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#player1 Sidduth_Murali Sidduth Murali
#player2 Jim_Burlant Jim Burlant
>Sidduth_Murali: BEEMNUU -BEEMN +0 0
>Jim_Burlant: AEORSVW 8C AVOWERS +84 84
#note I never thought of the third anagram in this set of letters. OVERSAW plays at 8C for the same points and doesn't have as many vowel placement issues, which is the drawback of this choice. Still in good shape, 77% to win.
>Sidduth_Murali: AEH 7G HAE +25 25
>Jim_Burlant: AADEINT F8 .ADI +12 96
#note Bleah. The D back hook on HAE hadn't occurred to me yet, so that ruled out J6 AD. Q really likes that; I don't. I knew Q wouldn't like this, but I don't have any really good choices available. I fiigured I'd open up. Apparently my best play is to simply fish with C7 AA <>.
>Sidduth_Murali: AEL E8 .LEA +17 42
>Jim_Burlant: AAEENRT -AE +0 96
#note I didn't like AE at 9B (best choice statically) and didn't like any of the other fishes. And breaking up the rack (e.g.: ENTERA 6E) under 25 points just didn't sit right with me. So I figured I'd sacrifice the equity now and hopefully hit on the next turn. This sims way down the list, but it barely gives up 3% winning chances and 4 points despite not scoring. 6E ENTERA and 6D NEATER are apparently the plays if the duck is to be believed. Given this position, IMO exchange + bingo is far better than 22 + random rack.
>Sidduth_Murali: AEINORT C5 AER.TION +60 102
#note Sid admitted after the game he was paranoid about my hitting the 3x3 if he played at C8 for 68. When we discussed this, he realized his mistake in that, if my fish yielded something like ADEINST, I wouldn't have had a 3x3 but he'd have played for 60 instead of 68...and he'd have now given me an easy place to play STAINED for 90 instead of the 70's. This never came to pass, though.
>Jim_Burlant: ADENRTU J1 UNRATED +70 166
#note I overthought this a hair and talked myself into only being 80% sure of UNTREAD, so I took no chances. UNTREAD is microscopically better, since the T isn't as amenable to a counter at 3I as the R is (i.e., P(R)AWN, F(R)EAK, etc.) 73.5% to win.
>Sidduth_Murali: DJOU B11 JUDO +35 137
>Jim_Burlant: ?CEIMRU 4E MURIC.tE +74 240
#note Strong choice, but not best. CRUMMIER plays at 3C for 80. Other options are 3H MERCURIC, tURMERIC 3H, 2G URINEMIC, and MANICURE.
>Sidduth_Murali: AAFTW B3 FATWA +36 173
>Jim_Burlant: BEIKLLM A12 BILK +52 292
#note When it rains, it pours. This or MILK are equally strong in the sim.
>Sidduth_Murali: DEGI D12 GIED +30 203
>Jim_Burlant: EELLMUZ A2 LEZ +48 340
>Sidduth_Murali: AEPX A6 APEX +50 253
>Jim_Burlant: ?EILMOU 2H lI.OLEUM +68 408
#note Lots of style points for this, but once again I missed a much better play: EULOGIUM scores 80 at 1D. Q says that, regardless of which bingo I put down, I'm 99.9% to win. Maybe so, but as the pool got smaller, that O column I needlessly opened up gave me more agita than I would have liked.
>Sidduth_Murali: GIINV 15D .IVING +33 286
#note This scored well, but I can understand why Sid was reluctant to put it down: with the A's and blanks out, he's defending the board for me.
>Jim_Burlant: BNQRSTT M1 B.TS +24 432
#note Whoops! It's SURICATE that takes the back S. MURICATE takes the D. Sid held this, but let it go. I was loathe to exchange when I could take what I thought was a legitimate 24 points, and the S really didn't otherwise seem useful on this board, which was an incorrect assessment on my part. Even if my play wasn't phony, there would have only been two reasonable options here: N1 BUNT or to exchange 5 keeping ST. If I had this to do again, BUNT N1 for 6 would be my choice. While BUNT isn't airtight, my lead is big enough that my main worry should be to eliminate 3x3's; anything opened up by BUNT down the O column will only be 80-point bingoes, and that just won't be enough.
>Sidduth_Murali: Y 9E ..Y +23 309
>Jim_Burlant: FGNQRTT 6I R.FT +10 442
#note At least a feeble case could be made for playing through on my previous turn since I scored 24 points and drew 3 tiles with 8 vowels unseen. But what on earth was I thinking by trying to play through this crap? This doesn't score, it doesn't defend, and I'm STILL sitting on the Q. Best play here is to exchange 6, and even exchanging 7 isn't unreasonable given this pool. If I exchange and land a vowel, he has to hit the 3x3 this turn or the game is over. The only thing impressive about this choice is how wrong it is.
>Sidduth_Murali: OY F2 YO. +14 323
>Jim_Burlant: GHNNOQT O1 O. +12 454
#note Not sure I wrote this rack down correctly - if I did, my suspicion is that I'd been so fixated on drawing one of those O's that I didn't bother to look beyond OM. This is enough to clinch the game, but HM would have been much better - not just for the extra 9 scoreboard points, but for the semblance of "balance".
>Sidduth_Murali: COS 5B ..COS +29 352
>Jim_Burlant: GHNNOQT G14 Q. +11 465
>Sidduth_Murali: EEINPRS J9 REPINES +75 427
>Sidduth_Murali: (GHNNOT) +20 447
#note And I forget strategy 101: if you're not 100% sure, always challenge the out play since you have nothing to lose. Nothing like coughing up 100 points of spread for no good reason.
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