| Player 1 |
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#player1 steve steve
#player2 moh moh
>steve: ADEINRT 8F ANTIRED +70 70
#note This high-probability rack produces three bingos that any tournament player will know: TRAINED, DETRAIN, ANTIRED. There's not much different among them.
>moh: AEMNRST F7 S.RMENTA +68 68
#note Also available are M(I)NARETS, RA(I)MENTS, and REM(N)ANTS. My play scores best. Also, I thought my opponent may try SARMENTAS* at some point, which I would have challenged. Why not give my opponent a chance to make such a mistake?
>steve: ABOT E11 BOAT +26 96
>moh: DDENNOY K5 DOY.NNE +44 112
#note It's best here to maximize points since there are no great leaves available. That means either playing DOYENNE for the 2x2 or D8 DYNODE. It's a tossup between the two.
>steve: OPW D10 POW +33 129
>moh: DIINOPT J2 NITID +22 134
#note Interesting spot. J6 TO(R)II 24 is probably best, althugh I don't love the three-consonant leave. J5 ID 17 is also an interesting option, although I typically don't like to make fishy plays to a rack as weak as POINT. My play is in the running with those plays. The final option is L1 PINTO 23, but I really don't like opening the 3x3 here without a compelling reason.
>steve: EVX I1 VEX +40 169
>moh: LLOOOPR E4 POLO +14 148
#note It wouldn't be Scrabble without draws like this sometimes. The computer sim likes J10 ORLOP 21, but I dismissed this play since it unecessarily opened up row 15 if opponent holds an S (with three unseen and no blanks played). C8 POOL 17 is superior to my POLO, though.
>steve: CERY 4B CRE.Y +24 193
>moh: ILMNORV B2 MI.RON +24 172
#note I don't like my play here at all. I opened up a huge lane along column A, and I really didn't have a good reason to do it. Yes, MICRON is the highest-scoring play, but it keeps our worst tile (the V) and gives too much back to the opponent. That said, I really don't know what's best. The computer sim prefers 2I (EN)VIRON 20, but why open up a 3x3 here? 14B VOL(TA) is ok, but it only scores 16. I'm kind of at a loss and am open to any analysis here.
>steve: GJU A6 JUG +44 237
>moh: ??ADLTV 1A LoVAT +34 206
#note Another very intesting spot. I drew both blanks, but only have a few bingos available. I saw I5 VAL(I)DaTe and VAL(I)DiTy (but missed DATIVELY in the same place), but I decided to take a decent score with the O-MICRON hook and expect to bingo soon with my other blank anyway. Whether or not this is correct here, I do not recommend forgoing bingos if you're a relatively new player. Assume the bingo is the best play (unless there is a very high-scoring non-bingo and you keep a very strong rack, usually with a blank) until you are very confident in your ability to analyze situations. This is a pretty close case, I think, and I'm fine with the line I took, but it's always a gamble to forgo the bingo.
>steve: EFT C3 F.ET +36 273
>moh: ?DHLSUW F2 WH. +20 226
#note This draw was definitely not part of the plan (and this is the problem with forgoing bingos in the first place). The opponent's strong score on the previous play really puts the pressure on. Now I must have a bingo soon, so I need to shed some of the drek. The U and W are both unideal for bingos, but since the U is my lone vowel, I decide to keep it. 10A WHU(P) is reasonable as well. I don't particularly like 12I LUSH 26 because it makes the board even more hostile to bingos.
>steve: EFQU I7 F.QUE +31 304
>moh: ?DEHLSU 15A LUDES +28 254
#note Great bingo rack, but this is not the board for it. None of them (e.g., SHAULED, HUSTLED, SLUSHED, etc, as well as tons of eights.) go down. LEUDS is clearly better than my LUDES (in the same spot). My biggest problem right now is that I probably won't have a place to play a bingo on this board. There is a decent chance that an eventual play from H11 down to H15 will open lanes, but my opponent probably won't take a play there unless it scores very well (since he knows that I need a bingo to get back into this game). A couple of plays from 12K will open lanes (like SHUL or SLUED), but they it is very likely that my opponent will simply kill these as soon as I open them. It's probably fine to just take the points for LEUDS and deal with out bingo-lane problem next play (after all, there are still enough tiles left to maneuver some).
>steve: ACEILSZ L1 ZEALS +52 356
#note Steve considered 10B ZIP 34, but couldn't pass up on the big score of L1 ZEALS 52. After all, it put him up over 100 points on a board with no real bingo lanes. How could it go wrong?
>moh: ?GHIKOS 1L .IG +13 267
#note The 'obvious' play is 1L (Z)IGS 42, but once I did the math, I realized it was a sure loser. After ZIGS, I'm down 60, and it's easy for my opp to block the bingos down columns N and O. So, holding the last S and a blank, I decided to set up a huge comeback spot. In the worst-case scenario, opp blocks the big plays down the O column and I settle for ZIGS next play. But there's a huge upside if my opp has to settle for a partial block (or maybe none at all).
>steve: ACI 4L .AIC +9 365
#note My opponent understandably wanted to prevent a big play from ZIG, so he thought he's throw a wrench in my plans for a bingo from the corner. (He also made a huge mistake here. Based on what he told me about his rack, he could have played N1 (G)UAIAC, but I didn't have the heart to tell him that after the game when he explained how terrible his rack was when I played the setup play.)
>moh: ?EHKORS O1 SHO.KERs +236 503
#note Yahooooooo! And, um, clearly best.
>steve: AAEGIIU 9A AI +14 379
#note My opponent was a great sport given that he'd just endured my biggest play ever, and a late comeback to boot.
>moh: ABEIOR N6 BOA +24 527
#note I was definitely just trying to play this one out now. I didn't want to rub it in by taking time to eke out every point in this kind of game.
>steve: AEGIU 1G GU. +21 400
>moh: EIR L11 REI +8 535
>moh: (AEI) +6 541
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