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

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

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.

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.