Tuesday/ sneaking up from behind, for the win

Here’s the board of one of the few games I have won recently against Scrabble Grand Master Zoey (she is an algorithm).

I was sitting on 402, with my last letter, the ‘I’ tile left. TI and IS in the corner would have gotten me 6, but KI was one better at 7. So now I had 409. Oh well, I lose, I thought, but forgot to note that Zoey was stuck with the Q (with no way to play it). So she lost 10 and I gained 10, for a net gain of 20, and for the win 429-427. A sweet victory.

I looked up some of the words that Zoey played, the ones I didn’t know.
I don’t do that for every Scrabble game (I am too lazy, and besides: it cuts into my Scrabble play time).

Here are the words, for the logophiles (persons that love words):
NOES noun plural of the negative response called ‘no’
PLOTTIER adjective superlative of plotty (marked by intricacy of plot or intrigue), as in ‘this spy movie was plottier than the last one’
a plotty novel
MEH interjection— used to express indifference or mild disappointment
ZA noun slang for PIZZA (a word which my friends & I never use)
ALUNITE noun a mineral that consists of a hydrous potassium aluminum sulfate and occurs in massive form or in rhombohedral crystals
KI noun 1. alternative spelling for chi, the 22nd letter of the Greek alphabet; 2. also: aura, chi (or ch’i also qi), energy, vibe(s), vibration(s), as in ‘martial artists learn to use ki to fend off would-be attackers’
LUX noun a unit of illumination
JERRID noun (British English) a blunt wooden javelin used in games involving horsemen in some Muslim countries.
DEVI noun used in India as a title following the personal name of a married woman (in Hinduism)
AR noun the letter r written out
FAH noun abbreviation of Fahrenheit
WYES noun plural 1. a Y-shaped part or object 2. the letter y written out
CONI noun plural of conus, a very large genus (the type of the family Conidae) of tropical marine snails comprising the cones and including many harmless forms and a few chiefly in the southwest Pacific that are highly dangerous because they are capable of biting with the radula and injecting a paralytic venom that has been known to cause death in humans
DIPLEGIAS noun, plural, paralysis of corresponding parts on both sides of the body

Note to self: when next in Australia, never mind COVID, just steer clear of the Australian cone snail (Conus textile) with its gorgeous shell. This one has its proboscis extended and poised for attack. Their venom (active ingredient: conotoxin) is used for paralyzing prey. Researchers in Australia think they can use it to produce a safe painkiller for humans, 100x more potent than morphine.
[Image credit: AAP Image/Melbourne University/David Paul]

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