| Player 1 |
|
#player1 Mack Mack
#player2 Quackle Quackle
>Mack: AAEHIPR H7 PARIAH +30 30
>Quackle: ?AAIIKR 12D KARA.I +26 26
>Mack: DEEJLMO 11E MED.L +31 61
#note Thought about this and JOLE G6/I6. JOLE looks slightly better, since the J really isn't going anywhere on this board.
>Quackle: ??EIILN 13A INfIdEL +80 106
>Mack: CEJOSTV A12 J.VE +66 127
>Quackle: BDEHNOR 13I BONED +30 136
>Mack: CIIMOST L7 COMITI.S +76 203
#note Saw MIOTICS/MEDALS but eventually settled on this to make bingoing harder down the road and also not give up sixes starting with T at 8J. Blocking the MEDALS hook is also good, though - MIOTICS is simming a little better.
>Quackle: FGHRTTU 8K T.UGH +27 163
>Mack: AEELOSU O5 ALE.OUSE +62 265
>Quackle: EFQRRTY N1 TREYF +27 190
>Mack: CDDFNSX J12 S.X +40 305
>Quackle: IOQRRUW I6 ROW +17 207
>Mack: CDDFNOO 5I FOND +26 331
#note Or FOOD, but wanted to keep a vowel.
>Quackle: ABIQRTU K10 QI +37 244
>Mack: ACDELOO 1J LOCA.E +33 364
>Quackle: ABGRSTU G5 ABUT +19 263
>Mack: ADENNOW M3 WO +25 389
>Quackle: EGINRSY 1H RE...... +30 293
>Mack: AADEENN F3 NADA +16 405
#note With only 1 E left it may not be worth giving up the N in exchange for blocking row 2.
>Quackle: GINORSY B9 GYRO. +26 319
>Mack: EEGNPUV - +0 405
#note If the Z is in the bag he has TINNIEST on row 3 or ENTITIES on row 15 and I obviously can't block both. 4A GENEVA nets enough to outrun ENTITIES but gives back a potential ZINGIEST 3*3 so is clearly out of the question. And 3A UNEVEN, my best netting play otherwise, loses by 3 to ENTITIES. My best block of ENTITIES, namely KIP/PE, loses by 4 to TINNIEST. A variety of other plays like PEE/PRELOCATE, E1 VEEP, and 4C VEGA, lose by somewhere between 4 and 7 to ENTITIES. So a large number of plays win 7/8 of the time, losing only if the Z is in the bag.
Passing is the only play that wins 100% of the time. Why? If the Z is in the bag and he bingos with ENTITIES, he is Z-stuck after I block 4E and I win easily. If he bingos with TINNIEST in either spot, he's also stuck. There are no possible bingos he can have with the Z, so I don't have to worry about him playing off one tile now if his final rack has the Z. The only other possibility to consider is thus him playing off the Z immediately after I pass. But there is only one place to do that, namely 4E. And if he does that, he blocks his spot for TINNIEST, so I'll just block ENTITIES and win easily since he can't bingo out. Since he loses if he bingos immediately or plays ZA after I pass, and anything resulting in him having the Z on his final rack loses, he cannot win under any circumstances after my pass.
I thought I'd post this position since passing is a counterintuitive but often important tactic, particularly in certain positions with a lead and one or a few tiles in the bag. Before moving forward, it is important to note that passing is only ever useful in situations where you would win following a six-pass, after which both players subtract the point totals from their racks from their scores and the game ends. For if you would lose after a six-pass, your opponent simply passes back and passing has accomplished nothing whatsoever.
This position demonstrates one important scenario where passing is useful: when you have a lead with a high-point tile in the bag and your opponent threatening multiple out-bingos. Whether your opponent bingos out and catches you with the high-point tile (if you don't pass) or bingos with one in the bag and draws the high-point tile, preventing you from being caught with it (if you pass), can make the difference in the game. A slight variant on this scenario is when the high-point tile is replaced by a lower-point but unplayable tile, often a C or V. Your lead may be small enough that you cannot withstand an out-bingo, but passing may help: if your opponent bingos such that he draws an unplayable tile, you can often rack up enough points in the endgame by playing one tile at a time to overcome the bingo. It turns out the above position is in some respects a hybrid of these scenarios since Quackle would hypothetically be Z-stuck after bingoing with ENTITIES, but I'd still be up enough to win the endgame without Z-sticking him - what is really important here is not that he gets the Z, but that I avoid the Z and the ensuing 20-point penalty, so this position is more like the high-point tile scenario.
Sometimes passing can also be correct in situations where no bingos are threatened at all. Take the following situation. You have a medium-sized lead, perhaps 20 or 30, on a closed board with one or two tiles in the bag. Among the unseen tiles is an unplayable Q. You will clearly win if your opponent gets the Q, and the only way you can lose the game is to the draw the Q and get stuck with it, so you can guarantee a win by forcing him to draw the Q. And how can you do this? By passing! If he passes you just pass back since you're ahead and will win after a six-pass, so if he doesn't already have the Q he has to play off some tiles. If the bag is still not empty, you pass again, and so forth, until the bag is empty and he has to have the Q. He then loses. Note: especially if there are multiple tiles in the bag, be sure you have enough of a lead before passing such that the score of any tiles he can play off without emptying the bag does not exceed your lead, since if he surpasses you he can begin passing himself, forcing you to draw the Q!
It is less likely, but still possible, that passing is correct with only easily playable low-point tiles unseen. Such a situation requires a very precise score discrepancy. Here's a specific example. You're up 10 points and there's one tile in the bag; all unseen tiles are one-pointers. Let's assume you have sufficiently few points on your rack such that you'd win in a six-pass. There are two bingo lanes and you have 65-point bingos in both, but your opponent has possible 74-point bingos in both. If you bingo now, you go up 75; then, your opponent can bingo out for 74, winning by 1 after adding the two points for the one-pointer you draw. But if you pass and your opponent bingos for 74, you go down 64; then, after bingoing out for 65 and adding 2 for the one-pointer he just drew, you win by 3. Any non-bingo play for your opponent loses: he can't pass since we're assuming you have few enough points on your rack to win after a six-pass, and he can't stop you from bingoing since you have one in both lanes. Basically, the idea with this example is that the score has to be tailored so precisely that whether you or your opponent gets caught with the 2 points from the one-point tile drawn after bingoing makes the difference.
There are undoubtedly other slight variants on these examples where passing is correct, but these examples cover the vast majority of such positions. In summary, the best time to think about passing is when you have a lead with one or a few tiles in the bag and one or more of these scenarios hold:
- There are high-point tiles unseen.
- There are unplayable tiles unseen.
- You cannot block all of your opponent's possible bingos.
- You can tell you will lose by a very small margin if you make your best non-passing play and your opponent bingos out.
>Quackle: IINSTTZ 6E T.. +5 324
>Mack: EEGNPUV 3A UNEVE. +18 423
#note Best endgame. Obviously can't play GENEVA because of the 212-point triple-triple outbingo (!) of ZINGIEST.
>Quackle: EIINSTZ D6 SIZE +29 353
>Mack: GP 10A G.P +9 432
>Mack: (INT) +6 438
|
