Hahaha yeah Joey was (completely understandably) not too thrilled after this game... I'm sure I'd have felt the same way if I were in his position. In any case I think it's safe to say the buzz around me hitting a 2/36 fish and winning a miraculous game in round 4 was quickly eclipsed by the buzz surrounding this other dude who stormed into first and went on to win the whole thing a few days later :)
I've seen videos of Nigel Richard's famous "AUF" fishing play, but this one feels even crazier because of the tight score margins to be calculated for each case. Word knowledge and board vision aside, the speed of mental arithmetics required is insane.
This is the divide between good players and great players. The ability to analyse every possible scenario and give yourself the best chance of winning in the endgame is mind blowing. You must have been on cloud 9 after your deserved victory. Very nice!
After having watched the North American and World Championships live I appreciate this kind of play so much more. Watching youtube highlights gets you fairly used to crazy plays - then you watch a full event, you see how hard it is to find everything on the clock even for the very best players, and you really get context for how rare and how great this kind of find is. Amazing!
Nice play... I couldn't imagine figuring all that out over the board... It might be interesting to see a video on the longest words that ever stayed on a Scrabble board.
A bot played UNDERCARRIAGES from CARRIAGES against me, but bots are cheating hahah. Definitely harder and more impressive when humans find these kinds of plays, agree it would be a cool video!
@@AmaranthRBY I got kinda close to playing NOTWITHSTANDING from a STANDING against a bot. I saw the possibility but was a few tiles off that never came.
A brilliant play. If like most you play Scrabble for honor, it does appear that calling the opponent WUSSIER would leave them trailing in dignity while also blocking their reply of MORON, but Lion King connoisseurs will notice it opens the more obscure insult MOOK on a 3WS, clinching both game and playground bragging rights for the opposition.
I think I had around 8 or 10 minutes. I didn't work everything out to 100% detail, but I was 100% confident WUSSIER never won and basically 100% sure playing off the W was going to fall short. XU/UT I didn't get through in full detail but it didn't seem that promising. By the time I thought of playing 2 tiles I had more like 3-4 minutes, I looked at WYES for the first minute or two and concluded it didn't win, then saw WIS. I had less than 2 minutes by the time I seriously considered WIS, and it looked like I'd win in the endgame, but I admittedly wasn't 100% sure I didn't miss a better block for Joey. But with nothing else seeming like it gave me a chance, I slapped down WIS with about 12 seconds on my clock, which left me just enough time to play my outbingo and designate my blank without going over.
On the scoresheet, there's a list of all the tiles (AAAA AAAA BB CC etc). Every turn, you can cross out the tiles played. Then you can easily see the unseen tiles.
omg that's absolutely absurd. idk how a human finds that, keeping IUSSW on your rack... hits WUSSIEr on the 3 row and SUnWISE down the A column if he blocks, incredible.
Great question -- I didn't see this in game, but did look at it when analyzing for this video. It almost works but the problem is he plays MOIL or MOOL or something similar to the second L in TILLED, which blocks everything I could have on the A column (including SURMISE, which may still be possible from his perspective). Then I can still bingo out with NUS, but it's going to fall a bit short as it doesn't score nearly enough as column A.
14:30 but you haven't eliminated 1 tile plays, youve only considered the ones that score you most, not the ones that will lead to him scoring the least. What happens if you play your U on G2 for example, blocking his best plays
Yep great question -- Adam asked the same thing below. It falls just short, copied my response to him: Great question -- I didn't see this in game, but did look at it when analyzing for this video. It almost works but the problem is he plays MOIL or MOOL or something similar to the second L in TILLED, which blocks everything I could have on the A column (including SURMISE, which may still be possible from his perspective). Then I can still bingo out with NUS, but it's going to fall a bit short as it doesn't score nearly enough as column A.
The real brilliance was the friends we made along the way. And enemies, given you actually hit a 2/36. Great video, bud!
Hahaha yeah Joey was (completely understandably) not too thrilled after this game... I'm sure I'd have felt the same way if I were in his position. In any case I think it's safe to say the buzz around me hitting a 2/36 fish and winning a miraculous game in round 4 was quickly eclipsed by the buzz surrounding this other dude who stormed into first and went on to win the whole thing a few days later :)
I've seen videos of Nigel Richard's famous "AUF" fishing play, but this one feels even crazier because of the tight score margins to be calculated for each case. Word knowledge and board vision aside, the speed of mental arithmetics required is insane.
Crazy as it sounds, Scrabble is a math game.
This is the divide between good players and great players. The ability to analyse every possible scenario and give yourself the best chance of winning in the endgame is mind blowing. You must have been on cloud 9 after your deserved victory. Very nice!
After having watched the North American and World Championships live I appreciate this kind of play so much more. Watching youtube highlights gets you fairly used to crazy plays - then you watch a full event, you see how hard it is to find everything on the clock even for the very best players, and you really get context for how rare and how great this kind of find is. Amazing!
I don't know all of your Scrabble moves, but this was a pretty brilliant endgame find! Always give yourself a chance to win.
Terrific play and terrific analysis. This beats any complex chess rook and pawn ending I have ever seen as well as Nigel's AUF Scrabble play.
making a play that takes 25 minutes to explain after the fact… absolutely ridiculous stuff. been loving watching your videos, mack!
Thanks Cooper, hope you've been well!
So many people dont realise the complexity of top level scrabble. I would have took two hours to figure this one out.
Nice play... I couldn't imagine figuring all that out over the board...
It might be interesting to see a video on the longest words that ever stayed on a Scrabble board.
Good idea! I know EXISTENTIALISTS happened once from an EXISTENT on the board, and CATERPILLARS was played from CATER. Will see if I can find more
A bot played UNDERCARRIAGES from CARRIAGES against me, but bots are cheating hahah. Definitely harder and more impressive when humans find these kinds of plays, agree it would be a cool video!
@@AmaranthRBY I got kinda close to playing NOTWITHSTANDING from a STANDING against a bot. I saw the possibility but was a few tiles off that never came.
If there's a better more interesting Scrabble endgame analysis on TH-cam someone post it here. This was thoroughly brilliant. Nice find.
A brilliant play. If like most you play Scrabble for honor, it does appear that calling the opponent WUSSIER would leave them trailing in dignity while also blocking their reply of MORON, but Lion King connoisseurs will notice it opens the more obscure insult MOOK on a 3WS, clinching both game and playground bragging rights for the opposition.
how much time did you have to think at this point in the game? this seems like it must have taken forever to work out in your head
I think I had around 8 or 10 minutes. I didn't work everything out to 100% detail, but I was 100% confident WUSSIER never won and basically 100% sure playing off the W was going to fall short. XU/UT I didn't get through in full detail but it didn't seem that promising. By the time I thought of playing 2 tiles I had more like 3-4 minutes, I looked at WYES for the first minute or two and concluded it didn't win, then saw WIS. I had less than 2 minutes by the time I seriously considered WIS, and it looked like I'd win in the endgame, but I admittedly wasn't 100% sure I didn't miss a better block for Joey. But with nothing else seeming like it gave me a chance, I slapped down WIS with about 12 seconds on my clock, which left me just enough time to play my outbingo and designate my blank without going over.
Reminded me of TRIGO by Nigel. But this one seems just so much more crazier!
During an over-the-board game, is there a way, other than manually counting all of the seen tiles, to figure out what the unseen tiles are?
On the scoresheet, there's a list of all the tiles (AAAA AAAA BB CC etc). Every turn, you can cross out the tiles played. Then you can easily see the unseen tiles.
@@lucas29476 Thanks for the explanation!
the only other play that has any winning chances was the unintuitive 2E (I)RE, winning 1/36 (with ?E to draw)
omg that's absolutely absurd. idk how a human finds that, keeping IUSSW on your rack... hits WUSSIEr on the 3 row and SUnWISE down the A column if he blocks, incredible.
not even a happy ending
Josh Sokol would have played email.
What about playing NU for 2 points. Would scoring a bingo on column A hooking SPECS be enough to win?
Great question -- I didn't see this in game, but did look at it when analyzing for this video. It almost works but the problem is he plays MOIL or MOOL or something similar to the second L in TILLED, which blocks everything I could have on the A column (including SURMISE, which may still be possible from his perspective). Then I can still bingo out with NUS, but it's going to fall a bit short as it doesn't score nearly enough as column A.
@@mackmeller cool thanks for the response!
14:30 but you haven't eliminated 1 tile plays, youve only considered the ones that score you most, not the ones that will lead to him scoring the least.
What happens if you play your U on G2 for example, blocking his best plays
Yep great question -- Adam asked the same thing below. It falls just short, copied my response to him:
Great question -- I didn't see this in game, but did look at it when analyzing for this video. It almost works but the problem is he plays MOIL or MOOL or something similar to the second L in TILLED, which blocks everything I could have on the A column (including SURMISE, which may still be possible from his perspective). Then I can still bingo out with NUS, but it's going to fall a bit short as it doesn't score nearly enough as column A.
At my best, I was an 80 percentile tournament player. Now we see what the 20th percentile do.