I won two out of three last night, to take my record to 56-10. I missed a few bingos too, and my notes indicate that I could have played them. Fortunately these misses did not cost me any game, however my acceptance of a phony certainly did:
404-346 against Jonathan. I played UNPEOpLE (70), NaVAIDS (68) and ITERATES (68). I held the rack CEGILNT and there was an open U but missed CULTIGEN.
425-362 against Heather M. Lots of freaky bingos on our board: I played AGISTeD (77), FOREGOES (74) and PALINODE (63). My tiles after AGISTeD were the horrid EEEEHOT yet I kept them, playing THEE (16) next, followed by FOREGOES, which I played to the S in AGISTeD. Heather played TRIAnGLE (93) and the flashiest of all, TSAREVNA (62). She also scored 63 for FIX. I emptied the bag and my final rack was AEEEOSS. I wasn’t too thrilled with all those clunky vowels–although the eses were nice–yet I noticed the treasure chest on Heather’s rack: FIJTUXZ. She was definitely not going out in two with all that, and I had to plan the endgame so that I could. I could see two successive plays where I made ESES (24) followed by TOEA (5) from a T, which was my only outplay with AEO. Heather could block TOEA, but in so doing would have left herself with JZ and no vowels. Heather held me on ESES and challenged unsuccessfully. I was able to go out with TOEA and got 40 points from her final rack of JTUZ. One of my racks was ACDEEIR and I missed DECIARE. I think there was a place for it, but my focus was on the lower left corner. With the X and Z still out late in the game, I was worried that a huge play like AXONE (62) or AZOTE (74) might come down. I played ACRID (35) there myself.
351-363 against Jean. I played ReIFIES (76) and Jean played DIEtING (74) and REDOABLE (64)* which I held her on, but did not challenge. If I had realized that her phony had two valid anagrams, ERODABLE and LEEBOARD, I might have challenged but then I never even bothered to rearrange the letters to see what else might form with them. I might have won if Jean had to remove her play since I would have played ReIFIES right after and the score would have gone to 336-262. Jean’s bingo lane would have remained open, thus leaving the two legit bingos still a possibility. Would she have found either? If she had, then ERODABLE would have scored 78, to bring the score to 336-340. It would then be my turn, yet I would have had first crack at grabbing that last S out of the bag, where the final pool was AAACEENNOS.
BTW Jean’s rack was ABDELOR, which makes LABORED, but there was noplace for it. If I saw LABORED and ERODABLE, I could have blocked the E Jean played through by playing aERIFIES, dEIFIERS, EdIFIERS, FEIStIER, FERItIES, FIERIESt, FInERIES, rEIFIERS or vERIFIES. The best play would have been EdIFIERS (78). That sequence of events, where I forgo playing ReIFIES, certainly seals the win. Keep in mind that FIRESIdE actually gives Jean a place to stack LABORED on top of, so that is the reason I left it out of the list of possible bingos for me with that rack.