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#player1 Jim_Burlant Jim Burlant
#player2 Kate_Fukawa-Connelly Kate Fukawa-Connelly
>Jim_Burlant: AMOTUWY 8G YOW +18 18
#note While I was more worried about leave given the presence of the U, Q gives slight preference to 8G TOWY, and in retrospect I think Q is right - TOWY doesn't give back the easy E backhook that this play does. Championship Player says that, while this is the best leave, I should have played this at 8F. In retrospect, I think TOWY was the play. (-2.5)
>Kate_Fukawa-Connelly: AEK J6 KAE +27 27
>Jim_Burlant: GIILMTU K5 MIG +21 39
#note This scores more or less as well as anything else, but this is a B-, and not an A choice IMO. It errs on the side of rack balance, but it's not very good defensively. Looking at the choices, 7C ILIUM (which I never saw) or K4 GLIM look best. Play incorrectly scored as 22.
>Kate_Fukawa-Connelly: ADIOV L2 AVOID +30 57
>Jim_Burlant: AEILNTU 9A ALUNITE +65 104
#note Only bingo - 60% to win.
>Kate_Fukawa-Connelly: DITV A8 D.VIT +30 87
>Jim_Burlant: AAEEENY 7E AYE +14 118
#note As I put ALUNITE down, I did so with trepidation. Not only was I less than thrilled about having to slot the triple given how this tournament had gone, but I was dreading the post-bingo rack; I was fearing yet another full house or four-of-a kind rack without a good dump available. And lo and behold, look what I drew. I thought I might have missed a better play here, but Quackle indicates that nothing scores more than 17 points here and I have to either keep an unbalanced rack or keep the Y. Championship player indicates that 4 plays (of which this is one) win within 1/2% and sim within one point of each other at the top of the sim. The others are 7E YEA, 7E EYEN, and 7E YEAN. 53.5% to win.
>Kate_Fukawa-Connelly: HM 6E HM +31 118
>Jim_Burlant: ABEENRR 3I BRA.ER +28 146
#note A 3I play was obviously the call, but which one? I saw this and thought it was a chioce between BRAVE leaving ENR and this. I opted for this because, as my thinking went, if she didn't have an S she couldn't hurt me down the O column while BRAVE gives up the R, D, and S back hooks, making it too easy for her to hit a 7. Q indicates this is a very strong choice, but not quite best. Apparently, with 7 E's unseen I should play BEAVER and not be so attached to my E. BEAVER wins 56.5%, BRAVE wins 55.5, and this wins just shy of 55.3, simming 1.8 points down on BEAVER and 0.2 points down on BRAVE.
>Kate_Fukawa-Connelly: GNRS E5 S..R.NG +44 162
#note Post-mortem, Kate didn't think she'd done anything special here, but I beg to differ - this is a beautiful play!
>Jim_Burlant: DEEGINX C7 EX.DING +34 180
#note I was going to play 10F INDEX before she blocked it with SHARING. It took me a while to find this; once I saw it, I put it down. This is best. 8A DEX also sims well, but I don't like what it does to the board, and I'm not so enamored of DEGIN as a leave that I'm willing to give up 12 scoreboard points for it. The game is a tossup; I'm right at 50% to win.
>Kate_Fukawa-Connelly: ?ELNNTU N2 T.UNNELs +68 230
#note The game changer, as this minor equity slip by Kate had severe consequences. I'm betting she never saw GLUTENIN (an awfully hard find out of this rack, IMO) which plays at 11E for 66. I know I would not have found it. While this is her highest scoring play, it's safe to say that if she'd played on row 11 and not opened up the gimme at O8,the game would have taken a much different turn.
>Jim_Burlant: EFILORZ 8L ZI.L +69 249
#note If she finds GLUTENIN, I'm probably playing D1 FROZE for 44, trailing by 6, and winning 32% instead of leading by 19 and winning 49.9.
>Kate_Fukawa-Connelly: AP 9K PA +15 245
>Jim_Burlant: AEEFORS 4H FOE +16 265
#note A very annoying rack - I felt like I should have been able to score in the mid 20's with this, but the only plays that score more (D1 AFORE, B12 OAF, M7 FIRE) leave me unbalanced combinations and/or do things to the board that I don't like. This is best, and it wins 63%.
>Kate_Fukawa-Connelly: IQ O1 QI +35 280
>Jim_Burlant: AEINORS B1 ERASION +70 335
#note Only bingo. Quackle says I'm 72% to win, but I felt like this game was far from over. This is the play I have to make (the only other scoring option is ZAIRE L8 for 28 which leaves a so-so ANOS). But slotting the 3x3 with an E in the second position with a blank unseen and the pool starting to shrink was not exactly ideal considering that Kate had played all of 4 tiles in her last two turns and was probably close to something.
>Kate_Fukawa-Connelly: LOP A1 POL +31 311
#note Phew - relief!
>Jim_Burlant: BEJORST 10J JEST +43 378
#note Best - this scores huge and eliminates whatever possibility there might have been of a 2x2 on row 11. Her remaining bingo lines are very difficult to hit: either row 1 extensions of PE, something low-prob and difficult to find like CURACAO on row 2 (which I never noticed at the time), something starting in LO or LI down the O column, or she's restricted to row 13 which won't score more than 60-some points. I'm 84% to win. And one other thing benefitted me: Kate drew the wrong tiles at the wrong time from this point on.
>Kate_Fukawa-Connelly: CS K9 ..C +14 325
#note For the lower-division players reading this game, Kate needs to bingo and like I just said, the only lines she currently has are difficult to hit and/or they don't score. If she has the last S, it's to her benefit to open up an S hook and force me to defend it - if I can. This is a good play for her - the only way I see that this could be a mistake was if she had passed up something like COW 11I. And while I can't remember exactly what she told me her rack was post-mortem, it was clear that she had nothing but the C and a bunch of 1-point tiles. With this setup, if I don't have an O, I can't really defend against what she's just opened up as even the H may not help me all that much since she'll still be able to S-hook PECH.
>Jim_Burlant: BEOORRT 11I RO. +14 392
#note ...and unfortunately for Kate, I have the O. Against a random rack, this doesn't fare so well and Quackle says that I should just play BRO C2. I saw that this did create the possibility of a 5-letter C word at H11, but if she was fishing, chances are she was sitting on a higher-probability rack and she wasn't going to hit me with CHIEF or something like that. And even if she did hit CHIEF, my lead was big enough to withstand that - not the case if I didn't defend and she hit for 80 on row 12. Q says that against an inferred AEST?, I should play F2 BROOMY or 10C DONOR. BROOMY does defend against 9's on row 1 (not as likely of a concern against a human opponent not named Nigel Richards), and as far as I can tell, DONOR does a decent job balancing the rack but doesn't defend anything. This is the bronze medalist in the sim when I run it against a rack of AEST?. Quackle notwithstanding, I'd make this play again given this set of circumstances.
>Kate_Fukawa-Connelly: CEISTU H11 CUTIE +32 357
#note Again, the S is inferred.
>Jim_Burlant: BEFORTU I13 OFT +17 409
#note I'm much less worried about my leave than I am about shutting down her easiest lines. And once again, I have the tiles I need to block the lines she's opened. Quackle agrees - this is best.
>Kate_Fukawa-Connelly: ?AAHOSW 12J WHA +42 399
#note Kate doesn't have a win, but we figured out post-mortem that if she plays at C1 with SAW or HAW and takes away my best play, I win by 4 or 5, not 17.
>Jim_Burlant: BDEERU C1 DEB +31 440
>Kate_Fukawa-Connelly: ?AOS 13K SAgO +20 419
>Kate_Fukawa-Connelly: (ERU) +6 425
#note My own take - not knowing her racks, this looks to be pretty well played on both ends. I had a couple of mild imperfections but no major blunders in the early game, and the game changer was her play of TRUNNELS instead of the very hard-to-find (IMO) GLUTENIN. From that point on, the breaks all went my way.
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