From: Rich Baker <rgb5@cornell.edu>
Date: Sun, 08 Feb 1998 10:11:05 -0500
Subject: Consensus Game #1, Turn #6
Message-id: <3.0.2.32.19980208101105.007d4dc0@postoffice.mail.cornell.edu>

I didn't reply publicly to Dave Boy's last note regarding CUlLIONS, partly because I agreed with a lot of what he said and in the end, I didn't think it mattered very much if we played CoCOUNSEL, CUlLIONS or COCoUNSEL. All the same right now, I would still prefer the extra two points. A question for John: Would the combined votes for the two cocounsel choices have won if combined? Perhaps we should have some sort of weighting for such possibilities.

On to the business at hand. I think I prefer h1 UNLIT (15) keeping ART. I think that's a LOT better than 5e CATTIER (18) keeping NU. UNLIT opens yet another (albeit low scoring) bingo line on row 1 and leaves the column l line open. We will probably need a bingo to even the score again and the more openings the better. The bag is a little rich in vowels right now, with 22 vowels in 45 unseen tiles, so it is certainly better to keep 2 consonnants with a vowel instead of 1C/1V or 1C/2V. The A is the best vowel to keep with only 3 unseen vs. 8 E and 6 I. Our chances of drawing a complimentary vowel are good.

Strategy note to Tracy Cobbs and all the other players worried about drawing the Q: keeping an A on your rack is a lot better Q strategy than keeping a U. If you do draw the Q, you are much more likely to be able to play QAT or QAID than any QU word, particularly later in the game where there are limited chances to play longer words. If you don't draw the Q, it's a lot better to have an A than an U. :)

Rich Baker