My New Highest Play
I guess through sheer brute force, by incessantly playing Scrabble against my Palm Pilot (perhaps 5-10 games a day), I would eventually be able to cash in a truly monster play.
The turn before this, I just played off ELU to form GLUE (E9) for 10 points. Not many points, but it left a powerful AENS leave. I pulled an I, T, and U. The computer (Niggle, but here named Pal) played QUARE (12A) for 48 points.
There's possibilities a-plenty on my rack (AEINSTU). What did I play?
Oh yes, ANTIQUES (A8) for a whopping 203 points. My first 3x3 with a Q!
I immediately saw that I had AUNTIES and SINUATE, with several places to play them. But I figured I needed to investigate the Q, since I had the U after all. It only took a moment to realize what I had. I just got lucky that the Q was in the right spot.
So, I'm trying to decide if it is fair to say that this is my highest play ever. There's something about the fact that it came against a computer opponent that cheapens a bit for me. The computers play no defense.
But then again, the play that set it up, QUARE, might have been the best play and even an expert human would have chanced it. It scored 48 points after all. I mean, the odds of me having something there are pretty steep, especially with 2 Us already out. Right?
Of course, even QATS at A12 would have scored 39 points, which isn't a big spread at all. And I telegraphed my play by playing the measley 10 point GLUE, so one must think I had something good up my sleeve.
Unfortunately I have no way of knowing what was on the computer's rack, but given what we know, would you have played QUARE in this position?
Here's the final board:
Even with the monster 3x3, this game was still quite close, closer than it appears. I was able to go out with a bingo, SaTIRES (3D, 66 points), another bingo I was proud of because it hooked four letters. My other bingo was TINGLED. The computer kept it close with consistently high plays (like ChITNZ for 47) and bingoing with GERMANE (88 points) and the SOFTWARE (95 points). Now that I think of it, there's something funny about a computer opponent playing the word SOFTWARE.
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