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#player1 Jim_Burlant Jim Burlant
#player2 Darrell_Day Darrell Day
>Jim_Burlant: BBGILST 8F GLIB +14 14
#note I'm puzzled - why is this better at 8H instead of here? Is the threat of a cheap ZIG or JIG enough to make the difference? I would have thought the I on the star would have been a lesser bingo threat than the G. Whatever - for this game it wouldn't have mattered.
>Darrell_Day: ?ELNOOR 9E LOONiER +68 68
>Jim_Burlant: ABENRST 10D NAB +25 39
#note No bingoes play, and the question becomes whether to play AB 10E or this. I opted for NAB because I thought ENRST was a hair too consonant heavy. Q agrees with me - this is best.
>Darrell_Day: EEGHSST 11F SHEGETS +79 147
#note Darrell's best legitimate play is SHEETINGS H3 for 67. As for my not challenging this, it's another example of what happens when you only play games where phonies can't be played, as my thought process was entirely wrong. (FWIW, not that I knew this at the time, but the legitimate word is SHEGETZ). The background: My experience when challenging words he's put down with confidence is that I almost always lose, and he slapped this down the instant I hit my clock, and I hadn't spent a whole lot of time on NAB. I looked at this for a bit, held, and let it go. I needed to recognize that, with no good options available and now trailing by over 110 points if it was good, I had next to nothing to lose by challenging as he'd blocked my bingo and his next turn might actually open up an S hook or a line for an 8. Instead, I chickened out and let it go.
>Jim_Burlant: ADERSTT H7 T..T.D +9 48
#note No great options - best is apparently to just fish either the D at H11 or T at J11. No matter how I slice it, this is bleak - barely 11% to win.
>Darrell_Day: AC G6 CA.. +10 157
>Jim_Burlant: AEEIRSU 6C UREI. +9 57
#note Round 2 was pretty much no hope, round 3 was a colossal screw-up on my end, and now I'm in round 5 and I'm just frazzled. AUREI 8K scores 20 and is obviously best, though even that doesn't win 10%. I never saw it, as I was already starting to give up on the game by now.
>Darrell_Day: IO 10K OI +7 164
>Jim_Burlant: AEHOSUW G11 .OW +16 73
#note My main priority was opening lines, though I wasn't exactly doing more than moving tiles at this point. D3 WAUR is ostensibly best, though the problem with that against Darrell is that it's too easy for him to overlap and shut down. I'm looking for things he can't block so easily. WAU wins 7-1/2%, this wins 6-1/2.
>Darrell_Day: OY F13 OY +18 182
>Jim_Burlant: ADEFHSU D2 FEUA. +16 89
#note No clue, still just moving tiles at this point. Predictably, Q hates this play, but I was just trying to open lines and see if he could defend. My thinking went that he would possibly run into a turn where he had a rack that couldn't effectively defend against anything. 7B UH is apparently the play here, and on some level that makes sense, as it opens the hook for the D that's in my rack. But watch what happens:
>Darrell_Day: AIR C1 AIR +15 197
>Jim_Burlant: DEEFHRS 3C ..FRESHED +71 160
#note Now THAT'S the cure for what ails. This is my only bingo and I'm back to 19%. But wait till you see what's next:
>Darrell_Day: QU 1A QU. +36 233
>Jim_Burlant: ?AEOPRS 2H ESPARtO +98 258
#note And after several minutes, I finally find it. The first thing I saw was a lame REPOSAL air ball down the M column. I immediately saw SOAPiER 2I for 82, but then made myself look for the better play. When I finally got to T when I was alphagramming this rack, I knew I'd hit the jackpot. Back from the dead, and I'm 53% to win.
>Darrell_Day: ILM 1F MIL +24 257
>Jim_Burlant: AADELRV 14B VEAL. +22 280
#note WOW. There were a really slick bunch of plays at 10J that I never saw: VOILA 10J looks really terrific here. If you whiff on the 10J plays, the sim indicates this is the best of the rest (it's significantly better than LEAVY because LEAVY gives up all sorts of easy plays at 15A), but I really needed to find VOILA 10K, as this choice may have lost me the game.
>Darrell_Day: EV C13 V.E +12 269
#note We post-mortemed this one in the parking lot after the tournament. He couldn't remember his exact rack, but he didn't have the Z or anything especially bingo prone here, and he said his intent wasn't to fish. Rather, he was trying to reduce the X threat from a 42-point COAX to a 34-point X dump.
>Jim_Burlant: ADDIMRW 5C M.W +30 310
#note Given this board I wasn't too concerned about building a bingo rack since the only lines I saw were the M and N columns, and I figured he'd take out O1 on the next turn. Between that and the pool (I have both the unplayed D's) I didn't worry too much and figured to play them off on row 4 on the next turn. This wins 71%, but his next rack reduces those chances to 0:
>Darrell_Day: AEINTUZ A1 .UANTIZE +131 400
#note Ouch!
>Jim_Burlant: ADDIINR 4K DINAR +19 329
#note I spaced on 9A back hooks after QUANTIZE came down, but this one's a moot point. Ostensibly, 9A plays (DID, DIN, etc._) win 1.9%. I needed to keep a line open and cross my fingers crossed.
>Darrell_Day: AJ O4 .AJ +10 410
>Jim_Burlant: DGIKNTX 15C .X +34 363
>Darrell_Day: CENOPTY K1 C...Y +24 434
>Jim_Burlant: DGIKNOT J9 .K. +34 397
>Darrell_Day: EINOPT M4 .ETOP +8 442
>Jim_Burlant: DGINOT 8M .IG +18 415
>Darrell_Day: IN 7A .IN +19 461
>Darrell_Day: (DNOT) +10 471
#note I probably could have gotten away with letting SHEGETS* stick due to the luck box (RE)FRESHED/ESPARtO sequence. But the mistake that did me in after I drew my way back into the game was missing VOILA. Missing VOILA was huge because he undoubtedly does something other than fish EV if I float the A there. While whatever he played would have yielded the Z, he probably plays QUIZ for 32 and it's doubtful he hits a 131-point QUANTIZE with his manicured rack if I force him to dump his rack after I float the A with VOILA. Ouch.
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