I won two out of three last night:
264-592 against Shan. I got a thorough clobbering as there’s only so much I could do by drawing S? while Shan had JSSSXZ? plus the 22 points he got from me for my unplayable LQ. I managed to play INEDIBLe for 72 while Shan played MOUTHEr (106), TANGOES (78) and TEFLONS (78), which I unsuccessfully challenged. The score before the challenge was 203-464, so I was already losing big-time. My draw after INEDIBLe was AAACENT and I saw ANALECTA but there was no open L. (The other eight in that rack was ACANTHAE.) I made a four-letter play and then drew ARRR, bemoaning my overabundance of R’s. I did not stand a chance of winning this game unless I opened up the board. By the time I started doing this the score was 190-356 and I only advanced 27 points in four turns, at the end of which the score was 217-495. I could not draw into anything, as every turn was a struggle. While Shan had over ten minutes left on his clock, I had 1:07, a classic sign that nothing was working out.
460-292 against Steve. I played rEORDERS (77), rESAILED (77) and GRATINEE (80) and Steve played PAROTId (74). While in my previous game I suffered through a rack with three R’s, in this game I ended up making my blank an r–to play rEORDERS–which used three of them. I used the blank r already on the board to play rESAILED.
348-318 against Sophia. I played ENTASIS for 77.