Will Anderson
patreon
Patron Game Breakdown #2 - A Very Sticky Endgame
🕑 Added 2025-12-04 20:34:08 +0000 UTCThis game comes to us from Patron Ben M., who played a really interesting endgame recently!
For Scrabble engine users out there:
The prior standard engine, Quackle, runs into issues in the endgame when the optimal sequences have very high depth. The newer engine Macondo has made a huge step forward in this area and is capable of solving any endgame, no matter the depth.
However, in situations like this, entering the correct command is key!
Here's what happens in Ben's game when you ask Macondo to run its normal pre-endgame solver:
Here is what happens when you use the command
peg -only-solve "B13 AJI" -endgameplies 25
instead:
By asking Macondo to solve each potential endgame using 25 plies (aka turns), it will correctly identify extremely long sequences that the default command will not. As you can see, the candidate choice of AJI is initially shown to win 100% of games, but with greater depth, it wins 5/8 endgames, which confirms Ben's intuition!
Comments
Will Anderson
It's tough for literally anyone - especially because it's at the end of the game, and so often you just don't have time to explore that kind of depth.
Daniel Curtis
A Macondo intro video could be a good Patreon addition?
Rebecca
I hope one day to figure out how to use Macondo.
Daniel Curtis
The depth of thinking needed to be able to see 11-15 moves down the line with just 2-3 letters words for this kind of end game makes my brain melt ๐
Greg
I guess I'm seeing lots of different plays as I use CSW24. Are all your videos OSPD/NWL?
