I won two out of three last night to take my record to 80-10:
410-308 against Peter H. I played RErAISE (81) and PAYOLAs (77). My second bingo rack also makes PAYLOAd. Peter played INANEST (75). My opening rack was full of high-point consonants: CCEHKRY and I see that its shortest steal is CHoKECheRrY. I held the rack AEEERY? and found the only 7LW, EYEwEAR, but there was noplace to play it. With a second blank that rack only makes EYEwAtER and EYEwEARs, but I only had a C and an L to build through.
320-377 against Chris Lo. Now I really deserved to lose this game based on all the words I missed. I played GRUNTLEd (70) and Chris played HEREINTO (65) and METALIST (64) which I could very easily see the other anagrams of (MALTIEST and SMALTITE) but at that point I was struggling through repeated racks of only consonants and I had no worthwhile play in reply whatsoever so I challenged it, unsuccessfully. My doom was forecast from the start as the right TWS row was open for an easy -s hook and my rack was EGNRTU? and I missed both GUNTERs and GURNETs which would have scored 12 more points than the 70 I got for GRUNTLEd. I knew those words but forgot both of them. I will think of the phony anagram RESTUNG and hope to recall them in the future. I also held the rack EIMNORS with a place to hook an S yet I missed MERINOS. Sheesh. I then was burdened with consonant-only racks. Not a single vowel. Meanwhile Chris was playing words like POO and ULAMA, unknown to him of course but the tile gods were taunting me with all those delicious vowels. I tried to play through my racks but just had to exchange at one point, and guess what I drew: five more consonants. The bag did beat me in this game, but my brain fog did more damage in missing those easy 7LW bingos. One of my racks was BEGJORU whose shortest steal is OBJURGatE, possible to play if there was an open -AT-. In my next game, however, I took a consonant-heavy rack and I did play it to an open -ET:
396-357 against Dave K. I went first and exchanged three, keeping STYZ. There was such a good chance of drawing an E that I felt I could hook Dave’s opening play. My new rack was AEISTYZ (the shortest steal for it is YAhrZEITS) and I hooked Dave’s NIXE (22) with NIXES / SIZY (44). I played SOLATED (67) and Dave played UnTIMED (72) and ENtRIES (69). SOLATED was played so that the S was one row to the right of the TWS column yet the word never got front-hooked to make ISOLATED. Dave in fact swooped in on his next turn to play LIPO for 30, underlapping SOL with IPO. Had he played LIPO / ISOLATED he would have only scored 27. One of my racks was CEFORSW and I saw an open -ET and the possibility of playing CROWSFEET. It seemed a safe place since the ET wasn’t near any premium squares and I was happy to lay the 9LW down for 77. Near the end of the game I held AGLMOTV but there was no E for MEGAVOLT. After Dave’s flashy three-word underlap with ENtRIES, he emptied the bag and I could see that the remaining five tiles were AAJQR. A U was next to a DWS so I planned my outplay with the rack AEELRTV. I played RUE for 6, leaving Dave no other place to play off his Q than for 11 with QAt. I had to plan to go out with VALET (29) in order to stick him with the J. By the way, AKITA £ is Collins-only.
