In Reply to: cs 30 part 1 posted by TheWall812 on July 27, 2001 at 00:09:14:
3rd game... solid intermediate player...
She opens with an exchange. I have near-bingoey tiles altho without S or blank. I dump LEI for 6. She plays 11. Nothing much happens after 5 turns, when I exchange (I'm up 70-92). Now I hold AELOOZ?. The only 7 is ZOOgLEA, which didn't fit anywhere, but its plural, ZOOgLEAE, played to the top TWS onto the E of the opening LEI for 98 points. She didn't challenge anything... not WITHE (38), not SINUATE hooked as ARES, not ZOOGLEAE...
With a last rack of PATELE?, and only two bingo lanes: thru N in 3rd position, or thru T in 1st, 2nd or 3rd, I considered PETTABLE* but bingoed out with TELEPATH.
Lexpert offers thru the N: PANETELA and PENTACLE; thru the T, TEMPLATE and TOEPLATE (besides TELEPATH). Caught her with 44 points, ended up 530-262.
4th game... solid player, going to Portland in August...
I open with FOZY, altho it left me 3 vowels. She plays FOOTLESS thru the O. I play BIJOUS for 32. After 5 I'm down 126-183, but drawing to EEIT?. She exchanges (a Q and multiple I's, it turned out). I finally squeeze off a cheap bingo, OuTRAVED to the D. She has easy 39 point comeback with BLAH on the just-opened TWS. I now have INNNIID. I play NIDI for 16, all but daring her to try hooking NIDIS*. I draw IIE and something else. Unbelievable. Either this turn or the previous one I probably should have exchanged, but here I dump INTI for 6. After two turns where the letters I played out were NIDIINI, I STILL had an I and N on my rack. Now she tries REDOS(I)nG*. I challenge it off.
Lexpert says NEGROIDS and STODGIER were playable for her.
I now hold ACEINOX. Not sure if ANOREXIC or AXONEMIC played (didn't think of them), but I did see EXACTION, and that one definitely didn't. I play AXENIC to the bottom right TWS for 53, which takes away much of the danger of the 8-letter line thru the I she'd tried with "redosing". I took AXENIC over AXONIC because there were no O's left in the bag, and she'd played PROM in the upper left... so I wanted the PROMO hook as an option. She makes an 8 point play off the PROM M, ODE, with the E dangling away as an easy hook. I hold AELNORT. My time is very low. I figure I can't bingo (the only open I is position 7 or 8, and there's nothing else uncluttered really, as far as 8's go). That ODE hook HAS to go. I play ALTO hooked as ODEA. No front hooks for ALTO, so that danger's gone, although the board has several other somewhat tricky hooks available. She dumps CRAG in the upper right. I have HENEERI or something similar. I'm down to a minute, she has 3.5. I'm rushed and take a 29 point EH play (hooking as ED, HE)... and setting up the TWS unnecessarily (there was a safe 28 point HE play). I'd completely forgotten about the Q... she plays QUAIlS/lED/SHE for 54, with one tile left. I'm down 337-342 with ERINE on my rack. I can see nothing that will play me out. I'm down to 10 seconds. I try playing CERE off the Crag "C", change it to NICER, realizing I have 2 seconds left. "Sixteen" I say, guessing actually, and hit the clock... one second left. 353 to 342 now. She has just over 2 minutes left, holding an S, figures the game is over, nonchalantly takes 11 for RANKLES. 353-353, with my E on my rack, 353-355 for her. "Wait" I say, suspecting my guess at my last play's score wasn't bang on. I recount it, and it was 18. So make that 355-355. There were several people watching. One of them protests my correcting the score after the game, wondering if that was legal (of course it is). Another one takes the S she put on RANKLES and puts in where it would be 16 points... "see, she still won. She had two minutes left and would have found this if she had known she needed more than 11 points to win."
Hmmmm. These people are so desperate to see me lose. "Maybe so", I said... "but it's not my fault she didn't take the time to make the best out play. You can recount the score after a game but you sure as hell can't replay a turn. It's a tie."