incredibly frustrated here. The board isn't close to being contained and now if he gets a bingo I am barely ahead. E7 T(U)RR is winning a sim, isn't that ridiculous. I saw it but thought it took an E. lmao fuck. I can just block the S hook later with a VIVAT play ending in RT. #knowledgemedium I exchanged XTTRT keeping RZ
Thought WAGGAS would give up the extra points it scores on defense, but apparently it's only two points worse than GEWGAWS. Maybe GEWGAWS slightly likelier to get +5 from challenge too, but still #tacticssmall 17:58
chickened out of both SNIFFLER and SNUFFIER. It's not that I didn't think I could get away with SNIFFLER, but I was going to challenge the S hook, which means I was not playing optimal Scrabble. SNUFFIER just looked wrong, but FUNFIRES kept resounding in my head, so I should have gone with it. #knowledgeSADDEST
Didn't know fricking EWERS. Feels like SADDEST but since it's only 5 points. #knowledgesad and also 1K VEG(A)S. I was completely out of time. #timeSADDEST
I chose this over AY/YA plays because I hate F's and because AY/YA plays close bingo lanes. But ?AFIS > ?AISY, and 3M YA makes column O a bit harder to use. #strategymedium
This wins a sim but I'm not sure if it's correct against a human. It might be blocked by plays on the N column too often, I dunno. Also, #knowledgesad for the challenge of MICKY.
Thought getting an S hook on the board would improve my bingo percentage but actually leaving the 8s lanes open with J1 LOX apparently gets me the highest bingo%. #strategysmall 21:31
i spent too long on this play. i disagree with 13L HON. come on, man. i know i have a good leave for it, but who makes plays like that when up this much? however, NOH in that spot is probably better than my play. -4 #tacticsmedium
Right idea. I did see a good play and considered DEMETON as well as MONTY and MONEY at J2. MON(E)YED is the standout play since that does dispose of the Y, which can be a bingo killer even though it's a nice scoring tile to keep on this specific board since DEMETON sets up another spot for my Y. #findingmedium
AWEE seemed to give a lot more easier plays back, but that shouldn't be a huge concern since I'm probably slightly behind regardless, so the extra point, better opportunities next turn and one fewer vowel might be good. #strategysmall
So, usually I would mark this as a KNOWLEDGESADDEST for missing 15H (F)AVRILES, but I'll cut myself some slack this time. O4 ALIVE is fine, I was out of time here. #timeSADDEST
I immediately miss one of the three extensions of QUATE, ADEQUATE. This is pretty terrible. I only saw TORQUATE and COEQUATE when playing QUATE. Last turns' slight mistake snowballs into a much larger mistake on turn 2. #findinglarge
Another tank here as I evaluated as many placements as possible. The board after STRIGAE was pretty close to locked down, FOXIEST plays aside; maybe one or two more defensive moves would create a real problem for Dave. Quackle actually prefers 11A STRIGATE and I5 AIGRETS, both of which I considered; I'm not sure I thought of 14B SEAGIRT, which is also a play it likes better. #tacticssmall
I considered all three of the top plays here, the other two of which are HUP M1 and HAW 13G. I could see that WAAH made it trickier to fully take out Rows 10 and 14, relative to HAW, and made it easier to score there besides, but figured that most of those scoring plays figured to muck up that part of the board. The case for HUP was that Row 1 is dangerous, and HUP neutralizes it forever. But it didn't seem worth it to sacrifice 10+ points. In the end, HAW G13 wins the sim. The immediate three points are worth it, and it might be better positionally too. -2 #strategysmall
Hm. I saw CAPRIC but didn't like how it took out lanes in ENROBERS. It is an 11 pt sacrifice but it doesn't sim that far behind CAPRIC. #strategysmall?
i didn't spot the J14 GYP spot, and at this point i'm pretty unfocused. gotta work on focusing in all situations. since a loss here will make me 1-2 in the early bird so far, it was tough to stay positive, given how i lost the last game! This is a great example of how one lost moment of focus costs one the game. The most elite players make the right play here - it is essential to keep the V to score at 8D, so the best plays should actually keep EV. that makes YEN even better. In the main event, I had a somewhat similar situation, but at that point I was significantly more concentrated and I think I made the right decision. -16 #visionlarge
I don't remember whether I passed up on the bingos or missed them entirely. But the top 5 plays are all bingos: D5 mUTINEER is best, followed by D6 cEINTURE, D5 rEUNITER, D6 gENITURE, and D6 UNrETIRE. #findinglarge
an inexplicable miss of just 10H (D)UIT, which is worse than average but still has to be worth playing. Hyper leave-oriented play seems to have permeated my brain in NWL of late. I only considered exchanging and playing RUTT(Y). #findingSADDEST
2J BLE(A)T is 17 fewer points but reduces the opponent's next turn score by about 6 and increases my next turn score by about 13, apparently. This makes it sim about 2 points better. #strategysad
spent 54 minutes looking for something that wasn't N1 AdHESIO(N) and didn't spot N4 ApHO(N)IES. #knowledgesad you know who needs to spend more time on StudyCade? This gal <-----
I gave up 10 to play this over C3 TOOLING because I wanted to kill easy double-triple plays. But when I'm up this much I shouldn't be opening another triple-triple. #strategymedium
#knowledgesad for the desperate challenge. This turn is notable because there are 14 plays that are all tied for best at a valuation of 13 points (this is one of them).
awful and discouraging. I completely forgot that DEVI was a word so i only thought of making the hook an A. also, because I had spent like half my time on the first three moves, i was pretty low here and could not see a good way to win. i did see FRAT, which quackle says is a winning play, but where's the other spot for WAI besides WAIT? -8 #endgamelarge (edit: 5B WAIR, making three "new" in the last few years 2s!! how can I hope to play Collins if I can't find TWL 2s??)
thought about 4b HAVE for spread cause i Have the case Ss, but there is still a blank out and it just opens the board more. SHAVE is more standard than this, but it also takes NNNRRRR from the pool (mainly just the R is the worry) so he hits the spot more than I do. it's pretty close in a sim, but SHAVE still does better #tacticssmall a lot of that is bingo% though, which isn't very important here
damn didn't see PROMPT! that looks better here. #findingmedium also not much inspiration on this exchange, I guess it's fine? not much scoring power with PR so I wasn't a huge fan, same w the X
OK, I drew some A's - that was lucky. I have to play AI over AIL here; for one fewer point I get 15% of bingo. Why do I keep making this mistake over and over? #tacticssmall 20:10
I did see 9F MIsCITE which I passed up. However, I missed the anagram of COMITIEs- 5D sEMI(O)TIC is 94, but even better positionally is 5D EpIT(O)MIC. #findinglarge
11H TALONEd missed mate in one #findingsaddest. I thought I had to not empty because of how strong the bag was and definitely not open the triple so I passed up the weaker bings.
A: I chose EPIGrAM because it creates a decent sevens lane on row 2. But 1I PrIMAGE is slightly better, possibly because EPIGrAM creates scoring opportunities for Carl? I don't know. #tacticssmall
C: The whole game, I wanted to play EPIGRAMMIC*, but it's ENGRAMMIC/IDEOGRAMMIC/PHONOGRAMMIC only.
I honestly didn't think too much about this opening. I thought this was clear given that it was a lot more defensive than other stuff. Quackle doesn't like it, at all. Surprising, and I'm not often surprised. -4? #strategysmall
MM: Lots of mediocre choices here. C1 JET sets up DU-- plays but seemed too risky with DKR left to hook EF and AAUU left to hook UTE. I liked that JOLT saved UNFED, which is fairly unlikely to get blocked. Noah pointed out after the game that UNFED first might be better, as I have a chance of hitting 3G JAR next turn for a lot if I can pull one of the 2 remaining As. And DUNE as a leave probably doesn't have much potential to improve beyond UNFED. So going to call this a #strategysmall.
So close to doing 8A THO despite the duplicated Is and lost my nerve. Another idea I didn't see: I13 IT to set up ETH plays. KITTEN blows up my rack far too much for not enough points. #strategymedium 13:23
XI C9 might work enough that it's worth playing? Man, plays like that are so hard to pull the trigger on. I think Michael would even sniff the setup sometimes. Dunno? XED in the same spot is probably a bit better, which I figured afterwards, just liked the E a lot more than the I. #tacticssmall
Tough move here. I think after Rasheed's OKE perhaps UGALI isn't the best idea. It feels like 13B RIZ is much better than usual after that play, since he probably rarely has a G and certainly never an F on that move; unless maybe he can have ING leaves with OKE? Hard to say. I think I like RIZ here, but other Quackle favorites like G13 GI/GIE don't seem smart. #strategysmall
PEOY* #KNOWLEDGESADDEST Also Quackle likes 13A QATS but i'm not about that dangerous life. Not that I made the correct decision, because my opponent ended up playing for the same amount of points under 4J QAT next turn anyway #strategylarge