This was really bad. I got paranoid about the S hook for MADLINGS for some reason which is ridiculous since I have two S. 12A BUIKS is best. #strategysadder
He ALMOST played L9 RAIS(I)NG, which would have given me M5 PINKEST
D3 P(O)KE here? Keep trying for a bingo? #strategylarge Also, I miscounted 5F (JO)KIEST as 34 oop
got kinda... idk aggressive loving or something, w the R out and the lead I liked having this leave, and to outscore with OLIVES hooks. however I should play OGIVE, which is a better version of this! I think I temporarily forgot that OGIVE took an S #knowledgesmall. I could see playing VOGIE as well, that is the type of play I usually make!
I ran out of time, mistracked, and gave up and just scored, which wins 4/8 with no inference. M6 DIRL(S) wins 5/8 with no inference when he doesn't have a bingo on the O column (if I draw EIRS?) and O3 DIXI wins 5/8 with no inference when he doesn't have a bingo from the V (if I draw AERS?). The evaluation of this endgame with inference is left as an exercise to the reader. #TIMESADDEST #STRATEGYSADDEST
I think that if I'm going to go with a board that is open enough to potentially benefit me but still leave the left side of the board blocked off, I think M2 DOGNAP(S) is a better version of this play as it doesn't expose as many floaters with QUIZ being in the way. Doing 9H GA(Z)ED, which I didn't even see, is defensive in the short term, but it would eventually defeat the purpose of doing VALINES in the first place. #findingsmall
chickened out of O3 (P)lOOKIER, which i'd seen last turn and was too titled to find O2 s(P)OOKIER #knowledgesaddest for phony #findingsaddest for O2 s(P)OOKIER
This, however, is where I should have lost this game. I thought there was only 1 spot to play the U, but 8L UDO is the other one. So 11D EM should have come down first. #endgamelarge
although this game is not realistically winnable, i can get some spread back by continuing to fish, for example, H12 BELT is just a couple points below but it keeps a much better leave. i partially thought GLOTTALS* was good. -5 #strategymedium #knowledgemedium
I(C)ILY is nice and tight, but makes the board too s-dependant for my liking. I wondered if ILIAD was worth the points sacrifice but didn't think about underlaps being easier after IDEAL, which tips the scales in favor of ILIAD. #strategysmall
I thought about A11 MAILE but not 13I EMAILEd. I think MAILE is actually fine, MEALIES opens up a big scoring spot for him, but also E? isn't great here cause bingoes need to start in vowels or use the blank as an S. that was why I decided against MAILE, but EMAILED looks better, he averages not even a point more than after mealies but my average goes up cause i'm opening the board more generally and not just one spot. #visionsmall
crap!! i did that thing i do when i'm down early and instead of trying to keep a good leave i turn over tiles like an idiot! 3F OWIE keeps a great leave of GILN especially with the open letters on this board. -10.5 #strategylarge
This isn't bad. Looking back, in order to gurarantee myself an out in 2, I needed to do E9 GR(O)WL first so that I have multiple out spots to play SIM. #endgamesmall
Second mistake in a row. I need to play BEEPING now while I have a playable bingo that scores 78. I balked at evening the score only to still be down tempo afterwards with potentially massive overlaps available; but there's only one A and one O left, so it's possible Terry can't even do anything on column A after BEEPING with APE/OPE. Also, GP? is pretty poor and there are a ton of whammy tiles in the bag that will torpedo my bingo% if I draw them. I regretted not playing BEEPING almost immediately. Quackle says it's a 7 point equity mistake. #strategymedium 10:20
although this game is not realistically winnable, i can get some spread back by continuing to fish, for example, H12 BELT is just a couple points below but it keeps a much better leave. i partially thought GLOTTALS* was good. -5 #strategymedium #knowledgemedium
I wasn't sure if LEW(D) G5 would always outrun H1 plays, but it does just barely get the job done. This can lose to NO(C)T(U)RIAS if I leave the A in the bag. I only calculated RE(C)A(U)TION, which also loses when the A is in the bag. I transposed letters when thinking about the draws and didn't recognize this. Had I seen that drawing EY wouldn't necessarily win, I would have gone with LEW(D) #strategySADDEST
Whiffed on some good options here, especially L1 DUSKER, and definitely should've done L1 RUSK, taking a small advantage on a bad board. KNAUR is also better than DROUK just to avoid keeping a U. #findinglarge #strategymedium 11:10
Wasn't really sure either way here. Decided to go with it, but was kind of aware it might not be a word. Some are intentional, some are unintentional, and this is somewhere in between. #knowledgesmall
tough endgame. I have to block MELODIA (and EARLDOM which I missed). Didn't see any way to do this and save two outs, but NOM(O)I does it. MORI(O)N is very gutsy and also leaves outs. -10 #endgamelarge
I really didn't want to play YOWIEs N10 because of the I draws, but this has to be worse. I ran out of time. Quackle likes 11E (Q)I, which is hilarious. I think this is just bad. YOWIEs has to be better #strategySAD
I decided FU(G) was such a weird play that it had to be a setup an overwhelming majority of the time. I did a bunch of estimations here and determined that this was barely worth playing if his play was a setup 80% of the time. However, what I failed to analyze was that this does block the hardest-hitting X plays, but gives back easy -AX plays in return which score around 40 points, so I'm not actually reducing Noah's average score by nearly as much as I thought I was. My other thought here was YO(K). I thought his range was specific enough now that the 14K spot would be mine a lot and that I could draw YO(K)ES or even something better a lot of the time. On paper I average well after BUR(F)I(s), but not nearly enough. There are plays that average more immediately as well, such as the bingo-seeking plays of M7 BUY and BUOY. BUR(F)I(s) should edge those out pretty convincingly in the turns after next, though. Even when I specify OUX as a partial rack leave, BUR(F)I(s) performs remarkably worse than YO(K). And unfortunately, just like Noah, I missed a cool disconnected play that solves most of my problems and keeps the game much closer. 13G (F)U(s)IB(L)Y is the way to go here. It blocks any setup potential better than any other candidate play and scores well. It does block the 14J spot which I still thought was a good asset, but that's OK. I've already tried to draw into a big play there and failed, no need to put all my eggs in one basket with the score so close. A ton of time and thought went into this play, and it's a glaring error. Tunnel visioning into not seeing that this didn't rid the board of big X plays like I wanted it to, as well as setting myself up for only one good outcome. #strategylarge #findinglarge
Quackle likes H6 MILE a lot. I don't see what's so great about it, but MIMEOED is probably a mistake anyway, as it blows up the rack. 7E MEG is the best equity play but Championship Player doesn't seem to consider it. D8 VIMEN is reasonable. #strategysmall
14J TROGGS sims best, but I'm not sure if I prefer that given her range. Although I really liked what J9 (A)GGRO did to the board with my leave, I don't think this is correct, though I'm not really sure what is. N4 GROG and 13K GORG(E) seem like reasonable options. #strategymedium
I missed E2 MISSOUN(D). I looked through all the other letters, never shuffled or put in MIS- as a prefix. Sorry Tunnicliffe for I have failed you once more, bingo finding with prefixes and suffixes is still hard for me. #findinglarge
This play isn't bad. At least I found an OK way to play thru this rack, but the play I was looking for here was F7 (BE)RYL which I did miss. That would have given me another S hook to work with despite the slightly less synergistic DNPS leave. On the other hand, I think my play surprisingly sims a little better than BERYL because LPRS is more synergistic. #findingmedium
IZAR would be a reasonable play here, on par with N8 NAZI and 11B REPAIR, except that I completely whiffed on L11 CAPIZ for 56. After MENTEES, I need those extra points to withstand an A1 bingo to the D and might even struggle to deal with a STAW hooking bingo without those points too. #findinglarge
cool -- bag has good enough letters (including the blanks) and is consonant-heavy enough that quackle wants me to keep S instead of ST here. oops. -0.5 #focus #tacticssmall
i saw TARRIER but it seemed dumb to block up a couple of (bad) lanes. however, 10 pts is 10 pts. i should just take the points, right? what do you think? -7 #strategymedium
Yea, I wasn't a fan of K11 J(A)VA here. I'm not sure why it sims better than my play if I get to keep my only vowel. Maybe K9 JAV(A) is fine because the 10J spot is not that dangerous after that play and I have a vowel at the bottom and top of the board to bail me out with a play like 2F WR(O)NG if I pick more consonants. K9 JAVA does look to be a bit stronger with respect to the leave and it giving a lot less back than K11 JAVA. #strategymedium
I wasn't 100% on this but I had the urge to be confident, after the CHAINER challenge and after no bite on BAGWORM or BUNTINGS. It's really funny that I played a phony against Mina with these specific letters, since the first time we played a game together she assured me that VEINERS was definitely a word on our opening rack of EEINRSV against David Whitley in the NOLA airport in 2017. Had I thought of that, I probably would have played VEINLE(T) 11D or RELIN(K). #knowledgeSADDEST
ugh this is too difficult. with such a small % chance of winning, i don't know what's right anymore. it seems in these types of situations i have to limit the amount of damage he can do, so something like 4K AY or YA is going to sim best despite keeping a U. the problem with GUY, even though it does play short and keeps a good leave, is that it gives back so many points; i know this but have to hope he can't punish it too much. -3 #strategymedium
Will: Hmm, I almost did BENJ and Quackle ever so slightly prefers it, but not for the reason I would expect (allowing fewer bingos) - it actually allows more bingos than JEW (24% to 19%), but almost equivalent average scores, which I think suggests that JEW is easier to overlap for solid scores on non-bingo turns. Even the leftmost placement of BENJ, which certainly looks like it would be hard to play sevens against, yields more bingos than JEW. BENJ then outperforms JEW on my own next turn by several points thanks to the more flexible leave. #tacticssmall
just totally missed the beautiful wellsite. the funny thing is i remember thinking of it at some point. maybe later in the game. luckily my play is not much worse. (well it might be if he has a bingo). -3.5 #knowledgemedium
Well, Quackle hates this, but it reduces Darrell's bingo percentage to zero, so that's nice. Quackle hates it because it believes Darrell's bingo percentage on the board as currently constituted is approximately 4%. UNSNAG scores so little that it puts me at risk of being outrun, but YZ is certainly a good combo to keep to alleviate that problem. A better way to go about this would've been to play 13f YANGS, which also reduces Darrell's bingo percentage to near-zero and keeps the Z, but also scores 8 more points in the process. I generated that as an option, but couldn't be sure that there weren't still playable overlaps on row 11 afterwards. #strategysmall
What in the ever living fuck. I remember thinking "Welp, it's ENAMOUR and NEUROMAS which don't fit". No, I don't know where the S came from, I was clearly delirious. #FINDINGSADDEST
There are some interesting choices that sim best like 2K B(AW)R, 6H B(I)R(R)S, O7 (KVETCH)eRS, 12C ROB(E), E10 B(A)R, 6M OB, and L12 (A)RB which are all much better than B5 SOmBReR since they don't always lose to an outbingo. #strategysaddest #timesaddest