Ira Cohen: 13b TOW +24
Ira 361 ?DEI
Phil 335 ASTU
In an interesting twist, Ira ends up making a huge spread mistake! He quickly pointed out what he should've done as I was laying down my final tiles. Ira either overlooked it due to time pressure, or didn't look any harder at the position because spread wasn't really important here (he knew he had to play and defeat me again in Round 7 in order to overtake me for 2nd place) and his play definitely wins.
Spending the blank for no extra points is the right move, either with sTOW or TOWn. I'm sure several of you will delight in pointing out that TOWn fails in SOWPODS, but don't worry, I'm already aware.