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#player1 Darrell_Day Darrell Day
#player2 Jim_Burlant Jim Burlant
>Darrell_Day: AEHLV 8D HALVE +30 30
>Jim_Burlant: AEGIORR D7 G.ERAO +20 20
#note Top choice is 9C GIRO, and this choice sims within 0.1 points of GIRO afer 1100+ 2-ply iterations. Other strong choices are HEGIRA and HEGARI D8.
>Darrell_Day: AEEIJLR -AEEIJ +0 30
>Jim_Burlant: AHIMNRX E11 XI +38 58
#note Q says this is best, preferring it by nearly 4 points over MINX E11 36. I didn't think of MINX, which left this as the choice. 20/20 hindsight has me wondering if I needed to dump more of this rack with MINX.
>Darrell_Day: DEEOPSS I8 DEPOSES +75 105
#note Q prefers I2 SPEEDOS by a hair.
>Jim_Burlant: AHMNRRT C9 MAR +27 85
#note Q indicates this is a very strong choice; it sims within 0.2% winning chances and within 0.4 points of an even better play I missed, J14 HM.
>Darrell_Day: ABCELOT 12G OB.TACLE +80 185
#note Obviously the best play for Darrell, and he's now winning 84%.
>Jim_Burlant: AHMNNRT N10 TH.RM +24 109
#note Blind to HM again. Interestingly, Q now prefers J11 NTH for 13 as best play with HM finishing 3rd. This play sims roughly 7 points down on NTH and is not a particularly good choice. Best play according to Quackle wins not quite 10%; this wins 7.6.
>Darrell_Day: AJR 15M RAJ +41 226
#note Arrrgh! I held THERMA* but felt the risk of losing a turn was too great. In other words, if I lose the challenge, he scores 30+ down the O column, I'm trailing by over 100 points and now I might not have a play with this crappy rack. By letting this stick I could guarantee that I could dump the rack in the O column and still be in the game.
>Jim_Burlant: AEINNNO O7 NONA +14 123
#note No really good options - Q prefers NANNIE O6 by not quite 6 points. I only knew it as a 5 ending in Y. NANNIE looks right, and this gives up a little too much on the scoreboard. This is one of the two best choices and I'm winning 4%.
>Darrell_Day: AZ N6 ZA +33 259
>Jim_Burlant: AAEINTU -AU +0 123
#note I saw dumps like H8 EAU and G8 VAU and felt that the 7 or 9 points weren't worth it because of what they did to the board. Knowing Darrell and his defensive tendencies, I thought either of those choices would make it way too easy for him to play cheap and shut down most of the lines I needed to stay open, so I figured it was better to exchange. Championship player says M11 ALA is best, winniing 2%. This choice finishes 5 points down and wins just over 1-1/2. VAU sims with highest valuation. Ironically, given my next rack VAU would have added 5 points to my next play but I had no way of knowing he was saddled with the Q and would have to dump it in the K column.
>Darrell_Day: DOP M7 POD +19 278
>Jim_Burlant: AEINTVY F2 NATIVE.Y +74 197
#note Back to just over 5% winning chances with this, the only playable bingo. Woo hoo.
>Darrell_Day: QT K11 Q.T +24 302
>Jim_Burlant: AEFFOTU B9 EF +32 229
#note Loath to give up my E, but nothing else comes even close scorewise. At this point I had also pretty much conceded the game as a lost cause and stopped caring about the possibility of building a rack. I figured I'd just look to find good scoring plays and try to keep the spread respectable, and I wasn't paying close attention to what I was leaving myself.
>Darrell_Day: BLNW G10 BL.WN +14 316
>Jim_Burlant: AFIOOTU H12 .OOT +27 256
#note At this point I'm not focusing too much and am content just moving tiles if points get put up. This is a cute play, though I should have played BOUT instead of BOOT. My winning chances are still holding around 4 - 5%. Best play per the sim is OUTFIT 4D.
>Darrell_Day: EY J14 YE +28 344
>Jim_Burlant: AFIIRTU A8 IF +24 280
#note Though this was an autopilot play to which I didn't give much thought (see previous comment about having disengaged from serious belief that I could win this game), this is a decent choice. Best play is A9 FAIR; A7 TUFA scores 37 but the unseen pool with its 5 unseen I's suggest that the IIR leave could be a disaster and force an exchange on the next turn;. This play is the 5th best option.
>Darrell_Day: DU H6 DU. +4 348
>Jim_Burlant: AIIRTUU 6H .UI +6 286
#note Since he just hung the D, I figured that DUI would set up the case T, so there was no need to exchange. Q disagrees, saying that my first 10 choices should have been exchanges (exchange 7 tops the list, which I find somewhat surprising), and it docks me nearly 15 points for this. Regardless of whether you agree with Quackle or me, the sequence that follows has to be seen to be believed.
>Darrell_Day: CEI 4D CI.E +12 360
>Jim_Burlant: ADEIRTU 2C URI.ATED +63 349
#note Or RUINATED. Back to 26% winning chances, but really - given his last several plays, I was just expecting him to hit something with the blank and win this game by somewhere in the neighborhood of 100 points; while I haven't played perfectly to this point, really, does this game look like I've had any chance in it?
>Darrell_Day: IK 1G KI +30 390
>Jim_Burlant: ?GINNOR 3I NeGRONI +71 420
#note LUCKBOX!!!!! In barely two turns, I've gone from dead in the water to clinching the game. sNORING 3H is better - scores 74. Darrell had no vocal reaction to this - he had to have been shocked beyond belief at what had just happened. I don't know who was more shocked, him or me.
>Darrell_Day: ?EGILSU L2 G.UELS +20 410
>Jim_Burlant: ESW O2 W.SE +8 428
#note N1 WENS scores 14. Whatever. Just shocked that I pulled this one out after trailing by 145. If I exchange instead of playing DUI, I probably draw a single bingo and the post-bingo rack inevitably contains the majority of the crap I threw back in, and I'm dead for sure. Instead, the laws of probability suspend themselves and I walk away with the win. Daffy game, Scrabble.
>Jim_Burlant: (?I) +2 430
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