noticed him noticing S(CENT) finally and didn't notice my bing in the minute or so preceding this realization. ABSENTEE missed for the nth time #findingSADDEST
I normally play GUV but I not only liked the board shape after VUG vs GUV, but I also liked that I could re-hook if he played VUGG to VUGGY or even VUGH to VUGHS. GUV reduces opponent score by 3 over VUG immediately. hm so perhaps VUG helps him more than it helps me. #tacticssmall
The idea here was for me to save my C to eventually score with the COHO hook, which is why I didn't want to part ways with it. The best equity plays are 1J CEE, which I passed up since I saw significant value for the C, and 3L DEE, which I passed up since I didn't want to give Brendan free points with Column O plays. Quackle doesn't seem to mind parting ways with the D since I already have an open D with BOXED. The play I needed to spot was 13B LE(ER)ED for 18. It cleans up the rack better, gets rid of the D, and also sets up another scoring area on the bottom of the board in case Brendan set up Row 2 plays for himself underneath MEOW. DEB is a small to medium sized mistake. #findingmedium
didn't like that 14I APLITE would give back high-scoring bings, and didnt even consider fishing for my own bing with 9L A(T) or 7I A(V)I because i was trying to still score decently. #tacticssad (ish--gimme some credit, it's still within 1.5 points)
After TREM, I would have to find EF B7 over OF, to set up OV(ER), perhaps, to win in the endgame.
For some reason Quackle can't find this play in the endgame, but it's 8 worse than 7B OF setting up STOVE 6K. #endgamemedium
gotta do 15F BU(S)TI, leave 7 in the bag and set up my S to score. there's hella vowels out, so i dont need to worry too much. #strategysaddest also #knowledgesad for challenge
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
The Duck says K9 (PO)ND, I have no idea why. I thought I had to try and go out in two, I don't know what POND does. Anyway, #strategylarge or something.
wrote down JAGLESS on my scoresheet, and i haven't studied enough to know the words cold. sorry to disappoint my loyal fans out there. now i'll never know how sick it would have been to bingo with JAGLESS. 2E J(A)G is better than my move, btw, i think. -58 #knowledgelarge
Definitely did not like B8 TIZ with there being only the unseen K in this pool, and I also didn't care for 5K GLITZ as that's like throwing meat in a lion's cage. 2F (BLOW)ZIER is a nice extension which I did not spot. That's easily better than anything else there is. #findingmedium
bad! by far the best play is the excellent 11J AMUCK. i have the case S, score 28 pts, and go for letters like the Z to score a lot with. i thought of AMUCKS/AMUCK on my rack, but didn't quite look hard enough. LUCK is very weak and is the type of game-losing play i make way too often. the fact that it takes a Y makes it even worse. 9J MUCK is ok if i don't think of AMUCK. -15.5 #strategylarge #findinglarge
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
I don't think I was mentally present during this game because so far I've 1) EXCHANGED MY S and 2) fished OO for 4 (not even 8!)
Also 11E COO(R)IES #VISIONSADDEST #FINDINGSADDEST and #knowledgesad for the challenge
I put down 15K (S)HIVA first but picked it up because I was afraid of not drawing enough vowels with FLT to get the bing I need. I didn't even consider Q bombs. RIP. Even 15K (S)HAFT is alright, this is a huge oversight. #strategylarge
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 <-----
Well, I missed URODELANS, so that's not good. But Quackle also hates my choice of SOUND over something like L10 DUO. My thinking was that on this board, the S isn't really a key tile; the key tiles are the I to play TINY or LINY hooking QI, the H to play HO/HUN, and the X just because it's the last power tile. Rather than play L10 DUO, I wanted to get more cracks at any of these three tiles to maintain tempo advantage. #findinglarge for sure and not sure if this is a #strategymedium as Quackle indicates it is.
I saw DOGDOMS and him having blocked DOGEDOMS, but I couldn't convince myself that the 7 was valid. CATDOMS* is no good, how could DOGDOMS be? But I'm pretty sure I had checked this recently. #knowledgelarge
Generated a lot of options here. For some reason I seemed to be reluctant to just play OXIDE. Sim likes 11B OH, but I don't, since it blocks UTS and incentivizes Kenji to block SOH at all costs, leaving me with much more difficult lanes to hit. I didn't generate 9H TALLYHO which looks stronger than DO solely on the basis of the RIDES leave hitting so much more than HIRES. Also thought of N10 HORDE, 14B DEHORS, and a few other things. Ultimately OXIDE is just too many more points not to play, but the idea of making more S hooks that can't ever really be usefully addressed was very appealing. #strategymedium
Nope, need to just use one vowel here, big mistake. Spending my N absolutely torpedos my bingo%. Unfortunately, Neither RETINE or ORIENT hit the F from 1H very often. Also, if I was going to play two tiles ON is better than EN by a fair margin. #tacticsmedium bordering on large, the plays sim pretty close but I think the error is larger than that. 10:13
i liked sacrificing some points here to kill the bottom left of the board; i thought it was worth it. 13G CODEiNE sims best because it scores best, i guess, lol. maybe i should do it. quackle doesn't like these types of sacrifices. is congeed correct? i also saw encoded etc at 13G but it still doesn't kill the bottom left quadrant. -3.5 #notanerror? #strategysmall?
But the sacrifice was worth it, as (alas) my 93-point JETES was blocked. Quackle picks 1A EME, blocking 1A and ensuring that my M scores well while saving D6 JEST or J10 JETS. #tacticsmedium
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
almost played ANNO(Y), which would have blocked RALLYE unwittingly. I wanted to block REFRAINS stuff, which is obviously far less of a factor given RALLYE. I thought this did a good job outrunning 14E plays. I could play EAU at L11 to also block the dangerous REFRAINS hook as well as scoring plays to the Y, but I was more worried about getting outrun from 53 ahead instead of 62 ahead, and that would allow Jackson time to play something on the N column like OE maybe, since EAU protects that sort of opening. #visionsaddest for RALLYE again.
This is going for a draw of B, C, H, or L to threaten 3E bingos while keeping row 10 open. However, M9 WAI(S) sims best, probably because it keeps 3C bingos available, which might be more likely. #strategylarge
this was a pretty bad move. i was going to play P(O)W, and i talked myself into this somehow. i think a large part of it is that i wasn't sure if POWS was good. but clearly, POW is much better than TWA. i could at least play it at 10E. i think once in a while, i just have one move where i completely don't have a focused brain, but hopefully this will improve! -7.5 #strategymedium
I blacked out and it wasn't my turn anymore. I tend to do this at least one per tournament. An alligator poboy could have made a better play than this, like 4A E(T)HINYL. #STRATEGYSADDEST
I briefly thought about doing 5C OHIA or 5C CIAO as well as this, but those gave up too many points, and I still have Columns C and D to use. J2 OHO would have also been an interesting move setting up my C, however, I'm still not likely to win this game. And that's the hardest for Robin to block. #visionlarge #strategylarge
B2 POR(G)Y is nice. I'm committing to catching up without a bingo after SAYER. 3H OY and 3H AY are nice for fishy plays because they're tough to block + I have the floating T, O and N. #knowledgesad
there are no scoring spots on this board, and the pool is clunky. Therefore this is actually a really poor decision over U(K)E or (K)UE. KUE was my other consideration, but I liked how this kept a bunch of things open and allowed me to sscore well next turn if I couldn't bingo. #tacticslarge
N5 (D)ALTONIC got blocked and LACTONIC doesn't fit due to the Z being in the way. I think O8 COATI loses on the spot because that empties the bag and Scott could use Column E to take everything out. Maybe A8 AL is better just because it's 12 more and I could still hit ELECTION on Row 4 with 3 more Es unseen. #strategymedium
L2 WIN is a nice idea to set up my case T. TWIN also sims better than this, not a human move, though I guess considering there are no vowels left it's fine. #findingsmall
such an insane bingo available here. Can you find it? This is probably worse than MAY L11 because although I block myself with MAY, I also give him a lot less to work with, and I have the blank, so I don't really need to leave everything open. #tacticssmall #findingmedium #knowledgemedium
14H (S)pELAEAN is 78! Despite AnNEALED being better because of the placement of the N, it was not worth the extra second to replace the two N's once I had laid the play down. #findingmedium