I won all three last night, to take my record to 59-10:
446-333 against Peter H. I played APHIDES (77) and Peter played REAlISe (83). Peter was going first and exchanged tiles. My rack was DEFIIST and I spent a lot of time with it, yet settled on FETID (26) as my opening play. I see that that rack makes FIDEIST, a word I definitely know, but it was hard to find, even with the -IST suffix. I had ten of the twelve E’s in that game, while Peter struggled with an abundance of O’s and U’s. It is hard to win a game if you do not pick many E’s.
458-390 against John D. I played MINTERS (72), WIDENESS (64) and VElaRIUM (86). John played AURORAS (81) immediately after VElaRIUM. I had emptied the bag of its last six tiles: BEGOOQ so John got an extra 36 points off my rack, thereby scoring 117 points for his outplay.
380-318 against Trevor. I played CORNERs (68) and Trevor played INTERNE (60). I won this game by a bingo lead but missed three opportunities to play bingos. I opened the game with ADIEU (14). Trevor then played UPLAID (18) £ to the D. I didn’t like UPLAID, but I never held him on it. In the short time it took for Trevor to record the score before he drew tiles, I reasoned that PLAID didn’t take a front U, and if UPLAID was acceptable then UPLAY would have to be too, and I knew that PLAY didn’t take a front U. I should have held him on it. I was hoping that the D would be left open to enable me to play LESIONED to it, yet timid me never said a word. My rack was EEILNOS and I tried to find any 8LW through the P or L yet there weren’t any. My mind was unsettled because I had let UPLAID go which thwarted my chance to play a bingo in that spot. I wasn’t thinking clearly because I had a 7LW all along, OLEINES, which would have hooked to make ADIEUS. Eventually I did make a nice stacking play there, placing MAXI along HO to make HOM and ADIEUX. The second and third bingo opportunities I missed were both with the rack EILLRR? Trevor had just played INTERNE, with a DWS to the immediate right. I saw dRILLER and RaLLIER yet whiffed on INTERNEE, in spite of seeing it as a possible rear hook for INTERNE. I should have tried it. I was too focussed on finding an 8LW through the -RNE of INTERNE but as it turns out, there aren’t any. I wrote down tRILLER as a possible 7LW and there was a place for it, under a U, elsewhere on the board. I chickened out of that one as well. I ended up playing RILLE (10) and got my bingo CORNERs down on my next turn.
Mark played Trevor before me and he made a spectacular disconnected 9LW, MODELlERs (62):

With no easy bingo lanes available, Mark had to think about slotting his tiles somewhere, which is not easy to do when blessed with the abundance of riches in having both blanks. His keen board vision enabled him to play a disconnected nine! Trevor challenged unsuccessfully. Mark won, 424-284.
One Response
I like the commentary. It gives a good reflection as to how the game went and to explore the possibilities of a win or missed opportunities to win. Craig you were blessed with both the blanks and especially with a higher rating and expertise; it would have been very hard to catch up. AARROU? was an odd rack and for me to be able to find AURORA(s) and hook it to the Z(A) and I(s) to the word ZITI was a proud moment for me; however with the 86 point Triple Word Bingo VALERIUM was the killer, even though you had URAEMIA to hook it to the Z of ZITI where I had Bingoed out with AURORA(s).
I realized that when you play players higher rated than yourself, the game becomes interesting and educative even if you lose.