Friday, February 8, 2008

Not sure if I screwed this up.

So I'm playing a scrabolous game with Nate. He had just played JOG hanging over the bottom triple word:



I was holding ROASTED, which I saw I could play along the left to make STAG. But if I could bingo by hooking my S onto JOG instead then it would be a 100+ point play. I couldn't find an anagram, though, so I did this:



I think it's the first time I've been holding a playable bingo and not played it. And I burned my E,R, and S. My reasoning was: it was worth almost as much as the bingo would have been (60 vs. 66, if I recall); leaving JOGS open would risk most of my bingo points anyway if Nate was holding an S; and I could land my D on the double letter and leave myself with A and T on my rack.



And Nate makes a play on a whole different triple as I draw...another bingo!



Not a very valuable or safe one, admittedly. But still pretty lucky. I think I may have not made the best choice with DOERS, but since I lucked out and didn't get punished for it at all, I'm afraid it might encourage bad habits.

Update: I ran the board past Quackle. DOATERS and TROADES are both valid. None of the AIs recommended DOERS.

Update: Also since Quackle counts tiles for you, I noted that at the time I was deciding whether to play DOERS, I was holding the fourth and final S. You'd think I would have thought to count those since blocking JOGS was a big part of my calculus. I'm an idiot.

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