c4countdown

For a bit of fun I thought I'd run a Scrabble consensus game, the brains of C4C vs the brawn of Quackle, an excellent Scrabble AI.

People can propose moves or support previous suggestions, and the move with the most support at the end of each day gets played. (In the event of a tie, the player with the highest Apterous rating gets the casting vote.) Note the dictionary used in CSW, not ODE, because no one wants to learn the ODE twos. CSW is much larger than ODE so you won't make many errors that way. Please no solvers, dictionaries or other trickery.

So, move 1. Quackle moved first and scored 30 points for HOWRE. Our rack and current board position is shown below:



Votes by 23:59 on 27 February please.

Challenge. There's an apostrophe in how're.

Jon O'Neill wrote:Challenge. There's an apostrophe in how're.

One of the best posts I've read in ages.

FIRE, C9 horizontal, 23 points.

If FOILIER is no good then I would go for E4 or E7 FOLIO for more points and a better leave.

Er, apart from the more points bit.

FOLIO scores 16 and keeps IER.
FIRE scores 23 and keeps OIL.

IER is better than OIL but not 7 points better, IMO.

LIFE on C9.

Ian Volante wrote:LIFE on C9.

This. Same points as FIRE but the sticky out letters which Quackle may build on are slightly less points-generous.

OIR is also a slightly preferable leave to OIL, I think, and also FIRE takes an A front hook when we don't have an A. So yeah, LIFE would be my vote for now.

Is WIFIE at F8 worth considering? Scores 19 and keeps LOR (which seems better to me than either OIR or OIL, but that's just cos I've got a real aversion to keeping more vowels than consonants - probably misguided). It does open a couple of double word lines for Quackle to exploit, though.

I'll go for LIFE, on grounds that it give Quackle fewer chances.

WIFIE scores 19 and while LOR isn't a bad leave, I don't think it's 4 points better than OIR, especially because (little known fact) L and R have negative synergy.

Charlie Reams wrote:WIFIE scores 19 and while LOR isn't a bad leave, I don't think it's 4 points better than OIR, especially because (little known fact) L and R have negative synergy.

That's ridiculous. Lorry, laundry, looroll, I could go on all night.

I'm happy to go with the consensus here. Don't think any of the moves stand out.

Choose LIFE...

One vote for that.