Strategy!

[magratheazaphod]

first off, I don't think I have much to say about calpac that others haven't already said. It was an amazing event. I love the way we do scrabble out here. It was fun, comfortable and extremely high-level. Having all of the games annotated and posted online with added commentary is a big deal. It was a pleasure to be a part of it. I feel extremely

Comments

[anonymous]

That is definitely an interesting thought - exchanging seven and acquiring the knowledge of what I have and what's left in the bag, while I only know that there's probably mostly crap in the bag, but not exactly what that is. I think that's something Quackle doesn't take into consideration. V(A)UNTY puts you at about 2.2% chance of winning and while exchanging seven is about .7%. Exchanging 5 and keeping CN puts you at about 1%. Is this supposed .3% increase worth picking up 5/7 instead of 7/7? Well I'm not sure really.

"let's say jack wilts under the pressure..." -- Yes, the more there is pressure, the wiltier I get :P

As for WILTIEST, I should've just taken (G)IrLIEST or LISTErI(A). I only got 6 points more than I would've for GIRLIEST.

[magratheazaphod]

see, those win percentages are pretty flawed because they don't count on you blocking lanes. I would be shocked if I actually won 2.2%. With 2 in the bag, you'll be able to look and see which lane is most dangerous and block accordingly, and I already took out my two best lanes. as far as what to exchange the pool is pretty vowel-heavy, so maybe keeping C or CN would be a little better.

[wantonhalo]

It looks like you did a pretty complete analysis of the late game, but in the early game I would much rather play VIGOR than NOIL because there's just no reason to open the left side of the board. VIGOR makes a comeback pretty difficult. I also don't think ABOON is a strong enough opening to be worth opening all the nice scoring spots that it does. Why not just exchange ABOOO?

[magratheazaphod]

I didn't see vigor at all during the game. you're right, it really does gum up the works for him. I like it better than noil. I think I would much rather play ABOON than exchange. Jack is pretty competent. after an exchange all he has to do is play on row 14 and I am effectively toast. I'll take aboon all the way to start opening up the top-left quadrant.

[wantonhalo]

"Jack is pretty competent. after an exchange all he has to do is play on row 14 and I am effectively toast. I'll take aboon all the way to start opening up the top-left quadrant

[wallydraigle]

Look deeper. I can tell you what's inside the cave, but in this case everyone is better off going in themselves.

[magratheazaphod]

what the hell does this mean?

[bbstenniz]

this just made my day.

[wallydraigle]

You kind of stopped at "we can't really quantify the value of this information". I'm not sure why. Try to quantify it: even if you can't assign a cardinal value, you can develop some intuition after a little analysis. And compare the value of complete information with the partial information you'd have otherwise and the partial information that Jack has.

Also, you kind of didn't really analyze what Jack should do on a more than superficial level.

It's not really all that different from a normal pre-endgame... to me, anyway.

[bbstenniz]

There's a game involving Joey Mallick and this exact same thing happening at Reno - I forget what it was, but I know he'll remember!

[bbstenniz]

er exact same thing as far as exchanging 7 goes.

[evwhore]

Safety plays are boring and lame. Squeezes and endplays are awesome :-)