Lopsided Scrabble Victory

Over time, luck evens out, so they say. And this may be true. In theory, a game with srategy will most often be won by the better player, who will lose only the games where luck is truly lopsided against him/her, and win the games where luck favors him/her, as well as a more numerous amount of those in the middle.

All of this is not of comfort to the winner or loser of a single game, however.

Tonight's game was Scrabble, and the game started with us drawing to go first (I pulled an A) and then drawing my initial tiles while Rachel finished watering the plants. I drew my rack:

BEGINRS

Bingo, I said, laying down BINGERS at H3, and scoring 76 points. Rachel groaned, and said she would be done in a minute. Meanwhile I drew the next rack:

AELRTY*

I'll give you ten seconds to come up with a bingo. I came up with 2 in that time [1]. I told Rachel we were starting over.

When she finally sat down, the resulting game didn't give any bingos, but it was still awfully biased in my favor. I drew the Z, Q, X, J, K, three S's and one blank. Hard to compete with that.

The game:

([rack] = [word] (other words) at [location] for [score]/[total score])
where location is [letter][digit] if across, and [digit][letter] if down.

J:EGIILNJ = JINGLE at H3 for 44/44
R: = YOUR (YE) at G9 for 20/20

This J basically killed the upper left of the board for most of the game.

J:DDGIKPR = KIND at 6F for 19/63
R: = HIVE (YEH) at I9 for 27/47

And this K didn't help any.

J:ADGRPTX = EXPAT at 12I for 28/91
R = BOND (JO, IN) at I3 for 21/68

J:DDGIMR* = DIG (BI, JOG) at J2 for 24/115
R = COIR at 12D for 12/80

Rachel looked this one up before playing it. The C killed the upper right part of the board.

J:DMNRRS* = R(O)DS (D(O), BID, JOGS) at K1 for 24/139
R: = SAY (EXPATS) at N12 for 27/107

J:AAEMNOR = MAN (AM, YA) at O13 for 24/163
R: = UP (UP) at 11K for 20/127

J:AEOOQRT = ROTOR at 1K for 18/181
R: = TRIKE at F3 for 9/136

Rachel, as you can see, was rather unhappy with both the board and her letters, and played this just to open things up.

J:AEEGQVW = WAVER at 4B for 22/203
R: = RELIE(S) (TRIKE(S)) at 8A for 27/163

J:AEEGMQT = QAT at C3 for 24/227
R: = SOL (KINDS) at J6 for 17/180

Q didn't open up the oard either, I'm afraid.

J:AEEEGIM = REIMAGE at 8J for 13/240
R: = IF at 10I for 13/193

I just wanted to dump some tiles.

J:ACEENSU = LANCES (REIMAGES) at 8J for 60/300
R: = NO (YOURN) at 13G for 12/205

Needless to say, although I thought my play was both pretty and elegant, Rachel was not very happy about it. After drying off my head, we continued [2] ...

J:ABEEFTU = BEEF at B7 for 19/319
R: = EH (HI) at E4 for 20/225

J:AEETTUZ = ZOEA at E11 for 36/345
R: = OWN at H13 for 18/243

I had seen my friend play ZOEA before, and I remembered looking it up.

J:ELOTTU = TOTAL at 14B for 14/359
R: = AIR (TI, OR) at 15A for 13/256

J:EU = CUE at M8 for 6/365


R is left with AU. Final score: J:367, R:254 .


I sense a rematch coming up.

Yehuda


[1] REALITY and TEARILY.

[2] Just kidding. But I'm hiding the watering cans next time we play.