15D (H)UcKSTER is a cool one that is much better than this, and J1 TUR(N)KEyS is something that would have taken away the entire bottom right for him! #findingmedium
i don't know about this. i think i was a bit unfocused here and unable to figure out how to break ahead. i saw my S wasn't worth a ton on this board and i need to score. but 12L LARS looks a lot better. -8.5 #focus #strategylarge
Good thing I found the word. I would play this at G6 in a do-over. That's much more defensive and scores 4 more, especially after his range likely consists of another S and another vowel. #visionsmall
I rejected 8J (L)UNULE because it opens the right side of the board. I missed 15A UNREEL(ER), which wins a close sim over (L)UNULE and looks best. #visionmedium
This rack, while LEGIT AF if you will, seemed pretty awkward for this board. I didn't see the G being that good here and was looking to partially block the S if I didn't see anything that scored super well. With that said, 9C GELATI for 26 is insane board vision and didn't spot that. #visionlarge
I considered fishing the F with 5K F(AD) but I thought the 11H bingos would all get blocked. Apparently, it's best. I was trying to block the possible 2A (R)EADVISE with this play. #endgamesaddest
i gotta find FL(U)ID ... FUD is not good enough. i was a little worried about the X so that flipped the scales, but i hadn't seen FLUID. -4 #findingmedium
C7 ECU is good here because I'm still scoring enough to stay in reach and, assuming my opponent has the J, I can still pick up a bingo after this. #strategylarge
this really didn't seem like the sort of play I would normally make in a position like this. Keeping things a bit more tight and keeping better with G3 HIN was the fiirst thing I considered, for a decent amount of time too. Quackle agrees that this is substandard. HIN hits a bingo 10% more and scores better than HAEMIN. #strategysmall
It's none of Jay's BEESWAX what I have on my rack (except if he tracked correctly which he did). Sadly there is no spot for this cool bingo and I would go on to miss F1 WAXE(r)S saving multiple out plays with BE. #endgamelarge
WA: I didn't see F10 TATOU, which looks nice, especially if I read HOB as a Z setup; though keeping the T for TREW is helpful as well. I'll go ahead and say #visionsmall.
missed 3(!) bingos here, and I knew I was missing them too. LOPPERED and LAPPETED I didn't know for sure, and I chickened out of DEPEOPLE. #knowledgeSADDEST
I have to leave one in the bag here. 14A (T)IP is best because it sets up D12 JAIL to outrun any bing winning everytime according the Championship Player. This is almost as good. #strategymedium
Spent a while on this turn looking for bingoes starting at C3 ending with -MOS or -MES, and there were none. 15H (A)cROSOME is a hard find, but nonetheless a miss for 6 more. #findingmedium
i like this move, but quackle thinks just dropping the H is fine. apparently i bingo close to 89% of the time when i do that! definitely sounds a bit high, since i don't hit bingos with the B or R, and he's going to block some percentage of the time. so i'm not sure. anyway, i didn't see that many possible bingos, and wanted to keep the F for scoring at O4. #strategysmall ?
C: I had seen the 9 before Josh played ADOPT, but then spent way too long trying to find a decent bingo on Column M. There aren't really any that don't allow comeback plays on column N. I saw that TROILUSES was vulnerable to X plays, but if he didn't draw one after ADOPT, I like my chances. The sim winner here is OUtSETS M9, but I'm skeptical. (-4?) #strategymedium
J: can you find the other 9-letter word in this position?
This was a great find, and I definitely felt tilted given that AUREI would not have given Carl this play. It was one of the rare occasions that I was on tilt at Nationals, and it's stupid, since he has many other spots to play bingos here, they're just slightly worse.
I intentionally did not go out with 13C sENN(IT) knowing he had 3 seconds left on his clock and was going to lose 10 points accordingly. D8 N(AB)Es would have been better than my move to prevent his highest scoring out play. #endgamesmall
I realized after I played this that I missed A10 LAVAGE, which both I and the sim prefer over BAGEL. The equity play, A12 VEGA, performs equally with LAVAGE. #strategysmall
it's more important here to keep a balanced leave; OOZE does that better despite giving up quite a bit more points. i also score a lot more after it than OOT. -3 #strategymedium
I played too scared here. I thought my opponent was fishing but the bag is too crappy. It's more likely that he's bogged down with consonants and there's nothing he can do. I need to play O1 PONT or O1 SOAP and outrun. My play literally set up a lovely little X hotspot for my opponent to outrun me with. Genuinely, I could not have made a stupider move. Even passing is better. This is a time where knowing E4 PANTOS would have come in handy. #knowledgesaddest #strategylarge
I missed a rare opportunity to play KAAS here, in the same spot. #findingsmall
I'm not too worried about the C hook here, since The C is usually a word-starter and he only has 6 squares to play a word starting in C.
-0.5 i think, QUELEA lessens disaster racks next turn. i typically like taking Ys in triple lanes because they're good dumps of ugly letters for my opponents. #strategysmall
J2 V(I)N and 6D V(IF)F sim best here. I liked H2 G(U)V because it killed the top part of the board and H1 plays by Austin create long term problems for board control. The equity is just too bad though, and a two consonant draw is devastating. H2 F(U)NG is a better version of this idea (since I get another shot at a vowel) but still bad. #strategylarge
N9 SHoFARS and N9 SHARiFS lose to 15H ACRIDE(S)T. I had about 30 seconds left when I took the S off of N9 SHoFARS. This never loses, but H10 (A)SHRAF is much better. #knowledgelarge
Tough move here. My hope was that reparalleling MIS with ISO would help me open more of the board on subsequent turns, but particularly blocky AMIS hooks like the one Vince played are bad news. Sim actually prefers LIS slightly over MIS on that basis, allowing many fewer points per turn to Vince by allowing fewer hooks and less lucrative plays down the L column. #strategysmall
I saw O10 FAKEER as I entered this rack into Quackle. Surprisingly OMA is only about 7 points worse, but that is likely because it keeps FAKEER for next turn. #findingmedium
Wondered about EFIRS vs EIRS here. I thought EFIRS was slightly stronger for bingos next turn and also just more balanced in general, the F can be used for scoring as well as bingos. However, EIRS is remarkably stronge than EFIRS here, mostly because of the floaters on the board I imagine. EFIRS might hit a similar amount of 7s but definitely not nearly as many 8s. #tacticssmll
18 points off of HET because blocking the 2 row costs Deen dearly. HET follows a very complicated out-in-5 sequence according to Quackle. #endgamesaddest
hilariously ran out of time here. I assumed he was going to play something with QUATE like ME(R)C so I put down PASSIvE and EQUAT* and only stopped because I didn't have enough time to circle the blank and hit the clock before going overtime. Then I realized I was about to play a hilarious phony and laughed instead of actually finding a better bingo. Then I was down to -00:45 so I had to just play the first thing I saw. #timeSADDEST #findingSADDEST
my original thought was ZE(E) F6 for 32. But then I saw this, and wondered if it could be worse. Quackle thinks this is around a 3-point error, which I find hard to argue with unless somehow Ricky plays more closed after ZE(E) such a significant amount of the time. #strategysmall
It's a strong D setup and S setup in 1 move, but not exactly worth the 15 point sacrifice. I didn't see D4 DEFU(Z)E, which looks quite a bit stronger. #findingmedium
Knock knock. Who's there? Definitely not Nits. Maybe one of the shades from Book VI of the Aeneid. #knowledgesaddest for phony and #knowledgesad for challenge
INTU is clearly a better leave than ETU but i think 7G WAIN sims best partially because i can bingo through the N? i'm not totally sure. my bingo % goes up after it. #tacticssmall