I won one game last night:
341-393 against Sophia. It was a struggle with every rack. My opening rack was ACIOOUV and I was playing second. What a horrible first pick; I only hoped Sophia would play a B so I could dump BIVOUAC. Fortunately her opening play was BROKE (28) and I responded with the same score. Unfortunately I couldn’t play EXORDIA alongside BROKE to make BROKER since she blocked the spot. I played the game’s only bingo, a late PRAYERs (66). I was pleased with my outplay: I slotted my last remaining tile, an R, between HE and BED to make HERBED. My clock only had 1:20 left, proof that I was struggling till the end. Premium tile distribution: Sophia had JSSSSZ? and I had QX?
294-442 against Steve. Steve played PAVOLiN (66)* and REPINnED (83). My only bingo was DISAGREE (68). I never even held him on PAVOLiN; I should have since there are so few words that begin with PAV-. Turns out the only seven in that rack is VANPOoL. Since my opening play was EGO, if he had wanted to play an 8LW, he could have made OVErPLAN, VOLPlANE or VANPOOLs. One of my racks was IINSTUU. Its only 8LW builds through a K: INUKSUIT. I exchanged IUU and ended up with an abundance of riches: I pulled MSS, giving me the new rack IMNSSST.
505-348 against Yvonne. My bingos: BRACTING (65)*, IODInATE (82) and HAIRLINE (65) and Yvonne played SMARTEN (82) and SAVOrIER (83). She opened with a phony, HOYSINS* which I challenged off. Those letters only play through a P to make an 8LW, HYPNOSIS. I wasn’t confident about BRACTING, but it was only my second move in the game and fell back on my theory that it’s better to get a word challenged off than to kick myself for being too timid to try a word that ends up being legitimate. I was mistaken in believing that BRACT was a verb. It is a noun with the adjective form BRACTED, yet the -ING form was phony. My rack could only play through an E to make BACTERIN. Yvonne lost five turns in that game, exchanging tiles once and losing four of my challenges. We had no computer lexicon so Mark had to work overtime looking up the words in my NWL.