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#player1 Jerry_Lerman Jerry Lerman
#player2 Jim_Burlant Jim Burlant
>Jerry_Lerman: EEMZ 8G MEZE +30 30
>Jim_Burlant: ?ABDOUV 7F DUB +16 16
#note Yuck - how do you even start to clean this out? J6 VOE wins the sim. As clunky as AOV? is, I'd rather unload the U and B because of the asynergy problems they potentially cause with other letters. I take a 3-point hit in the sim for this choice.
>Jerry_Lerman: HLOY 6G HOLY +31 61
>Jim_Burlant: ?AAIOVW 5J AVOW +25 41
#note Obviously best, nothing else comes close.
>Jerry_Lerman: NOO 4L NOO +15 76
>Jim_Burlant: ?AAGGIN O2 GANGlIA +82 123
#note I was wondering where I was going to put this down, then Jerry opened the triple line for me. He looked momentarily annoyed when this came down...anyway, this is the only bingo in this rack and it wins 63%. And an aside - can someone please explain to me how I can miss GRATINEE one minute and find this - which I've never studied or seen played - not even an hour later?
>Jerry_Lerman: EEILNNT N8 LENIENT +70 146
#note Wanna guess why he looked annoyed by my last play? :-) Gotta chuckle at the irony of this: he had obviously been setting up his N, I've shown no indication that I've got nothing but non bingo-prone clunk...and I take his hook away to the tune of 82 points. Jerry is back in with 51% winning chances. An even game - for now, as some tough racks force some iffy plays on my end.
>Jim_Burlant: AABIIOT 12I TIBIA. +16 139
#note The only other plays I saw were BIOTA (which I couldn't put down) and BIO M9, which I rejected because it left me with duplicated A's. I whiffed on OBI and OBIA M11, and as I was entering this rack into Quackle I didn't have to ask Quackle for its choices to know OBIA was the best play. A bad miss. Sure enough, OBIA won the sim. This choice actually sims in the top 5, albeit at a (justifiably) heavy loss of equity to OBIA. In the absence of a better play - turn the tiles, and see if I can draw into something I can work with.
>Jerry_Lerman: FR M2 FR.. +20 166
>Jim_Burlant: AIIORRU K9 ORI.I +14 153
#note Another miss. It's been a while since I anagrammed the 4-vowel 6's. Whenever I do that particular exercise, it always takes me several iterations of being told AURORI* is no good before I finally remember OURARI. In this position, I saw AURORI*, couldn't think of OURARI, and my gut told me not to put AURORI* down. I might have gotten away with that against some of the lower seeds I played in the main event, but I wasn't going to take that chance against Jerry. Good thing I didn't. Unable to find OURARI, this was all I could come up with. This play actually sims pretty well (2.3 points beneath 11D OURARI, the sim winner, which would have been my choice if I had remembered it)...but I pay twice over for this play. I'm at 29% winning chances.
>Jerry_Lerman: EK M11 K.E +24 190
>Jim_Burlant: AAARRTU -AARU +0 153
#note The first installment of my punishment for missing OURARI. Quackle says the best play is 13 F AURA. Play for single-digits and give back 25+ if he's got an H, Y, or W or 50+ if he's got the X? Be serious. The other options were AURAR in various locations. Problem is, I didn't know AURAR. I spent several minutes on this turn before deciding that the only viable play was to throw AARU back into the bag. AURA(R) 10G is the play if I know the word; either placement of AURA (11F or 13F) is psychotic.
>Jerry_Lerman: CEP 5E PEC +25 215
>Jim_Burlant: AFILRTT N1 TA +18 171
#note I had no idea GANGLIA took an R back-hook; the best plays here are 9J LOFTER and 9K OFTER. Now, for plays that humans would actually find: this sims 1 point down on N1 FA and 1-1/2 points down on J10 ATILT. I preferred to unload the duplicated T. I would normally play TI, but the tile pool - 4 A's vs 2 I's unseen - dictated that I unload the A instead of the I. Kept the F as I thought I might be able to score with it on the next turn.
>Jerry_Lerman: AEIOSTU 10E SAUTOI.E +62 277
#note As if I hadn't already been punished enough by having to throw the AURAR rack back into the bag, more punishment: if I find OURARI a few turns back or know AURAR instead of having to exchange, what does he do with this rack?
>Jim_Burlant: EFILNRT 11C FLINT +24 195
#note The sim winner, with 11C FLIRT also worth consideration.
>Jerry_Lerman: AJW M7 JAW +37 314
>Jim_Burlant: ?CDEHPR 4H HEP +20 215
#note Always a tough decision - a homeless bingo, so how much of the rack to break up? Quackle prefers 11M KID and J4 DAY. Maybe against a machine, but I guarantee Jerry isn't going to open anything up for me so the onus is on me to do so. The only one of its suggested fishes that makes any sense is E10 SIP 5...but even the potent combo of CDEHR? seems too unwieldly given this board. Quackle doesn't like this play much - presumably because it breaks up the potent CH combo and gives him easy overlaps if he has something like YAM in his rack - but do I really have a choice but to score 20, open up and hope he can't hit anything? I'm at 2-1/2% winning chances.
>Jerry_Lerman: AEX 12D AXE +37 351
>Jim_Burlant: ?CDORSY 13A CORY +24 239
#note One of the 2 best plays (predictably, Quackle prefers DORY in the same location). Right now I'm at 2.5% winning chances. At any rate, I felt that the only chance I had was to open the 3x3. Of course I didn't expect the 3x3 to stay open, but any play he put down would still be very likely to open some nice lanes.
>Jerry_Lerman: MU A13 .UM +21 372
>Jim_Burlant: ?ADELOS 3C SOLAcED +78 317
#note More on this choice in a moment...
>Jerry_Lerman: DNRRSUV D11 ...S +7 379
#note This is Jerry's actual rack. He spent a LONG time on this play and at first I was puzzled by it, but looking at the tile pool from his perspective it now makes sense. The bag is now down to 2, and the last 2 tiles in the bag turned out to be SQ. Jerry is setting up SUQ for 32 if he draws the Q, and if I draw the Q I'll have lots of trouble. Little did either of us know how nervous this game was going to become.
>Jim_Burlant: DEEGINR C1 RE.IGNED +61 378
#note Quackle says the best plays are C2 ES or E2 EL. Of those fishes, I think I like E2 EL better...but it wouldn't have mattered.
>Jerry_Lerman: DRRSTUV 4B V.D +20 399
>Jim_Burlant: Q - +0 378
#note Entering this game, I was in first place overall in the Late Bird. Having already written this game off as a lost cause when I had the SOLAcED rack, I figured that it would be better to guarantee myself a loss by 70 points by putting down SOLACED, which I was 100% sure was good, rather than risk a 150-point drubbing if MELODiAS turned out to be no good. (I initially put down MELODiAS, but pulled up because I I couldn't remember if the back S was good, which it is. The back L is phony.) I never expected to draw DEEGINR right out of the bag. MELODiAS would have put the I at 15F, where the Q could be played for 30. And with the Q still unseen to Jerry with the bag down to 2, he would not have dared block that spot given this board. He also struggled with his last rack and said he probably would not have done anything to block row 3. This meant that REIGNED would have played for 84 there...and in addition to the 28 extra points I would have scored with a MELODIAS/REIGNED sequence, I would have had opposite ends of the board to dump the Q and win the game.
>Jerry_Lerman: RRSTU 8A UR. +12 411
>Jim_Burlant: Q - +0 378
>Jerry_Lerman: RST 11M ..T +7 418
>Jim_Burlant: Q - +0 378
>Jerry_Lerman: RS 2C .R +6 424
>Jim_Burlant: Q - +0 378
>Jerry_Lerman: S 12D ...S +14 438
>Jerry_Lerman: (Q) +20 458
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