Friday, March 4, 2011

10 things I learned at club this week

I've realized the these post titles are inaccurate: these are 'things I learn after club is over, with the help of Zyzzyva and Quackle'. Doesn't quite have the same ring to it, though. Here goes:

1. UNPOINTED is good. (took a risk that it was, drew a hold, but no challenge.)
2.TWITTERY is good. (darn, haven't studied it, though I think I knew the unusual twitter hooks, had it as a natural! )
3. GRAVID takes an A. (no S. though, GRAVIDAS or GRAVIDAE.)
4. TSARITZA is good. (double darn, didn't know it, had it as a natural from the same T!!!)
5. If you're up by a 100 points and have a 5 tile out play you're not quite sure is good, and your opponent has lousy tiles, just go for it. A lot of the time if you have to piddle your way through the end, you'll end up losing a lot of spread. (I couldn't remember if (KIN)A was good and had AECIA. Would have been 150 points of spread, but ended up with 122. Strangely, if I had played AECIA and KINA wasn't good, I still would have had 120 points of spread, only a 2 point difference.)
6. ACEFIS has an interesting one word anagram, and it looks like a plural noun,  but it's not. Same turn: FASCIAE can be spelled without the S. CIIOTT is another interesting six- think I've seen it before.
7. CDEMNSU has an anagram through a U.
8. MARROW is a verb. (means to marry) And it takes a Y back hook. So ARROWED takes F,H,M, and N as a front hook.
9. Missed DEORUX? through an N. Interestingly, XU for 38 was the top sim choice. (as well as a couple other X plays. Anyone have insight on this? I ended up drawing the second blank, too.)
10. 8 letter words have front hooks, too. (Was blind to LUSTERED front hooks, I think because it's an 8 and didn't think to even look.)

2 comments:

TileHead said...

> Missed DEORUX? through an N.
A tough one to find.

> Interestingly, XU for 38 was the top sim choice... Anyone have insight on this?...
Hard to say without seeing the situation, but 38 + an almost sure bingo next turn (by keeping DEOR?) may score better on average than a bingo now (esp. if a relatively low-scoring one) + a random rack next turn. The score and other factors would also play into the choice of plays.

scrabblepodcast said...

Thanks- I got an almost identical answer on the livejournal posting so you must be right. I think in my head, 30-something points seemed to low to pass up a bingo, and with my luck I'd draw two V's or something.