ADJUDICATION by Zoltán Nemeth (AC, g18), confirmed by Steven Trezise (TC) as follows:

N.B. Because the adjudication of this game was relatively simple, I have reproduced my analysis below to show less experienced players how we adjudicate games. This does not mean that we guarantee to publish explanations of all future adjudications though!

1) Both ends of mizo's main line are blocked so his score must be 21.

2) One end of fnitter's line is still open, so the crucial question is how many tiles can she add to her line with best play on both sides?

3) Putting the tile mizo is trying out for his free move back into his hand, the variations I looked at were as follows:

a) Whether there was any space where mizo could play to force in both of fnitter's tiles with red links on them before she could play either of them. I could not find such a space.

b) Whether mizo could play his bottom tile on the top left edge of the leftmost tile in the Tantrix so that the only tiles with a red bend on them could be played at the end of her line, of which she had none. This option fails because fnitter can them play her YY tile on top of thetile mizo has just placed and force mizo's remaining red bend in, thus adding two to her line.

c) Whether mizo could use the only remaining tile with BR on it to force in a GBB tile just above the open end of fnitter's line, thus creating an unfillable BR at the end of her line. However, there are no GBB tiles left so this fails too.

4) Thus mizo can only force in one of fnitter's red tiles with his current free move and she can then add the other to her line to make it 24-21, with mizo then able to get rid of the last tile with red on it after that. Hence I think the score should be 24-21 to fnitter, which agrees with Zoltán's view of the correct score.

Please also note that to avoid any temptation for players to deliberately disconnect in a difficult endgame, if we had found a way for mizo to limit the score to 23-21, we would also have had to consider whether he was reasonably likely to have found the move himself, taking into account his general playing strength and the time left on his clock.