I never play ISC on my lunch break, but today I found myself with 20 minutes to go with my meal already eaten. I had enough time to play a quick game against a computer opponent. However, the only computer opponent who was open was the evil Cruella, a wily computer player who was rated at 1525 at the time of the game. "No guts, no glory," I said to myself as I made the challenge. (Actually a win for me would boost my ranking a good bit, while a loss wouldn't only drop it by a few points-so I had little to lose).
Cruella took a quick lead, opening with READY for 26 and then bingoing with WINDAGEs on a double/double for 98. After 2 rounds I was down 124 to 52, and I hadn't done anything wrong!
A few rounds later (and even after playing ZIRAM for 38) I still found myself down by 89 points when this position came up.
Luckily I got the blank. My rack is ?ADEFKN. Can you find the monster bingo lurking on my rack? Click on the link below for the answer plus more analysis.
The answer is FLANKED for 113 points.
It's a good thing that the computers don't really play any defense. Its previous play of PIQUE really threw the game wide open.
FLANKED ends up being my highest single play yet. (I still haven't played a Triple/Triple!) My previous highs were SEXTAINS for 110 points and BIPOLAR for 101 points.
Now a 14 point lead against the cunning Cruella isn't much, and sure enough on her next play (HOYA for 29), Cruella is on top again.
Now I see that I have TOADIES. (Unseen is its anagram, IODATES). I'm just about to play it on E14 when I decide to try an interesting front hook. If its not good, then with the ISC set to VOID, it will simply be ruled unacceptable with no penalty, and I can go ahead and play it on E14 anyway (forming PE and IS).
Come to find out, STIME is a good word. I have since looked it up and it means a glimpse. So I score 85 points for TOADIES, and go up by 80 points: 259 to 339. But there's still plenty of game to go.
A few plays later, and I find that I'm only up by 16 points. The computer draws the last tiles and one of them is an X. I'm stuck with a bunch of low scoring vowels: EIILOTU. Can I preserve my lead or will evil Cruella play some ungodly killer play with the X? Here's the board:
First, I try to see if I can go out. I see that I'm just a letter away from OUTLIER, OUTLIES, and TOLUIDE but close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades. I have OUTLINE at L3 which would leave me with just the I to go out.
But then I begin to look at Cruella's rack. She has ENPRUVX. Some big plays on that rack could be EX, REX, PREX, and VEX. VEX on A1 would be a 50 point killer.
So if I add it all up the scenario would play out like this. OUTLINE would get me 14 for a total of 398. Cruella then scores 50 on VEX to go up to 418. I go out with AMI on 8C for 5 points and a total of 403. The 6 points on Cruella's rack would give me 12 points. The final would be 418 to 415, Cruella wins.
So then I figure that I must block the A1 VEX, but what's Cruella's next best play? I see VEX on 9K for 40 points. I might be able to pull it out.
I decide on C1 LIT for 12 over A1 LET (13 points) because I think that the E might come in handy. Cruella plays EX instead of VEX, scoring 36 points. I was under time pressure and missed my obvious out: LOUIE on 1C (I played LOUIE just a couple days ago!). Instead I play OXO for 10 points. After Cruella's N12 REP for 12, I finally see 1C LIEU to go out for the 416 to 423 win.
I have saved humankind from computer domination.
Here's the final board.
My ranking goes up quite a bit to reach a new high of 1283.