What is a bingo worth?
February 29, 2008 1 Comment
As I’ve written about the frequency of bingos, I’ve received some interesting feedback. Most of the people who have spoken to me have had similar thoughts – they expected to bingo more.
I’ve also done some analysis about the correlation between scoring and ratings, concluding that a better player scores more points. Sure that doesn’t sound too earth-shattering, but I have some data to support my hypothesis. That’s probably why I’ve been trying to learn more words and also trying to bingo more frequently during games. Bingos are the fastest way to score points.
Okay, so what is a bingo worth? When I play my games, I often do mental "guesstimates" of how many bingos ahead/behind I am. Here are the rough values that I use for 7 letter bingos:
Regular bingo: 60 points
Bingo + DWS: 70 points
Bingo + TWS: 80 points
"double-double" bingo: 90 points
"triple-triple" bingo: 140 points
Just to clarify, DWS means "double word score" and TWS means "triple word score". A "double-double" is a play when two DWS squares are used and the "triple-triple" is a play when two TWS squares are used.
I mentioned these values to Craig Rowland and he thinks my figures are a bit on the high side, especially for the regular and DWS bingos. These values aren’t meant to be perfect, but I use the to give me a sense of what needs to be done to catch-up to an opponent have an opponent catch-me. Of course, if you are lucky enough to have some premium tiles included with your bingo, then the point value can jump up considerably. But overall, I think the values are reasonable.
Of course, there is also the psychological value of a bingo: it can demoralise an opponent and give you a boost, not to mention having greater tile turnover (and thus better chances at getting the better tiles). Having been the recipient of a few bingo-bangos (that’s two bingos back to back), I know that it’s pretty frustrating and even demoralizing. I can only imagine what it must feel like to get three bingos played successsively played against me (i.e., a bingo-bango-bong). On the other hand, playing successive bingos is such a cool feeling and you can see your opponent’s body language just slump. After playing a bingo, I always feel better – as if I achieved something. It’s like making a clutch put in golf.
What do you think? Are these values too high? Too low? Personally, I think the value of a bingo is much more than points.
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They look pretty good to me Hans. I would perhaps say the DWS Bingo are more likely to be at 65 points. But it also depends obviously on where you are hooking them. Bingos formed with an ‘S’ hook are likely to be more. Last night at club, me and my opponent traded two 58 point regular bingos on the same turn which was pretty sad!