In this series, I'll be playing the AI-powered BestBot in 100 games of Scrabble! Who will prevail? Watch the videos to find out -- and hopefully pick up a few tips too!
BestBot is the upcoming ultimate Scrabble AI from Woogles.io, to be launched in 2024. For questions, please email woogles@woogles.io.
Want personalized help taking your game to the next level or a fun gift for a friend? Check out www.mackmeller.com/lessons! for more info or email me at mackmeller@gmail.com!
OUZ(O) looked better than (O)UZO, yeah, sad you didn't consider it. You'd probably have lost if you did that, but I think it's still better :P
H(A)VIOUr was a ridiculous play! Honestly more impressed with that find than MILLIA(R)E, despite it's score disparity
Thanks! Yeah always counterintuitive to play a blank for something like that, but good to be open-minded
I hope we have a rematch for the second 100 games vs AI bot
I agree. The 100 game series has been very entertaining and instructive, and in some ways repeating the series with a rematch would be even more exciting given the possibility of Mack winning it! Not to get too far ahead of ourselves, but if that happened then Mack might even need to consider a third tie-breaker series 🙂
We'll see! Not sure I want to do an exact repeat, but I can promise BestBot will be back in some capacity :)
29:17 I wonder would Nigel know that🤔
another great game- i would’ve almost instantly played GUV on that HAVIOUR turn! it wouldn’t have even crossed my mind to use the blank there but it was totally the right call
Thanks John! Yeah those kind of plays can be super counterintuitive, but always worth considering when your best options without burning the blank are pretty bad. The key is not to use a blank only if you score a certain amount, it's to score a certain amount more than your best option that doesn't use it
11:50 I don’t remember that last time best bot gave u a triple-triple
Has it even happened? HastyBot definitely did, but I honestly don't recall if I have against BestBot yet
12:28 good pun
10:07 yes it is
that was epic with the triple triple. i can’t remember, was that your highest scoring play for this series so far?
I honestly haven't been tracking that specifically, but I can't recall another triple-triple so probably!
Butts overall seems to have given the tiles good values, but H seems to have been given too high a value. It seems to me like the best tile in terms of the how many points it is compared to what it should be. Do you agree?
Hmm. I suppose if the goal is to have every tile be neutral then I'd agree, the H is definitely a good tile as a 4 point tile and would probably be decent but not great as a 3 point tile. That being said you'd have to make lots more adjustments, like blanks would have to be worth negative points which gets really weird. So ultimately I think some tiles are just gonna be good and some are gonna be bad, which isn't inherently a problem as it adds to the strategy and rack management aspects of the game
24:10 why is your name “HappyWanderer”?
Named after the town of Happy Wanderer, Minnesota -- I was there in like 2020 and thought it was really funny and fitting since I love road tripping and exploring new places in addition to Scrabble. Also of course in part a tribute to the great wanderer15, AKA Will Anderson :)
19:50 It actually isn't possible for the bot to bingo there, I just ran it through a word finder
A bit surprising given how many tiles are left, but I guess all those duplicates don't help!
17:00 How about playing through the O instead of the U? Would it have been safer to block the I and leave the R open, rather than the opposite?
That's certainly reasonable too -- given the pool probably about a tossup between blocking the I and R in terms of where the bot is most likely to bingo. STROP through the O looks like a pretty good play, also sets up my last S with STROPS nicely
SPURT would be more reasonable in a vowel heavy bag? I feel like leaving NST would give you a better chance to bingo.
It probably does give me more bingo chances, but I don't need to bingo since I'm already up a lot -- generally if I have a lead of at least a bingo I prefer trying to keep scoring tiles like the P so I have a good response if my opponent bingos and opens a lot with it
@@mackmeller got it, also want to exhaust the bag?
@@ohtani2024 The extra 1 tile there doesn't make a huge difference (either way there's still more than 7 left so a bot bingo wouldn't empty) but it doesn't hurt
It's even not a very good play, but if PRE were valid then 9C TRUST is very funny to me
DONT isn't good either though!
@@mackmeller oops! i always forget that the suffix isn't a word by itself, like heterodont
I completely agree with @axcertypo but I’m not playing