I opted to empty the bag here because I was scared that fishes drawing into bingos with R in final position would be unblockable, and felt that playing along row 15 to the middle TWS blocked the most bingos; but it's actually tough for Jason to fish one tile in a way that scores enough for his eventual bingo to win. Something like 15M ERG or ORG to prevent the truly nasty bingos available with FLYPES is probably best. I was at least correct that playing at H15 cuts his bingo% the most. #strategysmall
Stopping miracle column A bingos and scary plays like 10B JAR. Something like 2I DINTING is mostly bulletproof as well, though I guess it would suck if Benjy had AGITABLE or EGLATERE. Quackle also likes 11H EMEND which I admit looks quite good to me, holding my lone vowel to dump the Q if I draw it and blocking the N and T of OUTPAINT. #strategysmall
JOBS is much better equity, but the S seemed really important to keep for the EQUINES hook. Also, the N at O1 is much harder to use than an S for 8s. Even adding +45 to each play (to account for the 43-point head start I have), Quackle strongly prefers JOBS, which I find fairly surprising. #strategysmall?
another poor decision. I felt I had a larger grasp on this game than in actuality. I should play 8L (O)OZE for more and leave the R open
not challenging last move was #knowledgelarge
this move is #tacticsmedium
WATERI(S)H got blocked this time, yay. I will admit that I was mesmerized by Eric drawing into a lot of good things after playing longer and should not have tried minting the board with this move for another score on this board with there only being 2 Ns left. F12 HAW or 9G H(A)W score about the same and keep better. Yes, I might protect myself a little better by keeping the W to score again at F14, but the lanes in EMANATED and INTINES probably won't get blocked as often after playing off my H and W as as move like VOG. Threrefore, it would have been fine to keep AEIRT or EIRT to attempt to bingo again. My next draw was disastrous, and Eric probably would have ran away from me regardless if I screw up this turn with how well he drew all game. Maybe this would have been awash, idk. #strategylarge
hard for me to determine which one is better between YEW and WAME. i see that EUY is a worse leave than AEMU and WAME might be worse defensively, but i like keeping the Y to score again next turn; YEW seemed easier to overlap etc. meh. -2 #tacticssmall
8H OY is best, followed by 8G YO. TOYO sets up my S on column K, but it is fairly likely for Carl to have an N or S with which to use the spot; and OY and YO have better equity than TOYO. #strategymedium
wow, i would hate to play QaTS here, but it sims best by a little. lol. i should keep RS? or ST? or something. i don't need this ugly RSST? leave. jeez. -3 #tacticssmall
Quackle says I can win 1/4 times with but I'm pretty sure it's lying to me beacuse I played them out and I don't see it. I have no idea if I have a win here or what the best play is. Regardless this play is terrible and I had no time. #strategylarge #timelarge
2B AECIA is best, unloading vowels and occasionally drawing into 1A QAT with four T's unseen. I seem to never find AECIA, especially when I am distracted by the Q on my rack. #findingsmall
Pretty interesting sim result here. Quackle's favorite play here is F7 FROG, followed by 2J HOG, 8L FAIR, 2J FOG, then my move of 2J FOH, then 8L FARO. They're all really closely packed together in valuation. Terry just bingoed and the board is loaded with high-equity scoring spots so simulation is going to be even more accurate than usual. FROG is both the highest scoring and most defensive move, cutting off SLEW and badly damaging the scoring potential of any racks Terry draws with the X in it. (By contrast, the Z plays all over the place on this board and there's little I can do about it.) I didn't think of FROG at all, unfortunately. On the other hand, I'm losing and might like SLEW to stay open. HOG vs FOG vs FOH at 2J is quite interesting. Sim prefers HOG, perhaps expecting me to get down some much heavier bingos with SHEN and THEN afterwards. My play of FOH gives me the highest bingo% on my next move, but nevertheless trails HOG by 3 points per turn because of those heavy bingos I draw into, and which stay open a huge amount of the time thanks to the other good scoring spots available. I'll give FROG a #visionsmall and HOG a #tacticssmall.
I thought my best attempt would be to go for H1 QAT but going for the bingo with 6L (N)AG is much better, probably. Maybe H1 QAT just doesn't score enough, I dunno. #strategysad
i don't think i'm that far off from being right. he's about to bingo again, and if he doesn't hit the H i can maybe get some big points back. maybe J7 R(E)X would block his bingo, but idk. #strategymedium?
I have like 0% chance of winning. With L11 SIEGE at least I can prioritize reaching 300 sometime this century. But, like, it's the case S. I'm feeling greedy. Also I forgot to look on that side of the board. #strategysaddest ? #visionsaddest ALSO #knowledgesad for challenging a 3. May or may not have been a "stop closing down the board for the love of god" challenge, but my lips are sealed
I tunneled too hard on the ING leave and thought I could dump the S to retain it, but this was a huge mistake since the S can counter and create setups on the right side of the board. A12 (V)INA is clearly best. #strategysaddest
He just fished off two tiles, so I'm too chicken to do C11 TOUGH, but maybe F12 PUG could be okay to set up my H (provided I don't think he has an S). Though, even if he has an S, it has to hit just right, so it's probably not too dangerous. #strategysad Also, this play was miscounted as 27
I enjoyed setting up my L, I suppose it's a cute play, but I needed to spot A10 EMETIN for the score and the turnover for Ss and blanks. #findingmedium
F7 FREE scores the same as this play but is 6 more spread points for me. At least I correctly chose this over 2M FET as my move is 1 point better than that. #visionbad
I correctly determined that this would be 2 more spread points than 11F DID, but I did miss I5 (A)D(ON)IS which is tricky to spot and is several spread points better than ZAS. #visionmedium
What a horrible position this is! PED was such a scary play, and I can do very little about it. KIWI is dangerous as hell, especially since Mike almost certainly has bingo tiles after PED. But that means that oftentimes Mike will bingo on Row 1 next turn, and I'll get a big score at O1. Quackle exchanges here, and I don't blame it. I had half a mind to do so myself. (-2% win chances) #strategymedium
both a vision and a tactical error. I missed IXIA at 1G and 14A, both of which seem better than FLUX. IXIA at 14a sets up FU? plays for me with D and N draws (or IT draws, etc.). It is slightly annoying because he could easily have an S for basically game-ending ZEDAS plays, or FIT plays of his own (though it seems like I'm favoured with this spot, my average increases by more than his does). I may have played 1G IXIA had I seen it just to be a bit less risky. FLUX vs. ILEX looks close as well - the pool is somewhat consonant heavy, making AEII less bad than usual. #visionsmall
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
decided this was worth a shot, even over (OX)IDIZE, since it was an amazing Q setup, and I just win if he lets it go basically. He challenged not based on knowing OXAZINE, OXAZOLE or OXAZEPAM, but on just not liking this. Ugh. #knowledgelarge
glad I remembered VALANCE taking a D and VALENCE only taking an S. However, I didn't remember VALENCY, which is definitely the play, as although it doesn't double a letter already on my rack, making 8-letter words less likely, it takes no hook, making 7-letter words completely unplayable. Not only that, but VALENCE takes the 3-letter PRE(VALENCE) extension, whereas VALENCY does not. TRIVALENCE is also a word, but neither Bryn nor I knew of it. #knowledgesmall
watching my laptop start to whine and heat up to the temperature of our sun as it sims makes me feel so much better about having had a hard time finding a good play. like, yes, this pile of metal and numbers, too, does not know what to do here. fwiw, it likes 7F WE, so it's only like a #tacticssad (ish)
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
I knew DONNART meant stupid but i couldnt remember if it was an adjective or a noun (i.e. a stupid person) #knowledgesaddest NORLANDS fits in this same spot
the most heartbreaking miss of the entire tournament. DISCIPLINES from DISC. And it's not like I didn't look. I was just thinking about DIS as a prefix. #findingsaddest
oh yeah HOGMANE is a word. coulda been a second 101 point play smh #findinglarge even as a nonbingo this play is trash, I got obsessed with the S but MHO is probably just standard and better anyway. maybe it's not awful because there will never be as nice a way of dealing with the S, but at least MHO has good upside and some defense value, and HOMAGING only partially blocks the S, when it will be more worthwhile to do a lower scoring but complete block later. awfulawful
the main problem with CROP is that it's much harder to open on the left side now. quackle prefers I11 B(E)D by win%, wish i'd thought of it. #strategysmall.
a little upsetting that i missed mingled. i saw melding, and didn't immediately think it had an anagram, because i don't study as much as i should. pretty important to find the right plays in this game. -5 with an inference of IST or something like that; josh would never play ZIG without an S. #knowledgemedium
CHAMP seems like the word to play here, but which placement? There are so many. I think after Matthew's move I need to be making as few floaters as possible and definitely not a double-double line, making 9G CHAMP the best choice. #tacticssmall