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ANALYSIS ARCHIVE
Choice commentary from the list participants TURN 3:  Darryl Francis: Initial thoughts are: JO at e11 for 25 points leaving RULLS. Don't like leave. JO at f6 for 33 points leaving RULLS. Don't like leave. JOLLS at k3 for 31 points leaving UR. Burns our S. JOLLS at b11 for 31 points leaving UR. Burns the S. Could substitute JOURS for JOLLS, but leaves us with LL. Do we want score, or turnover? What about using the S? Keiichiro Hirai: I think I'd play JOLLS (b11a) for 31 pts. Turnover of 5 tiles is good. JOLLS(k3d) is opening up the board too much. JOR(e11a) for 28 pts would be my second choice. After reading Darryl-san's mail, JOURS(b11a) for 31 pts looks good. Which would be better, keeping UR or LL? (PC may play ZONA(a12a) for jolls, ZOOM(a12a) for jours in worst cases.) Andrew Fisher: After my ill-informed choice on move one, I'm already well ahead of Phil on equity loss here. Given that the pastry brand JUSROL cannot be played in scrabble (shame - it would fit so well at 11d), I think a priority is to dispose of some of the liquid consonants L and R which go together pretty badly. JO/OHM doesn't quite cut it for me because of the poor leave. I might well play JOLLS in a face-to-face game. It looks to be a lot safer to play from 11b than from k3. But this doesn't leave many prospects for move 4. On reflection, I think Ev's suggested JOR/TOYO is best - LLSU is still a fairly uninspiring rack leave, but appears better than LLRSU, and would benefit from the likely E pickup. Put my 19 votes on JOR please Phil. Jackie McLeod: The kneejerk move here is JO/OHM at f6 for 33. In a real game I would hardly hesitate and would be glad of a quick move to give me more thinking time later on. The leave is poor, but the E's are to come and we keep our S. I would not play the S at this point except to score more than the JO/OHM 33. Which it doesn't. Scoring 33 now brings the relative scores to 90:47 and keeps the pressure on (if it was a human opponent). We are half a bonus ahead, with an S on our rack, so even if opponent bonuses next time, for say 90, it is not so terrible. Phil Appleby: I thought about JO at f6a, but I really hate the LLRSU leave. When I keep a rack like that, I always seem to pick up something like RU rather than AE. I like JOR at e11a slightly better, but LLUS still looks pretty grim. With most of the goodies and all of the E's still to come, I prefer clearing out the rack with JOLLS, and I think I marginally prefer it at b11a although it scores 1 point less than at k3d. The possibility of parallel plays on the L column influence my choice. So JOLLS at b11a gets my vote, unless someone persuades me that there is a very good reason for changing it. Incidentally, if we'd gone with the YOW crowd, JARL at i6a for 27, leaving ULS, would have been my choice. Phil Nelkon: My feeling is that JOR may be a stronger and is certainly a less volatile move but after much soul searching I'm going with JOLLS at K3d. I feel the -ULLS leave is very weak and that we'll probably have to use the -S next go so we might as well use it now. It's also clear to me that the -S is less valuable than normal in this particular position. I know that playing without due regard for defence and trying to force a position rather than going with the flow of the game are two of my weaknesses so I may well be wrong in my choice. I like the fact that if opponent does play parallel to JOLLS that we then have the R to play at m3, none of the other suggested plays give us much counterplay. Ray Tate: Immediate thoughts - looks bad, choice between JO on F6a for 33, JOR on E11a for 29, JO in same position for 25 (which seems instantly dismissable with 5 R's unseen) leaving LLRSU or LLSU, or change, but what to change? With all E's, 5 R's, 4 O's & both blanks unseen it isn't beyond the realms of probability that Maven has an E with possibly a blank & an O, making a double-double along the 11th row a danger, therefore I would sacrifice 4 points and play JOR on E11a, which although opening the 12th row for a bonus closes the H15 square. We still have K7 for our S ( & Y if we should pick the remaining one) & LLSU??? yields 130 bonuses of which 100 would go down if Maven bonuses along the 12th row. Also LLSU??? IN yields 44 bonuses of which 16 go down. JOR puts us 39 in front & if Maven plays a simple 'non-scoring' bonus along the 12th rank it may only be 24-30 points in front & the lowest scoring bonus down the K file next move would put us 28 in front again. On reflection, doesn't seem too bad after all! JOR E11a 16 votes. Away to read the flaws in this analysis now, David Webb: Let P=points, L=leave value, V=vowel/consonant adjustment, and S=(2-tile) synergy. Then:
Re safety, the danger from parallel plays to JOLLS (k3) is dependent on opponent having an O. Even then the threatened score isn't massive unless opponent has an X. It also offers three floaters, albeit medium to poor ones. In its favour, JOLLS kills the only S post-hook opportunity. JOLLS (11b) offers less for a parallel play but leaves open the S post-hook opportunity. It offers no floaters for bingos. JOR and JO are safer still but also leave open the S hook. In my opinion, none of the safety considerations justify making any adjustments to the adjusted scores above. Re more than two tile synergy, the LLRSU leave of JO is truly horrid. It offers precious few bingo opportunities and little hope of a good-scoring nonbingo. We have already punished it with 5 points for a duplicate letter, 4 points for having a U, 1.5 points for its preponderance of consonants and 2.5 points for two-tile synergy. Should it receive even more punishment? I think it should but even if it shouldn't I am sure we haven't over-punished it already. Because all adjustments are made in half-point intervals the half-point difference between JO and JOLLS is insignificant and that between JOLLS at k3 and 11b almost insignificant. I prefer either of the JOLLS to JO because of the possibility of more negative synergy in the ULLRS leave. I prefer JOLLS at k3 because it is 'worth' one more point than at 11b and I don't think the differing safety considerations compensate for that. I vote for JOLLS at k3 (20 points). PS Somebody asked why the computer played VINO rather than VIN. The answer is that VINO scored three more points and improved the leave by half a point (O is 'worth' -0.5 points). Opening a triple-letter score is not worth the sacrifice of 3.5 points. It probably isn't even worth sacrificing one point for. PPS The values for leave etc are from Mark Watkins superb Wordgame magazine and do reflect the current SOWPODS word list.
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