Annotated Game: Josh Castellano vs. Sam Rosin
It's time to introduce another new feature on the CoCo blog!
We've been planning this one for months now. We're going to be regularly posting annotated games from experts on the site, allowing you to follow along move for move and glean some strategic insights from their play.
Originally, we were planning to bring you a game from our inaugural tournament, in Hood River. But given current events, we thought it'd be appropriate to shift gears. In-person Scrabble tournaments are pretty much the furthest thing from anyone's mind right now - so why not look at a game from one of our online events instead?
To that end, here's an in-depth look at a matchup from our first CURE. The players are Josh Castellano, who would eventually win the tournament, and Sam Rosin, another one of the top experts in the field. Thanks to both players for agreeing to chat about their plays - and big thanks as well to Conrad Bassett-Bouchard, whose graphic design work is showcased in the board diagrams below! I'm not sure which I enjoyed more, the fascinating Scrabble game or the sweet purple tiles.
In any event, let's get to the game.
Sam: ADEIINT
8H INEDITA +68 68
Josh: EKNRRW?
N7 W(A)RK +21 21
Sam: EFLLMOT
7G FLOTEL +26 94
Josh: CENPRT?
K3 PREC(ED)eNT +102 123
Josh: I saw INCEPTOR pretty quickly and figured I would get to play it, since I thought Sam would probably play vertical to the E or D. So I was a little bummed when 7G FLOTEL went down. The next play I saw was PERCENT, which was pretty disappointing. So I figured I'd humor myself and look for nines, though I doubted I'd find any. I looked through the L column LI first and saw nothing, which is sad because there is a nine, REPLICANT, which I totally missed. Then, after I stared at ED for a few seconds, PRECEDENT jumped out at me. Because it was a double-double, I didn't even bother to keep looking. If I had taken a few more seconds, I might have put the blank in the correct spot.
Sam: DEIJMSU
3H JUM(P)ED +38 132
Sam: I probably would have played MUSJID, had I seen it. I vaguely felt there was a word like that available but didn't find it. I liked that JUMPED retained the S with PRECEDENT(S) and other bingo lines available, so I thought the 6-point sacrifice compared to JUPES was worthwhile.
Josh: BDEEIIU
10F BEDUI(N) +17 140
Josh: I completely missed 4J U(R)EIDE, which is clearly much better. I was getting sick of looking at this rack, so I played BEDUIN pretty quickly after I saw it.
Sam: EIOQRST
6F QI +36 168
Josh: AEIIIRS
exchange AII +0 140
Josh: I did not seriously consider any non-exchange plays this turn. From a pure equity standpoint, 4K (R)AI might be slightly better, but I am behind tempo against a strong player, so I definitely wanted to increase the variance to try to get back in the game. I think throwing back the A is going to be slightly better here since there are seven A's and two I's unseen.
Sam: EOORRST
12H ROOSTER +80 248
Josh: EGINORS
O1 SIGNORE +82 222
Sam: AEHPTVW
9E VAPE +28 276
Sam: I burned off over four minutes, but I don't love my choice. My thought with VAPE was that I retained the H to draw HAJ with a lot of As unseen, and I was worried that HAJ or APERT had leaves that were inflexible. I vastly overrated the bingo-ability of the HTW leave, though. Quackle suggests playing VAW at 11E, which I now like for the EHPT leave.
Josh: AENSUVX
13G VEX +44 266
Josh: I didn't like what 13G VEX did to the board, but I felt like I had to play it. It is the best equity play, but I mainly chose it because all the other options either gave back too much or closed other lines that I needed open. N1 AX kills the valuable row 1 line, so I ruled that out. 13L AX and 13L AXE invite massive comebacks if Sam has an O, which might be worth considering if I were losing by much more, but not in this case. While I didn't see it at the time, I think 13I XU is at least worth considering. The AENSV leave bingos slightly more often than ANSU, and it seems like it opens up 14J plays for Sam to come back with, but those make a dangerous row 15 line that I can use with my S. With all that in mind, I still think 13G VEX is the right choice because it closes the margin enough so that I don't have to threaten a bingo to win, I can just outrun.
Sam: HLOTWYZ
11B ZLOTY +42 318
Sam: It took me a while to find ZLOTY, so I went with it once I saw it. I didn't see TOWZY or HWYL, which both seem stronger. I was busy debating playing the inferior ZOL 14H.
Josh: AEENSUY
12A YEAN +39 305
Sam: AADEHNW
13A AAHED +50 368
Josh: ?AEINSU
1H SINUAtE(S) +74 379
Sam: AINRTUW
A12 (YA)WN +30 398
Sam: With nine in the bag and 6:29 on my clock, I'm not loving the situation. The pre-endgame will likely be tight, since there aren't any major bingo opportunities or scoring spots available. I was struggling to generate choices, missing all of the JA plays (TUINA, NUTRIA, WITAN) and IWI in the top-right corner (I have always missed that word!). Once I saw YAWN, I played it pretty quickly to conserve time.
Josh: ACGGIMO
4I GO(R)M +29 408
Josh: I would have played this pre-endgame differently in hindsight. 14I OGAMIC is definitely the best play. I saw it but talked myself out of it, knowing that playing a phony at this point meant a sure loss. Excluding 14I OGAMIC, I think I still would have played 4I GO(R)M. 4D IMAGO is comparable, but it tends to make Sam's best play much more obvious.
Sam: ABIORTU
14I ORBITA +30 428
Sam: My idea was that I'm going up by 20 and will have five letters left, so I can probably hang on if the F is in the bag, and I felt it was somewhat unlikely Josh had an F when he played GORM. OUTBAR is the same idea but clearly better because it plays the U and doesn't leave the IF parallel. I considered OUTJUMPED, which might be preferable since it introduces some more complexity into Josh's decision, but I was worried his rack might be flexible enough to either score very well parallel to OUTJUMPED, easily go out in two, or both. I didn't consider any other plays, but maybe some other ones are more interesting than I'm giving them credit for.
Josh: ACFGHIO
15L FIGO +50 458
Sam: AILSU 5J
L(E)U +13 441
Josh: ACH 15A
(N)ACH +13 471
(AIS) +6 477
Final score: Josh 477, Sam 441.
I hope you all enjoyed our first annotated game column! Thanks again to Josh, Sam and Conrad for making it happen. If you have any suggestions for making these columns better - or perhaps, if you'd like to suggest a future game for us to analyze - our inbox is always open. Thanks for reading.