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Playing on an entirely different level

Competitive Scrabble® is another game entirely. For example, here's a game from the 2001 World Championship. You can follow it move-by-move, or you can read the game commentary.

The name "Stefan" you see in the commentary is Wall Street Journal reporter Stefan Fatsis, author of Word Freak: Heartbreak, Triumph, Genius and Obsession in the World of Competitive Scrabble Players, a book that is on my list of "books I really want to read".

Published Wednesday, April 14, 2004 7:00 AM by oldnewthing
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# re: Playing on an entirely different level

Wednesday, April 14, 2004 7:36 AM by Eric Lippert
When Stefan was on his book tour, he did a reading at Microsoft. Stefan was kind enough to invite six random people to lunch-and-scrabble with him before the talk, and I was lucky enough to be one.

I didn't get a chance to play him myself, but it was very amusing watching an expert go up against a novice. I think it was on his third move that he bingoed with DESTRIER. "What the heck is a destrier?" asked his opponent.

"It is an entry on a list of highly probable eight letter words which I have memorized." (We checked later; it's a medieval war horse.)

A couple moves later he bingoed again with ELECTORS. I rarely get one bingo in a game, and here he was with two in the first five moves...



# re: Playing on an entirely different level

Wednesday, April 14, 2004 10:32 AM by Karl Barrus
Stefan makes the point is his book that the top players stop thinking of the words as "words", they just see them as valid scoring combinations. Remembering the definitions just takes up brain space that can be better used for storing more valid scoring combos.

I'd like to see the obsolete words tossed out in favor of modern words.

# re: Playing on an entirely different level

Wednesday, April 14, 2004 12:14 PM by Raymond Chen
I remember Stefan mentions one top player who doesn't even speak English! That player merely memorizes lists of "strings of letters" and plays them.

# re: Playing on an entirely different level

Wednesday, April 14, 2004 12:42 PM by Zirakzigil
> Stefan makes the point is his book that the top players stop thinking
> of the words as "words", they just see them as valid scoring combinations.
> Remembering the definitions just takes up brain space that can be better
> used for storing more valid scoring combos.

I believe it. At one time I was very interested in Scrabble, and started memorizing the 2-, 3-, and 4-letter word lists. It's amazing what a difference even those make in your gameplay.

# re: Playing on an entirely different level

Wednesday, April 14, 2004 3:42 PM by Mabster
Can I ask someone what the story is with move #5? Player "B" issues a 'challenge' move and scores five points? What's that all about?

# re: Playing on an entirely different level

Wednesday, April 14, 2004 3:51 PM by Raymond Chen
Rule 5.iii describes how challenges are scored in tournament play.
http://www.msosingapore.org/rules-scrabble.html

Here, player J challenged "irately" and failed. The penalty for a failed challenge is 5 points per challenged word.

# re: Playing on an entirely different level

Wednesday, April 14, 2004 3:58 PM by Marc Wallace
It's always fun to browse the official Scrabble player's dictionary. There are some winners in there.

My favorite is "cwm". Cwm is defined as "a cirque". A cirque is apparently a square well or ditch, from 11th century Welsh.

We play sometimes at work. One person memorized all the two-letter words, which gives him an insane advantage. I'm just not willing to let words like that into my brain.

I did memorize "qat", though. Qs can be tricky to get rid of.

# re: Playing on an entirely different level

Wednesday, April 14, 2004 4:35 PM by Mabster
Ah - I get it. The turn log confused the issue by putting 'B' as the player.

# re: Playing on an entirely different level

Tuesday, April 20, 2004 12:44 AM by Peter Evans
I think scrabble should be forced to adopt Neal Stephenson's fictious "qwghlm" from "The Cryptonicom" just for the fun of it. It was such a hilarious use of a label, ethnic group name and story telling device. Almost as good as how the adults talk in the original peanuts cartoon videos. For that matter maybe it can be introduced into the OED. Bah hah hah.

Here's an idea for someone with too much time on their hands, the MSDE scrabble dictionary and memory tool! :P

As always Raymond great finds and posts.

# re: Playing on an entirely different level

Thursday, June 24, 2004 1:32 PM by Raymond Chen
Commenting on this entry has been closed.

# Scrabble

Wednesday, February 23, 2005 11:01 PM by Mabsterama
I love Scrabble. I've been trying to get Sal to play with me, but she ph33rs my mad vocabulary skilz0rz....
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