My First ISC Bird Sighting!
Yesterday I was playing this game against Automat, an ISC computer opponent, when it layed down this lovely STARLING.
It landed on A8 and reached all the way down to the G on H8. A triple word score (TWS). After fluttering its wings, it announced a score of 77 points. Very nice!
Automat went on to kick my butt all over the board.
It was Automat's second bingo, having opened the game with SLOPING. I tried to make a game of it by playing my highest scoring play to date: SEXTAINS (2H) for 110 points. The X landed on a triple letter score (TLS) and the word traversed a double word score (DWS). But the rest of the game was full of missed bingoes on my part. Right after STARLING I could have countered with ARGUABLE on C8, but I missed it. I played BURGLAR instead. Later I missed a triple-triple, AIRFIELD, on O8, playing FEAR instead. I also had some vowelitis which I tried to cure by playing ILIAD and then later, ILIA. Here's how the final board looked:
I hope to make this a regular feature of The Elusive Quetzal, wherein I will post a screenshot anytime a bingo that describes a type of bird is played on ISC (or from a live tournament game). I will call it ISC Bird Watching. If you have such a screenshot, email it to me at:
Remember:
1: It must be a bingo.
2: It must be the name of a bird.
3: It would be nice to know how much it scored and the circumstances surrounding the play.
Of course, the ultimate goal is to see a QUETZAL.
You know, I'm starting to find the mathematical postmortem to be rather interesting. I may have to make Scrabble analysis my new nerd hobby.
For example, in this game, Fuzzgig used 43 letters while Automat used 55... and I'm assuming since no letters are on your rack, Automat drew the remaining 2. That would mean your tiles had a total face value of 80 points, leaving a face value of 105 for Automat... the exact same spread in the game I played last night (the one I describe in the next entry.) That means each of your letters had an average face value of 1.86 while Automat's were worth 1.84 in average. Nearly identical, and both close to the expected average of 1.87.
Looking at the final scores (adjusted for the, I believe, 8 point difference for the two tiles Automat didn't use) each of your tiles were worth an average of 7.33 points in play, compared to Automat's average of 7.46. That's one point more that the averages in the game I played last night.
You were able to convert the average point value of the tiles you played by a factor of 394%, almost as much as Automat's 405%... about 75% more than my opponent and I could muster. So, even though Automat had two bingos, they were low in value and almost made up for by your giggle-inducing SEXTAINS.
So again, the winner in this game was able to use and draw more tiles while maintaining a similar overall efficiency as its opponent. The point value of the tiles was not a factor (although the letter values may have been a factor in your ability to play longer words.) Also, it seems both players were able to use the board at the same level of efficiency.
But, due to Automat's larger vocabulary and superior anagramming programming, it was able to use 4.38 tiles per turn, while you only used 3.31 tiles per turn (if you played thirteen turns each as I suspect.)
So as far as point values go, and the layout of bonus squares, Scrabble seems to be a well-balanced game.
Why would SEXTAINS draw out giggles? It's a cool word! I knew it as the plural of SEXTAIN which is from the TISANE list. SEXTAIN's anagram might produce more giggles: ANTISEX.
One might suspect that anyone who evaluates the postmortem as exhaustively as you have, then you might be ANTISEX.
Actually, your postmortem is interesting, but I find it to be not really be useful. It's like a chicken or the egg thing. Did Automat win because it pulled more tiles, or because of the bingoes. When you bingo, you tend to draw more tiles anyway, right?
I also have wondered a lot about the usefulness of playing 6 letter words. I usually do it for the reason of tile turnover; the main reason for that is to increase one's chances of pulling the blanks or the S's. But without the blanks and S's, I think tile turnover is less useful. It's not the quantity of the tiles pulled, but rather the quality.
If you can find a game where one pulled less tiles, but pulled both blanks, some S's and maybe the X, J, or Z, I'll bet they'll be the winner.
I sometimes feel like that when I play a 6-letter word, that I'm often playing away some good letters.
Then again, your analysis can be like baseball statistics: like batting averages, at bats, on base percentage, and slugging percentage.
Also, do you have to adjust your calculations if someone exchanges letters?
My analysis hasn't really progressed to the point of strategy. After my game I wanted to see if I could say I had played a better game than my opponent, and if so, what made the difference. In this paltry sampling of two games that I've looked at, the point-value of the tiles and the players' use of the board didn't seem to be much of a factor.
1. Both players drew (or used) a mix of tiles so that the average face-value of their titles was nearly equal to the expected average value of 1.87 points per tile.
2. In both games, each player made equal use of the board's bonus squares and other tiles already in play, increasing the average face-value of their tiles by a factor of about 400% (or 325% in my game.)
3. My conclussion was that the primary factor of a player's success in a game is his or her ability to use more tiles. This capability would factor in word knowledge, anagramming skills, and perhaps the letters on the tiles drawn... but not their point values since this seems average out over the course of a game. In other words, despite all the math involved, Scrabble really is a word game. It's well-balanced as far as the math goes.
Eventually, I would like to look at games with one player who can use the board more efficiently than his or her opponent. That is, a player who has a consistently high FVC (face-value conversion) vs. a player with an average or lower FVC. I suspect that the better player's efficient use of the board would create better opportunities for the less skilled player to make more efficient use of the board... that their FVC would improve during the game.
Exactly. The more you bingo, the more tiles you draw. But yes, I should amend my previous analyses to say the winners of these two games were the ones who used more tiles... while maintaining a high FVC.Also, I just realized I previously miscalculated the average tile value... should be 1.87 not 1.95. So I've altered my previous analyses so as to not spread disinformation.
Of course, I still can't say that I played a better game than my opponent. I would need to quantify the effect that the letter-values themselves had on the game. In other words, did I use more letters because of my word skills, or because I drew better tiles? But at least I can say I didn't draw tiles with better point-values. In fact, my opponent did slightly better in that respect.