Mind Sports Zine - Scrabble - Online Challenge - UKS vs. Machine - Analysis archive

ANALYSIS ARCHIVE

Choice commentary from the list participants

TURN 1:

David Webb:
PITMAN scores 26 points and its leave of R is 'worth' 1 points. There is no vowel/consonant adjustment and no synergy so the move is 'worth' 27 points.

IMP scores 14 points and its leave of ANRT is 'worth' 2.5 points. There is no vowel/consonant adjustment but there is a synergy adjustment. ANRT are four good letters so an adjustment of 4 points is required. Without an E, S or blank the leave is not great, just good, so no further 'better-than-good' synergy adjustment applies. The IMP move is therefore 'worth' 20.5 points.

By this reckoning PITMAN is 6.5 points better than IMP.

On the safety front, IMP offers only three floaters compared to six from PITMAN but IMP has a host of front hooks and two post-hooks which favours PITMAN. Any safety adjustment, and none may in fact apply, is not going to make up the 6.5 point deficit. PITMAN is therefore clearly better than IMP.

PARTIM's leave of N is inferior to PITMAN's leave of R by half a point. The S hook of PITMAN is worth something but it's fairly negligible. I think therefore that PITMAN edges PARTIM.

TRAMP scores 24 points and its leave of IN is 'worth' -0.5 points. There is no vowel/consonant adjustment but there is a synergy adjustment of 1.5 points so the move is ' worth' 25 points. Offering five floaters instead of six is not worth sacrificing two points for so PITMAN is better than TRAMP.

Any reference to turnover as a relevant factor distinct from score and rack leave in respect of this, or any opening, move is a complete nonsense - unless I'm completely mad.

PITMAN gets my vote.

Graeme Thomas:
One should achieve a balance with turnover. If you only pick up 40 tiles in the game, then you will only see 40% of the goodies, and achieve 40% of the score. Of course, lucky pickups and skilfull play will alter the score percentages, but the average will remain.

For what it's worth, James Cherry's ACBot subtracts two points per tile played on the opening move when evaluating potential move candidates. This is to compensate for the extra chance of the opponent playing an 8-letter word on his opening move.

In the case at hand, we'd calculate the difference in score as 12 points, less 6 points for the extra three tiles played. The question then becomes: is a rack leave of RANT 6 points better than a leave of R?

I suspect that's an easier question to answer than "is RANT 12 points better that R?" My 16 votes go, for the moment, to IMP (8f).

Roy Miller:
Though Andrew's [Fisher] leave of RANT appeals to me, PANIM (played across from H 8 for 24pts) feels right to me (though possibly giving a reasonably moderate scoring opportunity to your opponent on the next move due to the A being on I 8).

Playing PANIM leaves you two very good letters, the T and the R - and the move has a fairly good tile turnover. Prior to the opponent playing there are two vowels and an N available on the board, this along with a draw of 5 tiles to supplement the T and R must enhance the chance of an imminent bonus word.

For me this is the move and I vote for this.

Chris Hawkins:
If we exchange M (leaving AINPRT) we'd have a very good chance of picking a tile that would go with AINPRT to make a bonus through whatever opponent opens with. AINPRT?? makes 46 bonuses according to Lexpert. Worth considering?

Phil Nelkon:
A very interesting first set of letters.

The point nobody has made so far is that the first move is different from every other move in the game. It is the best chance you get to impose your own particular style of play on the game.

I doubt there's more than a point or two's difference between PARTIM, PITMAN, IMP, PANIM or PRIMA. So, in my view, what is more important is for me to try to influence the flow of the game towards the style that I feel most at home with.

Assuming I am playing this game and not the concensus, then my particular line of thinking is the same as Helen's. PITMAN does give an -S hook but that doesn't worry me when I'm picking up 6 new tiles, the R leave is definitely superior to the N. It's an attacking and open move and the double words are available for use, which is not the case with IMP, that's the way I like to play the game. That's a vote.

A word about TRAMP, there's a 15% chance that we will draw a G after playing TRAMP. That probably makes it worth a point or two extra than the other 5 letter plays but even if we draw the G and we don't play a bonus we score 39, not too much to get excited about. I still prefer PITMAN

Message board

Discuss this article on our Scrabble message board.