Preface
Like last season, I’ve really been focusing on my word study to improve my game. I’ve gotten into a rhythm of learning ~200 bingoes a day, but I do still need to shore up my knowledge of shorter words, especially because I didn’t retain all the 4’s that well.
Game 1
I’m already leading by 67 points in this position against Inverse with an amazing rack.
I was already set to play any of my high probability bingoes at the top of the board hooking EN such as MEnIALS when I looked at the unseen pool. With 3 tiles remaining in the bag, the unseen is extremely rough: BEEIIJOQSV. The first thing to note is that I don’t have to be worried about Inverse bingoing out if I elect to play one of my bingoes, there are none unseen, so I won’t lose instantly by getting caught with something like IJQ. Even though I can’t get bingoed out on, I still decided to pass up all of my bingoes in this position, sacrificing 61 points to play K11 MI for only 13 points.
I had a couple reasons for this. One reason was this minimizes my chance of drawing the J, V, or Q if they are still in the bag. The V and Q only play in 1 spot each that could be blocked if I draw an inflexible rack, and although the J has a decent spot hooking J(AI)#, it’s still likely to hamper my endgame prospects. If I get stuck with one of these letters, I’m likely to lose a large amount of spread as Inverse can play off 1 tile at a time whereas I will eventually have to just pass repeatedly with the tile I’m stuck with. My second reason for this play was that it leaves 1 tile in the bag. With only 1 tile in the bag, Inverse has to empty the bag on their next turn, after which I’m essentially guaranteed to catch him with 1 or more heavy tiles on his rack for extra spread. The last reason, for playing MI specifically is that it sets up another lane for bingoes ending in S with my strong leave of AELS?, so if Inverse already is saddled with many of the high point tiles, he doesn’t have a reasonable option that blocks my possible bingoes.
After MI, Macondo suggests I’m 83.5% to bingo. In the actual game, the last 3 tiles in the bag were IJV and I drew JV. Though this actually meant I missed my bingoes, I still had a strong endgame sequence playing my J for over 50 points atop GAE and then playing out on the next turn, eventually winning by 123.
Game 2 - My new highest scoring league game
At this point in my game with Biyo, I’m already essentially a lock to win, leading by 178 points, 425-247 after having landing 4 bingoes to none including the massive SAMPIRE# as a double-double for 110 points while Biyo has been struggling with some rough tile draws.
Here I made a point sacrifice, playing I13 FA for 22 points, setting up my X with MAX and XU for 53 points (although worth noting that Macondo prefers the more straightforward XU in the same spot, scoring 16 more immediately while more effectively blocking bingoes at the base of the board. Biyo hits me with R(E)DIVIdE in the spot I only partially blocked, and I luckily had the perfect tiles to respond with the massive JUGS hooking REDIVIdES on the triple for 96 points, still leaving my X with the huge MAX/XI spot still open and EX alongside TETANOID for a strong score as well.
After a few more academic endgame moves, the game ended with a final score of 623-391, beating my previous high score of 605.
Game 3 - A season losing error
This game is where the high notes about my play stops. Me and gharp had a very back and forth game, trading bingoes. gharp just emptied the bag with their last bingo of OUTTOLD, taking a 5 point lead and sending us into a 7v5 tile endgame.
My letters aren’t very flexible. I have 5 vowels and no scoring tiles while gharp is holding EPSWY. The first play I looked at was O11 AU(D)IO for 21, which dumps 4 of my vowels, setting me up to go out next turn with LE(A)L or (K)ELL. I quickly realized that this doesn’t work, because gharp is threatening the massive 12I WYES for 38 points, which is likely to outrun my endgame sequences holding all 1 pointers. I can’t swap the order of these plays, playing (K)ELL first of course, because then gharp could block my play of AU(D)IO and go out in 2. Even knowing I need to block WYES, I still have to find a decently high scoring out in 2 sequence to beat other high scoring plays like SWY# parallel to MIAOWEd. After going into my time bank, I eventually felt that there was no path to victory and begrudgingly played 12L ILEA for 22 holding LOU, blocking WYES and hoping either that gharp would either make a mistake, or that LOU(SH)* or LOU(PA)* were somehow valid words. gharp blocked my only spot to play LOU# with C4 ESPY 32, and at that point there was no path to victory.
After making my best endgame move after ESPY, I woke up and checked the game to see the words I really had hoped not to on my ILEA turn: “Blown EG”. My heart completely sank. The optimal sequence was not the most intuitive, but it was definitely findable for me, and I just didn’t look hard enough. The best play is K11 OU(T)I(E) for 10, leaving AELL. This blocks WYES but also ensures I can make a high scoring outplay on my next turn, just barely winning the game. I have the tiles to play LA(D)LE for 21 points, but even more importantly, LEAL fits with 3 overlaps to the left of MIAOWEd for 16 points, and gharp’s best play of the aforementioned SWY# wins for me by 5 points.
*OU(T) into either T of OUTTOLD is also a winning play, saving ILEAL parallel to MIAOWED or LAL(D)IE.
Aftermath
Division 1 was extremely close this season. This was the only season where the winning record was not 10-4 or better. I finished in 3rd place, a new best, tied with two other players at 9-5, but with the worst spread tiebreaker, 111 points from 1st place. If I hadn’t blown my game against gharp, I would’ve finished a clean game up on the field at 10-4. I can’t say I’m not disappointed with the final result of the season, being so close to winning for the first time. I’d still like to take this season as a good sign moving forwards that I’m still improving my game. I’d like to see this as meaning that I still have a chance, if I get lucky, of winning, even though division 1 has gotten tougher after 18 seasons.
This season, I beat my previous MiAOW record of 2.5 by a lot, finishing with an extremely solid 2.0. There are a couple reasons for this being the case. One reason is more word study. There were multiple bingoes I played this season that I had only just studied. It also helped that a lot of the bingoes that were randomly bingoes that I had studied as opposed to lower probability bingoes. In my opinion, I think the biggest contributing factor to my low MiAOW this season was the amount of blowouts in either direction. Just 6 out of 14 of my games finished with the scores within 100 points of each other. In most of these games, the game was mostly decided after around 1/3 of the game. Mistakes operate on win percentage (except for if win percentage is <0.5% or >99.5%), so by being essentially dead or a lock to win in these games, often obvious mistakes that would normally be at least a medium may only count as a small mistake. Also, the weakest part of my game by far is the preendgame, but with such lopsided games, Macondo doesn’t really penalize me too much because I was mostly already going to win/lose anyways. *
*spread still counts for preendgames but it’s harder to make some 25% win rate error like this
Stats
Lost Endgame Points: 65 (5/14 optimal endgames, 1 blown endgame) [rough season for endgames for me…]
Missed Bingo Turns: 10 (6 Word Knowledge, 4 Playfinding)
Suboptimal Bingo Turns: 7 (5 Word Knowledge, 2 Playfinding)