES, dESKING). OLDY actually only wins against 4/8 of the SINKAGE iterations. All told, this is too much for my slow brain to handle in the time I had left, so I'm satisfied to use my shortcut to at least determine that OLDY was better than LORDY. But in the end, DRONY does pull out ahead of OLDY slightly. The final results are DRONY winning 26/36 games, OLDY 25/36, and LORDY 22/36. https://tinyurl.com/4hh96p2h
>Josh_Sokol: ?ABEGNS B6 BAG +30 329
>Matthew_Tunnicliffe: AIKNR 4J AKIN +28 384
>Josh_Sokol: ?ENS 15A SuN..... +54 383
#note i can challenge this word i hate but didnt want to go into a close recount. just take the win and let josh have his spread
>Matthew_Tunnicliffe: R J3 R.. +4 388
>Matthew_Tunnicliffe: (E) +2 390
|
