a matter of style?

[backhoeing]

I had an interesting decision on the second turn of my game with Jeff Jacobson at the Bethesda tournament yesterday. After I opened with 8G THORAX for 48, and he responded G6 AN(T)iGENE for 60, I had the very nice rack ?JUMPER. The two best choices are obvious: 14A JUMPERs/ANTiGENEs for 96 or H1 JUMPER for 62 holding the blank. What's not

Comments

[backhoeing]

JUMPER seems like the obvious play, and it was my first inclination. If you have a 62 point play and keep the blank, that's gotta be a winner right? But the more I thought about it, I thought 34 points is a lot to give up.

It's true that you potentially give big points off the J, but the board is so open that creating the J spot isn't that big a deal. There are potentially good scores on the H column to either TWS, a huge Z spot, two open double-double lanes, long plays off the X, and lots of different letters to bingo through. So opponent's best play might be somewhere other than the J, or even if he gets it, you're likely to hit back pretty hard.

The blank does increase your chances of bingoing on the next turn, but is it really worth 34 points here? You might draw a bingo even without the blank here, and even if you just draw a big scoring play with mid-point tiles, there's a good chance it might be within 34 points of a bingo score.

I was possibly swayed by the fact that Jason Bednarz was winning all his early games by large spreads and I thought I might need to rack up a lot of spread to keep up with him. And by the fact that I considered myself comfortably better than my opponent and better able to make the most of many scoring opportunities on a volatile board.

So I've probably made it clear already that I played JUMPERs. He had an O but bingoed elsewhere. I drew a bingo but his play blocked it, so I settled for RIOJA and then bingoed on the next turn. None of that proves anything, but it does show why I'm reluctant to sacrifice so many points. I may keep scoring a lot anyway, so why give up on the 34 points that I know I can have now?

This doesn't mean I'm right. There's a good case to be made for JUMPER. In my sim Quackle preferred it, but only by less than a point. It wouldn't surprise me if more experts preferred JUMPER. But here's the thing: I'm almost sure that Nigel Richards would play JUMPERs.