AVISO has the best equity, but the sim winners are exchanges, keeping AS, S, or IS. The board is very good for the S with (ADVECT)S, (BALANCER)S, and (QUOTA)S available. #tacticssmall
this was an adjustment to what was probably better equity, but it sims like 10 points worse than other options, so I don't think I can justify this. Gotta keep a better leave. M(A)LLET 3C seems best. #strategymedium
7I OUR is also cool, the U isn't super parallelable so it's kind of a board fork. GURU doesn't give much back, and I chose this one for 1 less point because it doens't allow h11 plays. h11 plays aren't so bad for me cause they give more lanes, but they still score better than most other plays on the board. I also like leaving a bit more distance from the E column in case a LEGGY play comes down, partially inhibiting my lanes. although EORS > ERSU, the better board position makes OUR bingo almost as much as GURU. #tacticssmall
wow. CEROES* is phony. CERO is a fish, not the number ZERO. never knew that. REBEC is still the best play, but i can't find plays like that when i'm 1-5 no matter how positive i am. -1 #knowledgelarge #tacticssmall
I missed B2 InFANTA, which scores 2 more points and is easily best. I chose this over ANTIFAt and ANtIFAT because I thought this would be harder to underlap, and also to show off one of the new NWL words. L1 TIFFANY is awesome. #findingmedium
The board is nearly completely bereft of scoring spots after this move (just ZA hooking plays); Quackle calls for K7 LUREX, but I'm very content to stay turtled up here. LAMER badly outperforms all other candidate moves defensively. However, I missed L8 RAMEAL, which is a better equity version of my move. #findingsmall 16:41
1st tile on my rack is after a Q in the alphabet. Not too often one sees that. 11G V(E)R(I)ST appears to clean up the rack much better and is a clear improvement. I did not spot that. #visionmedium
missed GLOOPY in the same spot, which I imagine has to be better. PHYTOL I didn't count, but it seems potentially worth playing due to scor. POTTY looked awful. #findingsmall
in speed games, there is enormous value in seeing bingos quickly. I unfortunately do not usually have that capacity, so I often make plays like this, that can't be too much worse than a bingo, but that are clearly inferior. The time I save is very valuable, but immediately missing the bingos is obviously a problem. Had I taken the time to see a bingo after not immediately seeing one, I would have lost a lot of time and it would not have been worth it. Best looks to be L5 cATHEAD, which looks like it would lead to a game where whoever gets the next bingo will win. #findingmedium
quackle prefers taking the pts with B4 NAV (and also killing that part of the board). RTU? should bingo pretty often, and it's good to score more points here. -5.5 #visionmedium #tacticsmedium
This isn't bad. But at nationals, a good move isn't exactly good enough. L8 (C)APFUL was missed for 4 more and sets up my S so well. For only 4 less points, CAPFUL is absolutely worth it and would have created a more favorable board for me. #visionmedium
This is really weak. I need to get rid of more vowels. I was thinking this would force his bings to open up so I could bingo through the floaters. I can't see anything I really like, so suggestions are welcome. #strategymedium
thought it might be PREFOLIATE* but yeah, never was going to be sure of PERFOLIATE, which is best here. Dave Wiegand thought CARPETBED* was good, as did I. #knowledgesaddest
just play X(U). This was stupidly fancy and cost me the game. It just seemed to fit my Nationals profile. Also shout out to PAN(CREATIN). #tacticslarge
L2 NI(E) only draws into DELOUSE, J2 UN(I) draws into 8 playable bings, M2 OU(D) into 10 playable bingos. Like, yeah, it's blockable but I gotta hope that he can't/doesn't. This one feels vv #strategysaddest because right idea, rough execution
Q likes the aggressive AW G3 here, but that seems a bit ridiculous to me (-3?)
I hated to give up the D for FEUD but I see no plays that make sense that are good. Maybe that's why Q likes AW so much? maybe #tacticssmall
i had a very bad feeling about his rack based on my last couple of games, and knew i needed to race to the blanks and S (SWILE, two blanks unseen, etc). i thought i should block a few lanes. of course it's an overreaction to blow up this nice rack for 20 pts only when i can do L1 KAMI, which decently blocks the T as well but keeps a much better leave. 4B CINEMA is another very nice alternative. this is clearly me being scared and overreacting to the way this tournament is going. -7 #strategymedium
6A YARDeRS #knowledgesaddest #visionsaddest. This ends up being a 12-point dynamic equity mistake. I saw the word but wasn't sure of it. I might have tried it but didn't even see the spot. My play is second best tho
I get 7% more bingo by holding onto the P and those bingos I do get score slightly more thanks to my holding a tile worth more than one point. #tacticssmall
chickened out on 1K TARG(A) but no reason to try that if i have a win, only if it was my only play. -5 #knowledgemedium
i got so freaking lucky this game despite making a number of bad plays.
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
I thought I had to block O1 (AQUA)TONE, but it looks like I can just score with J6 E(G)OS holding my H to come back with N6 H* plays and I probably always win. #strategysaddest
11C DIB is best, blocking the J. 12C VEG is second, with the same idea and the best equity. I suppose ABDER doesn't become a bingo often on this board. #tacticssmall
I took over 8 minutes on this rack. I eventually saw ASSUAGER, the only bingo, around 6 minutes in, after generating AGERATUM, ARGUABLE, GRADUATE and RUNAGATE. At first, I thought ASSUAGER made sense, but because I was fairly certain that ASSWAGER* was invalid, despite ASSWAGE being an alternate form of ASSUAGE, I ended up deciding against playing it. Throughout the rest of the game I was fairly certain ASSUAGER was valid. If I had pulled the trigger on ASSUAGER, the time I spent would have been somewhat reasonable. I never saw D1 AREG for 30, which trumps my play of VAGUE by a few points of equity. In and of itself, ASSUAGER is around 9 points better than VAGUE, which is about what I intuited during the game. This was my first stroke of luck in what would become an absurd work of art, as not even making the best non-bingo play worked out by blocking Jackson's huge double-double. #knowledgemedium
This was an echo of the MUL(ATT)O/MO(G)UL position against Kevin Fraley at California Open 2018. JEW 4J is way better because FIDS M1 is unblockable. And I even saw it too! But I worried that I had mistracked and thought that Josh might play out and win if I was wrong. After JEW I'd be up 41 points but he'd get 16 from me, and his tiles look like they could score 25 points if there's a spot for them. With more time, I would have retracked the game to be dead certain that Josh can't play out, because that being the case, JEW/FIDS is best by a large margin. (-29) #endgamelarge #trackinglarge #timemanagementmedium