A8 WEiGElI(A)/A8 WEIGEli(A) ties after B2 HIPLINE and loses to 4C ELENCHI. I undercounted my score by 1 point so I thought B2 HIPLINE would lose. There are 4 winning plays here. This is one of them, which is better than the also winning B2 WEIGhEd but worse than B2 pIGWEEd. The best play is the savage K9 (OR)G, which I'm guessing always bingos next turn because Championship Player is giving it 40 more points of valuation than B2 pIGWEEd. #ENDGAMESADDEST
i was in a bad mental state after losing the first game, and i know this affects me. FL(O)P is the equity play here. I think when I'm tilting, I just make weird bad plays, either adjusting to score too much or to leave too much, depending on how worried I am. I may have overcompensated here, thinking i better take the extra 5 points and keep MNT instead of EMNT (i even remember thinking the E is not worth 5 points, so take the 5 points, but as is common for me when I'm playing unwell, I don't pay attention to defense at all -- PELF gives up 4 more pts on average than FL(O)P). -3 #strategysmall
2B POA is nice #findingsadder. I mean yeah Quackle likes 14B APSO too, simming just below POA, and it scores 30, but I really don't want to open the triple lane for no good reason. Thoughts?
Looks like FUGIO is a bit better; WU is certainly worse than the IOW after FUGU, but FUGU gives back the big easy E hook and FUGIO scores 4 more. #tacticssmall
didn't know for sure if ROQUE had a hook in CSW (CROQUE*, etc.), had I known I probably play ROQUE. QI(S) was not on my radar, sims close to ROQUE. REIVE is a bit behind #knowledgesmall
i saw UNROOT at M3 but i didn't like it that much. i'm down a bit over a tempo and there's only a couple of lamish bingo lanes open. UNROOT sets up some overlap possibilities for him. it didn't seem that exciting. but maybe it's right. TAUON gives back 6 more pts on average. -4 #strategymedium
J8 FI(XI)NG #visionsad. I liked FLIER because it effectively shuts down the left half of the board for good, and that's why I decided against FLINGE(R). But this scores too much and doesn't open more.
Sim slightly prefers G1 VIMS; it scores a lot more and doesn't offer parallels thanks to the V. In fact, VERMIL yields more points to Andrew on his next turn than VIMS does. Obviously, I do much better on my own next turn holding the S, but still #strategysmall
IN MY HEAD I SHIT YOU NOT I WENT "oh I need an N for NEONATAL" and then i DIDNT. SEE. THE. FUCKING. N. I just spent the whole time being like "huh i wonder if I should play OAT or AAL" instead!!! AND I PICKED THE WRONG ONE LMAOOO #VISIONSADDEST
This is one way to force the board open against him. He's not going to suspect that I am keeping an S. However, this was not a good time to make this specific play because I saw H7 G(A)RISHLY and talked myself out of it. #knowledgelarge
I wanted to create bingo lanes rather than blocking them, but A(H)ULL sacrifices too much equity. G13 LUD is best; it has best equity and removes a scoring hotspot, at the expense of blocking row 15. #strategymedium
SEROW wins the sim instead. I would have thought that slating the R (the first R, at that) would be less dangerous than an S, and harder to parallel besides, but I guess not. Or maybe SEROW is better precisely because it's easier to parallel, taking out the lane. (-1) #strategysmall
I might have misevaluated this position. I didn't like creating the M7 lane after L1 FeSTIVE. If I try to block, I might open column N. It is true that the board control is better after my play, but I also didn't think about what Mark might be doing with BIT. #strategysmall
once again being safe, though I missed SPElEAN in the same spot which I would be sure of as opposed to SPEANEd, which I was not, given I always confused SNEAPED SPEANED with SNEAKED SKEANED*. #knowledgemedium #findingmedium
I suppose he could have S(E)RAGLIO, the only playable 7 on row 14, and nothing else. I should therefore play deP(L)ANES A2 or fish with E(ME).
i guess 11F RIGgERS is better but i didnt wanna give back TRIGGERS hooks and i also felt like my play was a bit more open esp since we were about to be pretty even ?#strategysad 11H SERRInG takes the hooks debate off the table tho so #knowledgesad there
A tiny voice in the back of my head said "NONVOCAL takes an S" and I chose to ignore it because, well, it just doesn't seen like NONVOCAL should take an S
spoiler alert: nonvocal takes an S but we both didn't know it
#knowledgesadder
considered QUAGS as well, since the G is a huge impediment here. Incredibly, my reasoning was off. The S doesn't improve Joey's chances at a bingo, since QUAGS is otherwise quite defensive. He also scores a whole lot more after QUATE because of the hooks, and my chances of a bingo next turn are only slightly better with GS, perhaps only because of how open of a play QUATE is compared to QUAGS. #strategysmall
N: I missed every single valid bingo after i did the correct thing last turn because i forgot that IDS existed and I don't know 3A (O)VERmANS and 3A (O)VERSmAN #visionsaddest #knowledgesaddest
I was surprised to see NOTCH H8 outsim CLOTH-- probably due to the CLOTHE hook, as well as the possibility of the Q at J6 after NOTCH. (-2) #strategysmall
The only bingos are 1G WHIlLIED# and WHILlIED, which I did not know. However, Quackle prefers 13A IWI#, which keeps a better leave than WILI# (including two vowels, which is important given the consonant-heavy pool) and gives me a chance to play a bingo from 1H-1O next turn. I considered 9M WAI#, with the same idea; but WAI performs slightly worse than IWI and the bingos, likely because it blocks column L. #strategymedium #knowledgemedium
While this play might have been #visionsolid, I crossed out the wrong letters and had him having ANR left instead of AER. If I had gotten it right, I would have done C4 AVO blocking RAVE knowing he has many outs. Luckily I only lost a couple of spread points because of this.
H1 INfAUNA(E) #KNOWLEDGESADDEST and a big old "what was I thinking?" because I spaced out and thought I had a T. It took me until walking over to the challenge computer to realize that I never had a T and I'm just stupid.
My thinking here was that by playing SEEM down low instead of EMEUTE the odds were good that if Ayo bingoed, it would still be on row 3 or 5 yielding strong counterplay. the other play I strongly considered was 5E MEE, but a SMEE bingo after that could be a disaster, especially because it scores 11 fewer points than SEEM. Quackle calls for 3B EMEUTE, which I also thought about; I suppose I can withstand most of the responses to that too, and the somewhat bingo-prone unseen tiles combine well with the S, so I get EFS bingos a lot. Thinking this is probably at least a #strategysmall 6:56
Will: Only two Es left so the odds of Josh paralleling this aren't as bad as usual. Josh: Adding a #knowledgesmall for Will for challenging ENTERINGS. Will, if you wanna play with the big boys, you gotta tag EVERYTHING.
JC: LMAO. I thought I played optimally here but it's not even close. A1 DEVO is 14 points better. It leads to some dumbass 7 turn dinking sequence that sticks me with the Q but is somehow better. #ENDGAMESADDEST
#knowledgesad for challenge and #tacticssad because Exch. DNQVW is slightly better, though I figured that with 3 Ts out and no Ns, RT wouldn't be as good
5D STRaNDE(R) is clearly a better choice and his next move explains why. If I'm going to miss that, maybe 15C NERDi(E)ST is a better choice. #findingmedium
This play was quite sloppy. I didn't see 2J I(N)GLE which undoubles both my E and I. Even 6G GIE is fine if I don't spot INGLE. Did I FORGET how to play Scrabble for a turn? #findingmedium
5B W(O)KS keeping a strong leave is a good concept here. That sims best by several points over E1 D(I)RKS and D(I)KES, which I didn't consider either. S(C)REW is also behind by a few points. #findingsmall
I couldn't see any way to fish off 1 tile and guarantee a bingo in two spots that can't be blocked. It turns out there are none, but fishing off the U draws into I6 AN(T)Il(A)BOR and 14F BARItON(E) which is pretty cool, but I'm never finding I6 AN(T)Il(A)BOR and blocks of 14F BARItON(E) will often block I6 AN(T)Il(A)BOR too if I somehow manage to find it (I won't) and he doesn't. None of this matters too much anyway since this is the finals and a tie is pretty unlikely. 1C (C)ARIBOU is probably fine. #findingsadder
how does one spot KIbOSH(I)N(G) D7 and miss SINKHOl(E) O1. I sadly thought this was better than KIBOSHING so I played it. It is indeed better but ugh. #findingSADDEST
No home for UPRAISE. I did see 7E PIA(L) but so many options allow me to dump the U. However, 10F (J)U(B)A actually allows me to have a reasonable shot at bingoing next turn for only 7 less. #strategylarge