I won two out of three last night, to take my record to 68-15:
496-262 against new player Chris B. Chris joined us for the first time last week when we played outside and it rained. I had heard from his opponents that he was a good player and knew his words. He was certainly knowledgeable of vowel dumps when he played AUrEI (23) against me as his penultimate move. I played TOrEADOR (77), DRAFTIEr (74, to the r in TOrEADOR) and GASPIER (78) £. I did not want to play any phonies against a new player yet thought that GASPIER was “ours”, i.e., in the North American lexicon. Chris himself tried a Collins-only 7LW, ENTrAIL £ which I challenged off. At first glance of our board, one might wonder what language we were playing in. Chris opened with HIT (12) and I front-hooked it with MILCH (33). a word of German origin. Two spots to the right of the H was a DWS and upon my next draw I luckily picked both a G and I to extend it to make MILCHIG (30). And then on my third move I played NAZI (29). Thus I had played three German words in a row.
I had several moments of doubt during this game. With the rack AEGLPRS I saw but did not play GRAPLES. I did get GASPIER down, but it would have been nice to play an NWL bingo instead. And with the final rack of ELNSU and nowhere to play LUNES, I chickened out of two plays. An open I would have allowed me to go out with LUNIES and end with a final score of 498. However, a play of SLUE would have given me 20 and an even 500, but I wouldn’t have been able to play out. What kills me is that I even started to play the word, then took it away. What the–? How did doubt suddenly overtake me? I surely knew the word enough to start placing it on the board. But then no no no, it’s not good, take it off. I ended up scoring 496 in the end, but my alternatives would have been to play out and end the game with 498 or leave myself with an N and score 500.
432-458 against John D. This was a bingo board-buster with three bingos apiece. I played ASSURER (73), PEDAlED (75) and TAGINES (85). John played CONFRONT (67), RENDERS (72) and triple-tripled with RELATIOn (113, through my T in TAGINES). My final bingo rack was AEGINST and there was no other place to play any of its anagrams and TAGINES luckily fit with multiple underlaps. There was a P available provided it was the initial letter, and AEGINST does not build through a P. Of course I am going to play my bingo for 85. I was twenty points behind before I played it, so my score rose to 378 to John’s 313. John’s triple-triple took him to 426. I was now 48 points behind yet had a nice response with OVALLY (40) which John held me on forever. It was a valid word. The score was going to be 418-426 whether John challenged or not. The board situation had ZA with a DWS a couple of spots below it. John released the hold and played the smart ZAMIA for 32, which then took him forty points ahead to 458 and sealed the win. As it turned out I could not play out with my remaining HN and although I did not see ZAMIA, I realized I could not eke out a win. John mistracked and believed I held HA, which gave me a lucrative outplay. He realized his ZAMIA was strong enough to counter a HAO outplay, which I believe would have scored 21. Thus in John’s mind, my outplay would have taken me to 439. I would have gotten 8 points off his rack for BE, to advance my score to a final 447 to his 458. So even though John tracked incorrectly, he had the endgame worked out with the high-enough play ZAMIA to offset my highest outplay of HAO. Smart thinking on John’s part to work out a win even if he questioned OVALLY and had to let it go and even after seeing a 21-point outplay. As it turned out I was able to play out with HIN, around his I in ZAMIA.
One of my racks was AENOOX? which yields no 7LW yet I am pleased I found the only possible 8LW, NAlOXOnE. I also held ACEOORS which also makes no 7LW yet saw the open D and thus formed the possible DOORCASE yet didn’t believe for a minute that it was a word. It would have fit. Those letters also build through an M to make ACROSOME.
403-331 against Ramona. I played ONETIME (72) and LekVARS (72). Two interesting bingo rack situations:
My first rack EEIMNOT only makes that single 7LW, yet builds through some freaky letters to make valid 8LW: with S you get MONETISE and SEMITONE, yet with an X ( ! ) you get XENOTIME and with a Z ( !! ) you get MONETIZE and ZONETIME. Since our bonus-bingo letters that night were OZ I was hoping against hope that Ramona would play the Z to enable me to play either anagram but was lucky to get the 7LW down at all when she played GUEST, giving me a TO hook.
My second bingo rack was ALRSV?? and I tried to find a word that slotted the V in fifth position, thus on a TLS, where the final letter hooked on top of an I. The only such word with that rack was ScRAVeL, which would have scored 84. I saw so many bingo opportunities with that rack and only selected LekVARS because I thought it might elicit a challenge. However I see that there were flashier possibilities with that rack: uVuLARS and VALkyRS.