CSW Season 23: Hidden Things

Preface:

After barely surviving last season by just 46 points of spread, I was going into season 23 with the hope that it would not be such a nailbiter to avoid relegation.

Game 1: Saving Em’ For Later

Against gharp, I’m trailing by just 6 points and I’m holding a very strong rack.

After looking for a while in this position, I only identified a relatively weak bingo of 2G oBsCENE for 72. This play opens the top row for high scoring bingoes playing to the upper left triple, as well as easy scoring plays ending in A and O. The R hook to OBSCENE on the double word score also pumps up the danger of this play even more, offering gharp easy scoring from clunky racks.

First, I missed that oBsCENE plays in a much better spot at J3 making 3 overlaps for 83 points. This spot is also much safer, offering no new scoring spots back. There are also other high scoring bingoes such as BEduNCE for 85, hooking (WHILE)D, but they are about equal because they open an easy scoring spot to the triple, using the double letter score - triple word score combo through the E, with some nice scoring tiles unseen including the F, H, X, Y, and Z.

In this position, with 2G oBsCENE being so unsatisfying, I actually stumbled into Macondo’s favorite play (though tied with BEduNCE and close to other plays) of BEN(J)# for just 26. Holding CE??, I average a massive 96.8 points next turn, with some good lines to hit such as the triple word score down from the S in WARTS and the double-double line from the L in WHILE. This also offers very little back to gharp in terms of scoring plays, which is always nice. Many scoring plays on this board are likely to open even more high scoring lines that I can crush with both blanks, so BEN(J)# is just barely worth it here.

After gharp’s response of TELO(I), I drew DOS from the bag and played the high-scoring 11D (L)OCuStED# for 86. The sneaky 13B bEDSOCk for 85 is a decent improvement here, avoiding placing the E under the triple word score for the unseen Z and making the board harder to bingo on.

Game 2: What Do I Even Do With These? In this endgame against Blibble, I’m in very deep trouble, trailing by 19 points with a horrible rack, after Blibble emptied the bag with HEEDs for 36.

Blibble’s rack is EINOR, and a saving grace here is that they do not have any out plays on the current board. I cannot stop Blibble from going out in 2 here, especially not while scoring anything.

The first play I considered was the high scoring N1 AYS for 36. This puts me ahead by 17 points, but there’s a big problem. I saw that Blibble could drop their E with (HA)E for 18, leaving them out plays on opposite sides of the board of J9 NORI and 6C IRON(E), where my best plays such as 15A (TI)VY or 11J YU(P) score too little and leave too many high pointers on my rack to hold on. Plays like (H)AY for 27 have the same issue, where I’m leaving poor combinations such as CSUVY that will prevent me from playing out next turn.

After staring at the endgame for quite a while, I saw a different option available, CAYUS(E) for 19. At first this seems pretty weak, scoring just 19 points and leaving VY. Surprisingly, this play still offers no out plays back to Blibble, and VY goes out in 2 spots, with (BE)VY for a solid 24 points and the aforementioned (TI)VY for 14 as a back up. However, playing this first still loses, because Blibble has the nice overlap of N1 ONE next to HEEDs, scoring 24 points and blocking my better spot for VY. After I play out with (TI)VY instead, Blibble still wins by 6, 468-474.

When considering an out in two sequence like this, it’s always important to try switching the order of the plays if it doesn’t work. If I play (BE)VY first, I can keep my threat of CAYUS(E) as an out play, which is hard to block while scoring well. However, this also doesn’t seem to win if Blibble blocks my outplay. If Blibble plays the ONI(E)# for just 6, CAYUS(E) is blocked, and they save O1 R(Y)E for 18 and F2 ER for 13 as outplays, and my best plays like CYA(N)S for 20 lose by just 1 point (in this case, 475-476).

I looked at the endgame for even longer, but figuring that banking on Blibble missing CAYUS(E), which is a tricky word, was my best shot, I begrudgingly played (BE)VY, hoping for Blibble to play O(Y)ER for 24, which CAYUS(E) beats by 4 points.

I had the tab open in the background while I was doing other things when I saw Blibble’s move come through a few hours later. O(Y)ER for 24. I instantly slapped down CAYUS(E) and out to win, shocked that I had managed to win. I expected to see on the analyzer after the game a “Blown EG” tag on one of our sides, but surprisingly, there wasn’t one. This whole time in this position, there was a very sneaky play that means I was in a winning position the whole time.

That play is C9 C(ALEF)Y# for 30. This scores so many points that this still defeats the ONI(E) and R(Y)E sequence by 5, 485-480. I did not know this word, but I briefly entertained just trying it because it looked like it might be a word when I was searching for a winning endgame play. Going back to my initial play of (BE)VY, the existence of this play actually makes N1 AYS my best play.

Game 3: Getting Too Fancy An opportunity to make a huge error came up immediately in my game against dragon.

I spotted my bingo of MIKRONS pretty quickly, and thought my only decision was where to play it. I could play it for the most points at H2 for 86, doubling the K, but that puts the S on the star, allowing for easy high scoring bingoes to the S, and also puts an I next to the double letter score. Seeing this, I went with H4 MIKRONS for 82, a slight point sacrifice, but I felt it was worth it defensively.

Fast forward a few turns, and dragon plays GOAtIER hooking O(MIKRONS).

It was only at this point that I realized I had dodged a huge bullet. The O(MIKRONS) hook was not on my radar at all, and had I played MIKRONS at H2, this could’ve easily been over a hundred points (and I would have missed 2 huge opportunities to use the hook).

Jumping to the pre-endgame, I’m leading by 39 points with just 4 in the bag.

I quickly elected not to empty the bag in this position, figuring I might occasionally be able to beat lower scoring bingoes if I draw the Z and get a chance to score with it. As such, I played PLE(B) for 24, feeling pretty confident that the game was mostly locked up. This is usually not a bad idea, but there are some reasons that it’s not especially helpful here. First of all, there are a lot of high scoring bingoes available here that can outrun me such as (C)YAnATES for 100, or bingoes using high scoring consonants to the D in SWARD. Drawing the Z may help me, but if I draw other high scoring letters, dragon may still outrun me. For example, if dragon bingoes with SALtATE(D)# for 77 and draws the M as the final tile in the bag, my best play of 2L YUTZ for 39 loses to (JA)M by just 1 point.

Avoiding emptying the bag also allows dragon to fish one tile to try to hit high scoring plays or bingoes. This makes 1D (B)UTLED, emptying the bag, a slightly better choice.

Case in point, dragon responds to P(LEB) with 8L (RE)V for 6, holding ELMSZ?, with the only remaining hooks to REV in the S and blank already on their rack. Macondo suggests that this play only wins if dragon draws the Y, which threatens 100+ point Z plays that I cannot block such as ZYMaSE for 108 and SLEaZY for 102. My best endgame sequence after this loses by 5 points, 452-457.

In the actual game, the final tile in the bag was an A, and I was now faced with this position, leading by 57 with dragon holding a rack of AELMSZ?.

I saw that at a minimum, dragon was threatening to play AZyMES# for 99 points hooking (REV)S. I figured that any reasonable out in 2 sequence would barely squeak out the win if I blocked AZyMES# and forced dragon to settle for inferior plays like SLEAZy for 93. With this in mind, I went with N4 ATE for 13, setting up a high scoring spot to go out with DUTY if dragon played SLEAZy, thinking I only lost if something like SMAzZLE(D)* was a word.

This was a game losing error. With ATE on the board, dragon slapped down 2I MEAZeLS# with 5 overlaps atop GOAtIER for 109 (+16) to end the game, winning 480-425.

I didn’t even think of dragon bingoing out in this position, but had I realized it was a threat, there are pathways to victory. No matter what, I must block the O column, because dragon is threatening MEZcALS or MEZAiLS# for 152 points each in that spot. According to Macondo, the best play that accomplishes this is 2K DAUT for 17. This saves YET at 14F for 31, which lets me beat dragon’s AZyMES play by 8, 462-454. Frankly, this was a pretty devastating loss, because I did think I had this game won, but kudos to dragon, because (RE)V was a very sharp play that put maximum pressure on me.

Afterword

Despite my errors in finding my best plays in these positions, I did manage to finish out the season with a fine 7-7 -184 record with a 2.6 MiAOW. It did end up coming down to the wire once again this season, as my game with Blibble was my last game unfinished, and I needed a win to avoid relegation. It was a rougher season than usual in the bingo miss department, so I certainly need to keep working on that.

Stats

Lost Endgame Points: 95 (7/14 Optimal Endgames, 1 Blown Endgame)

Missed Bingo Turns: 10 (5 Word Knowledge, 5 Playfinding)

Suboptimal Bingo Turns: 9 (5 Word Knowledge, 2 Playfinding, 2 Strategy)

Cumulative Pre-Endgame Win Percentage Loss: 31.2% (1/6 Perfect Pre-Endgames)