What would you do with an initial rack of DIINNNR?

What to do with an initial rack of DIINNNR?

A deeper analysis of the question by a program smarter than me: Quackle.

Debbie said, "Toss 'em!"

Carol said she would consider getting rid of INN.

Jane asked, "Would you really make a very low scoring play instead of exchanging tiles?"

Background.  In watching the Scrabble videos and listening to the commentary there was mention of an AI tool called Quackle.  I found it and installed it.  Now I have been playing with it to learn how it works.   

I gave it the rack we started with in our third lesson of the course "Scrabble:  From Novice to Social Player".  I had it run over 27,000 simulations at 5-ply and this is what it determined.

So it says that no matter which play we make we will not be the favorite.  Quackle believes that the best we can do is 46.93%.  All of the top three plays give us a leave of DINR.  The play in the top spot plays INN at 8H for 6 points.  The second play plays INN at 8F.  Notice that neither play positions the I next to a DLS square.  The third play exchanges the INN scoring 0 points.  

Running the simulation for 38332 iterations shuffles the plays a little bit.  It also gives our winning chances as 49.14%.

Here are the rankings.  Notice that many of the top plays exchange tiles.

So your instincts were right.  Either exchanging or playing INN leaving DINR is near the top of the possible plays.  

The next question I have is, "Will leaving a blank board or playing INN make it harder for your opponent to score a Bingo?"  The rankings of the plays suggests that playing INN will make it harder.