i was actually doing some math here to try to figure out what the chances he drew an E were. i think i calculated somewhere in the 30% range. didn't see the amazing H10 PINETA. -0.5 #visionsmall
I wanted to create bingo lanes rather than blocking them, but A(H)ULL sacrifices too much equity. G13 LUD is best; it has best equity and removes a scoring hotspot, at the expense of blocking row 15. #strategymedium
This wins 26/36, often losing to bingos on row 2, to wit: 2E MATELO(T)S or ROYALE(T)S#; 2G RETO(T)ALS or SLAT(T)ERY#; 2H MAR(T)LETS, MAS(T)ERLY or MOT(T)LERS. It is best to block row 2 with 3K (e)RR. (e)RR wins 29/36, losing to O7 ELYTRO(U)S, N1 MASTERY or OESTRAL, H2 RA(N)SOM(AB)LE#(!!!), or drawing two of LRT. #endgamemedium
I must ask: how is it that I can find harder to spot bingoes but space out on an easy one occasionally? It's a good thing I continued looking after initially seeing J8 (I)DONeOUS. #visionmuchsolider
#knowledgesaddest for not challenging ANAGOGUE* earlier. This is also a tilt play. UH is fine, even though he's likely to have a D. I eat those chances up with the benefits of the UH play, and it's not like HUH doesn't give him so much back. #strategylarge
Definitely better than 7B KH(ET) as I keep a better scoring tile for next turn, but 10B BL(E)AK seems a bit better for 3 more, a little more balanced leave, and blocking the good floaters Eric has to bingo. #visionsmall
I was surprised to see NOTCH H8 outsim CLOTH-- probably due to the CLOTHE hook, as well as the possibility of the Q at J6 after NOTCH. (-2) #strategysmall
this is all very close but I decided against E10 (A)KEE because I really didn't like the leave. this also set up the sneaky I7 E(V)E with another E draw, which bails me out on a lot of racks. Nevertheless this is probably #tacticssad
Saw ClAQUER for 125 hooking CANON before he played. Tilted after, and missed the A4 QUARE for 87 leaving C? and the clearly best A2 ACQUiRE for 146. #findingsaddest
3J (F)EAZE looks good here because I can use the D and S hooks + the Z isn't right on top of the double word as it would be with 3J (F)AZE. #knowledgesaddest
I considered this, FIE 11E and FETA 7G. I missed OHIA 11D which seems like the play. I didn't want to play FIE because it set up PIER with ECO and 6 R's out without a good lane on the board. OHIA sims better than HAO by 4 points, and I imagine it's even better than that in this position. #findingsmall
Fatal mistake here; again, not many Es left, so not liking L8 NEELE: but the play here is 14F EEN after Terry's VAE. I have to try and force her into opening the board and letting me get my bingo down first. Probably more of a #strategysmall but I got burned pretty hard. 12:11
I always screw up the ACDEINOV rack on zyzzyva! I type this but it's VOIDANCE and it will always be VOIDANCE. I saw the bingos through the R, VOLCANIC through the L, and obviously VOIDANCE to the E if COINVADEd* comes off so I'm almost definitely bingoing anyway... but when this one scores 106 and I think it's good, I have to try it, right? #knowledgesmall anyway
lots of options here. 2F ILEA, 2H AA, 2G ALA are all nice aggressive plays. They kinda bank on her not having the K, but that's a decent gamble in this position. If I draw the K I get good scores, and she can't score there easily at all. I sorta like ALA best of the three because I also open a lane on the 3 row that I can hit even if she gets a K play, ISATINE and the like. A(J)I is also interesting to go for ELASTAN(E), ELASTAS(E), ALIENAT(E). 26/156 I hit, which is pretty good. I'm inclined to take the other 2 row routes to go for the K, but I'm not sure I win always when I draw the K. I think it realistically is pretty often though, and something like ILEA would be good for that to draw the K the most, but after she blocks the spot I may not draw a good K play at the bottom. Maybe ALA because I can still get YENTA draws at the bottom, bingo draws, K draws and stuff like YIKES. #strategymedium because this play doesn't have a big plan, I don't think I clued into how much trouble I was in. I was more in the mindset that I would necessarily squeak out an endgame, but with big K plays available I can't just make a play like this. same with YEANS, that is findable and could be bad.
i deserved to draw another I. i recognized here that i was in trouble, and i took a deep breath to calm down, i spent about a minute before looking at the board again -- then i still was unable to find a spot for IDIOM even though i saw it on my rack. sigh. it's the best play here, at 11J. -4 #focus #visionmedium
#knowledgesad for challenge
M1 Z(E)X #endgamesaddest #timesaddest I need to pay better attention to what my opponent has. Hopefully, by some miracle, they don't see 14B ANDR(O) and C6 DRAN(T) and I get another turn to go out with 7A JEDIS.
losing the wheels on the bus here. Missing G10 H(OW)F, but holding on to what I hope will be a closed board soon. Also missing 13I DASHI which is fine. #visionmedium #findingmedium
I think I needed to do K4 VERITY here- while there's no guarantee that I'll dump the Q next turn, it's a little more open, and I do still have 4 chances to draw an I or T. And I score 12 more. #visionmedium
It appears that exchanging does sim ahead of my play and G9 (F)AUNAE, which I was not a fan of. I'd probably exchange down to EN if I had to do this over again. #strategysmall
7L GRR has a considerable positional advantage over this placement. Leaves the easier 7s lane open on row 10, but moreover blocks the R and T in OVERTLY that aren't super useful to me and leaves the A in FAKED alone. #tacticssmall
I didn't consider fishing the M, nor did I consider M12 (E)LK! ELK looks really strong now, and it's not easy to block either. ILK does pretty well, and does open the right side which is important (and thought he miiiight miss ilka). I considered 13L TSK as well to set up a really hard to block lane, but without S in hand it's not as powerful. this looks like a #findingsmall for ELK
The equity plays on row 14 give back far too much on row 15. The next-best equity play is N6 AMIDO, followed by K3 MOOI#. Quackle favors N9 OO#, which gives almost nothing back, followed closely by AMIDO; MOOI often allows easy high scores on column L and is thus further down. #strategymedium
This normally plays good bingo defense, but after I once again can't shut everything down, O1 CHAYS for 15 more is worth it this time because I can't even draw any more Ts. #findingmedium
Sim winner is STUPA 5F, blocking LE(TUP). Ok, I'm sleep-deprived and all, and I have no time left, but I'm just saying: even on a good day, I'm never finding that. (-13) #endgamelarge #timemanagementlarge
i'm pretty sure i saw EE, and thought keeping STEEN was fine. i don't like Os that much. it's kinda shocking to me that EE sims so much better at 7H, but i guess it also doesn't give back some big pts. yeah, i shoulda done that. -11 #strategylarge
L12 L(I)T(U) is best, scoring while leaving 1 in the bag and keeping good enough tiles to outrun most bingos. I think the only sequence that doesn't win for me after L12 L(I)T(U) is O2 SAKERET -> D1 MERCY -> J10 (OO)S, which is a tie. I did not think CAULDS was valid so I didn't think I could lose here. #knowledgesaddest #strategysaddest
maybe thine to somewhat obscure bingoes to the bottom triple. Hent over hint because of all the ee's unseen? Hent sims best despite the s front hook #strategysmall
did not see that 13K was better, since I draw into QA(T) simply 14J when I draw an A, and a bunch of other plays through the T that score 60+ #findingsmall
I completely failed to see the hyper-agressiive 9J OF here. What a play. Just decided to equity here and see what happened, since I wasn't ahead by enough to play defense at the expense of my rack with all the lanes on the board that weren't getting blocked and an unseen blank to boot. #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
i think this was a massive mistake. i didn't want to play 3C TAX for 29 because it keeps two Us, and i was worried that i was just going to have a very clunky rack the following turn and lose that way. my play at least sets up a lane. but, if he has WAX or TAX himself i'm dead. i really regret not playing TAX. i think i could survive with BLSUU and 29 pts. having the case S is awesome. i can also do E11 HABU, which i also like. -6 #strategymedium
I just flat-out missed BARYE here. I was also unsure of BARNEY, even though I would have played that in an NWL game. I also just missed BYRE J5. #findingmedium
I hallucinated A1 I(D)OLATOR even though I tracked correctly and made what I thought was a 400 IQ block when there's actually no triple-triple available in the pool and I sacked a bunch of equity. I'm fairly sure this never loses though. #strategysaddest
I should probably just play C7 LIEU but I'm not sure what INE gets me when the board is this closed. I'm pretty happy with my decision honestly. #tacticssad i guess.
I liked this for defense, but XI bingos so much it looks like it's worth it. Especially for spread purposes it's probably the correct play, which would matter a lot later in the tournament. #strategymedium
Fishing for Z plays at 10J in a way that doesn't arouse suspicion. J10 ZA is best, followed by plays using the letters BURD, BUD, BURDS, etc. but suspiciously not at 10J. #tacticsmedium
totally confused here. This was actually pretty awful since he can just re-overlap and fork the board. I did happen to block SUBATOM in two spots, but
#tacticsmedium
This isn't terrible. But keeping the S after OATY actually helps him more than it helps me since my average goes up and his average next turn goes down. ISU is a very weak leave, therefore, I should have done 13B OUTSAY over OATY. OUTSAY actually opens up 2 nice scoring spots and is simming ahead of OATY. #strategysmall
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
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 almost played OPIATE/AVAUNT to go for the blank, and then I didn't because I was worried about the spot it created. So fucking stupid, because O11 is already a thing. Idiot. #strategylarge
Yet another example of Quackle being bad at pre-endgames: it says three plays win 100%, namely this, 1L FAGS, and M11 ZIG; and FAGS has by far the highest valuation. Upon further investigation, FAGS loses when I draw an I (3/8) and Carl plays 14L LEIs setting up 13J ODIC(!), which I cannot block without being Z-stuck. ZIG and ZAGS win 100%, and ZIG is slightly better, threatening plays at 1L-1O and 5B-5E. #tacticssmall (-0.5)
H10 (T)ANGUN is better because it doesn't make the hotspot. I really hated giving all those floaters but I didn't see anything better. #knowledgemedium
EBBS is annoying now, there's something to be said for leaving the C open in part to make a lay down to D8 to take out EBBS. however, ebbs isn't a huge threat cause it opens the triple for me, so outrunning is more of the goal here, with VIGILS open a bit as well. TAKA looks good for both of these goals, DFIU is more balanced as well and I block VIGILS. #findingmedium
i thought the leave after C13 XU was too clunky, but quackle thinks it's a fine play. FIXT gives up a lot more points and i shouldn't be volatilizing the board too much. still, the game is very close now so maybe having an open board isn't that bad. -4 #strategymedium
Only did this because I know Peter left the punchless IOST on his previous play, but it's still better to play something more traditional undoubling and keeping my vowel like just 4B WREN. #strategymedium