1. Standard memberXanthosNZ
    Cancerous Bus Crash
    p^2.sin(phi)
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    23 Aug '05 14:321 edit
    http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v694/XanthosNZ/scrabble1.gif

    This is the situation in a two person scrabble game. Your opponent will always make the highest scoring word he can.
    We also assume no one has made a move that would have lost on a challenge.

    What is the best move to play now?

    Feel free to discuss it here but PM the answer to me so everyone else can play too (google it if you have to but that kind of ruins it).

    EDIT: http://www.thepixiepit.co.uk/scrabble/rules.html for distributions and scoring of the tiles.
  2. Standard memberXanthosNZ
    Cancerous Bus Crash
    p^2.sin(phi)
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    23 Aug '05 14:541 edit
    What the hell happened here?
  3. Joined
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    23 Aug '05 14:581 edit
    Best position would be an 8-letter word placed vertically in the top left corner snatching up two triple-word scores... just need to find the word...

    _ _ _ D _ _ _ _

    AGILMOR
  4. Standard memberXanthosNZ
    Cancerous Bus Crash
    p^2.sin(phi)
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    23 Aug '05 15:021 edit
    Originally posted by darvlay
    Best position would be an 8-letter word placed vertically in the top left corner snatching up to triple-word scores... just need to find the word...

    _ _ _ D _ _ _ _

    AGILMOR
    Good luck with that.

    EDIT: Retrograde!
  5. Joined
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    23 Aug '05 15:06
    Originally posted by XanthosNZ
    Good luck with that.

    EDIT: Retrograde!
    Retrograde?
  6. Standard memberXanthosNZ
    Cancerous Bus Crash
    p^2.sin(phi)
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    23 Aug '05 15:101 edit
    Originally posted by darvlay
    Retrograde?
    Retrograde analysis is a technique employed by chess problem solvers to determine which moves were played leading up to a given position. In most problems, this technique is not required, but there is a whole genre of problems in which it is an important part; such problems are known as retros.

    Except it's Scrabble.
  7. Joined
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    23 Aug '05 15:19
    Originally posted by XanthosNZ
    Retrograde analysis is a technique employed by chess problem solvers to determine which moves were played leading up to a given position. In most problems, this technique is not required, but there is a whole genre of problems in which it is an important part; such problems are known as retros.

    Except it's Scrabble.
    Copy that.
  8. Standard memberXanthosNZ
    Cancerous Bus Crash
    p^2.sin(phi)
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    23 Aug '05 15:29
    Originally posted by darvlay
    Copy that.
    Yeah I did. Was it obvious?
  9. Joined
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    23 Aug '05 15:36
    Originally posted by XanthosNZ
    Yeah I did. Was it obvious?
    Just shut up, okay?
  10. Joined
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    23 Aug '05 17:321 edit
    xanthos you should make this more interesting for readers to solve. maybe explain why for heavens sake we would need retrograde in scrabble to find the best next move?! that makes no sense to me as a chess player who played about 10-20 games of scrabble in his life.

    edit: xanthos with 'th' of course 🙂
  11. Standard memberXanthosNZ
    Cancerous Bus Crash
    p^2.sin(phi)
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    23 Aug '05 18:14
    Originally posted by crazyblue
    xanthos you should make this more interesting for readers to solve. maybe explain why for heavens sake we would need retrograde in scrabble to find the best next move?! that makes no sense to me as a chess player who played about 10-20 games of scrabble in his life.

    edit: xanthos with 'th' of course 🙂
    Notice that most of the tiles have been placed. Therefore the opponent can only have certain tiles in his hand. If you can find what he played last then you can narrow it further (as he must have played the best word possible). Knowing your opponent's hand means you know what he will play next (again best scoring word).

    And that's all the hints I'm giving for now.
  12. Berks.
    Joined
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    23 Aug '05 22:55
    PMed an answer
  13. Standard memberXanthosNZ
    Cancerous Bus Crash
    p^2.sin(phi)
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    24 Aug '05 00:10
    Peakite got halfway there.

    GalaxyShield didn't get that far.
  14. Joined
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    25 Aug '05 16:21
    Any chance you could tell us which letters are left (either in ops rack or the bag) I could work it out but it seems a bit of a faff as I don't know the letter distributionsd offhand
  15. Berks.
    Joined
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    25 Aug '05 17:151 edit
    The eleven tiles are

    1 x F
    2 x G
    1 x I
    5 x N
    1 x V
    1 x Z


    Edit: And I've just reallised in posting that, one of my concerns in my updated answer is a little off (one of the words mentioned coundn't be played - only one F).
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