Yesterday at the Club I was drawing replacement tiles and as I saw my replenished rack, I realized I was on the way to something good. Great in fact, as the six I had on my rack so far were AEINST. I knew a bingo was coming with my last pick.
Well almost. I chose the J, and there’s naething in the OWL2 lexicon that can be made with AEIJNST, not even any eights. (SOWPODSers have it good with baith JANTIES and TAJINES.) Since there were no spots to drop a J, I exchanged it, and drew an O. Now to my dismay ATONIES wouldn’t fit anywhere and none of the eights were available, or wouldn’t fit. So I played off the O, in so doing creating a win-win spot for my eventual bingo, and whattya know, I drew the freaking J again! At that point I gave up on my fishing expedition and got a 40-point play just for JETS, which netted me a total of 44 points over three turns. Did the bag beat me here? Should one fish off the J again (even if it meant trading it back, scoring zero)? I’d be lucky if I scored a 70-point bingo in my next turn, which would average about seventeen points over four turns. At both times I held the J, both the Q and one of the Y’s were already in play, so the only tiles that could kill my AEINST rack were the J and the other Y (barring I couldn’t play one of the four AEINSTY eights) and I had to pick the J. Twice.
The tile Gods do not like me.