Scrabble - Classic or Dud?

Writing the computer opponent was a real challenge... in so far as doing some web research into the algorithms used and then implementing it in BBC BASIC is considered a challenge. Problem was trying to please everyone, ESPECIALLY with regard to the two letter words. Here's what I wrote in the "read me" that goes with my lexicons:

"The valid two-letter words always cause arguments. According to the makers of the Scrabble® game, there are a 109 2-letter words that are acceptable in the British English version of their game. Interestingly, though there are only 96 in the North American version, it is not a sub-set: there are 12 extra words not in the British English version (AB AG AL DE ED ET HM MM OP PE UH YA).

I have 3 half-megabyte lexcions: ChampOSPD2 and ChampTWL98 which both contain the standard North-American set of 96, and ChampENABL which contains all 121 (combining the English and North-American words)."

I won't post the lists for obvious dull-related reasons

Scrabble is grebt and very VOCAB ENHANCING innit!

Filthy Crossword is the greatest thing ever.

I am all for selective rules in Scrabble as it seems each person has their own variations. This should be declared at the start of each game, the same as 2 Men Down, wildcards ect ect. This solves a lot of problems and is how I started playing Scrabble when we got a house set.

I agree with Dirty Crosswords. Just in general. Todger Poo.

UK Wopper.

The same goes for that C4rt3r record.

Scrabble is silly. I would rather be lying on the sofa eating Quality Street (= the only other available Christmas activity).

I think our house would be perfect for a game Sarah particularly with its hem medieval plumbing.

I think it was yawning post-Friday staying up late festivities.

Alang if you remember ME joining in this Carter set then you are just sick and perverse. If I had been present I would have GLOWERED.

Actually Tom with your Cornish bouze our house is quite the medieval dungeon, albiet with a swedish sauna stylee living room.

Pam is much better than me; although I seem to have a slightly greater vocabulary, she has letter-juggling skills par excellence and seems to nail two or three seven-letter words per game. She averages up in the 360s, I nudge over 300 once every other game. I never know what to do with the 'K', and blanks just confuse me.

i will kick ALL your asses

also, how can I be quite good at Scrabble, but not too good at Clive Doig's Trackword.

as for literati, i welcome all challengers. I'd watch out for JuliaA.

Anybody ever want to play a non-rated game on isc, let me know. It's got to be non-rated, though, to save me from myself.

personally, I am afraid to start playing online b/c of the distractibility factor. I barely have enough self-discipline to get any work done as it is.

It's not a distraction for me. It simply takes over my life.

o I def think it is a worthwhile endeavor, for the brain workout & all, it is just that I don't get paid to do it. nor do I get paid to drink booze or post on ilx :-(

Had to give this up. Every game was either a) me winning by so much it was embarrassing; ii) me losing by so much it was embarrassing; or 3) a tense nailbiter with hours of mental torture trying to wring every last possible point and tactical advantange out of every move. None of these things were fun.

hahaha great description *sigh*

Scrabble has provided me with many hours of harmless enjoyment, so I will rate it on the classic side of the equation. Among my siblings and I it caused fewer internecine feuds than, say, Monopoly or Risk, and had more scope for skill than, say, Candyland or Stratego.

But no one should ever, ever, ever make the mistake of thinking that Scrabble has more than a passing connection to one's aptitude for language.

more of a spatial logic challenge ime

But no one should ever, ever, ever make the mistake of thinking that Scrabble has more than a passing connection to one's aptitude for language.

That's something I learned pretty quickly when I started playing online seven or eight years ago (triggered by Fatsis's book). It basically comes down to: 1) ability to anagram, 2) board and rack management, and 3) mastery of goofy Scrabble words--kaf, zoon, atonies, etc. (For me, #4 would be facility with goofy "-ers" bingos: moaners, nodders, milkers, etc.) Everyday working vocabulary ranks about ninth on the list. Knowing a lot of words will get you out of a tough spot occasionally.

Having said that, I'm a big fan of moaners.

Saw in the paper this morning that the big NSC tournament is about to start, and supposedly the favorite to win is a woman from Toronto:

http://www.torontosun.com/2011/08/07/word-power

But when I checked NASPA's own page, they've only got Daniel ranked third in the province:

http://www.scrabbleplayers.org/ratings/bystate.html

So I don't why she'd be deemed the favorite--maybe she's in the midst of a DiMaggio-like hit streak. Anyway, I like that Ontario's ranked #1.

The reader's comments on the first piece really make one proud to be Canadian.

I would suggest that the media focused on a woman as she's one of the few women who play in the top section in North America - Scrabble is still seen as a curiosity that the media needs an "angle" into, and women stand out amid a sea of largely interchangeable nerdy men. She's certainly a good player but I'd be very surprised if she finished top 10. Before the event my money would have been on Nigel Richards or Kenji Matsumoto.

(And no, pretty much nobody at the event would be rating her among the favourites to win)

I have to say that the internet has taken much of the fun out of the game for me (too much time in online Scrabble groups).

I could go for a game of Candyland or Life right now.

I've been on the wagon for five or six months, so I didn't need to read this, but fascinating nonetheless:

http://www.slate.com/articles/sports/gaming/2012/08/scrabble_cheating_the_real_story_behind_the_stolen_blanks_scandal_at_the_national_scrabble_championship_.single.html

(They must be trying to honor the game with the pointlessly lengthy URL.)

http://magratheazaphod.livejournal.com/333131.html

http://p.twimg.com/A0WqdLtCEAAB4--.jpg

http://money.cnn.com/2014/08/04/news/scrabble-dictionary/index.html?sr=fb080514scrabblewords130pStoryLink

"Hashtag," "selfie," "mixtape," "bling" (I've been waiting for that one--had it turned down by various computer opponents many times), etc. That's good. I hope they don't get stupid and start adding internet acronyms, though. Those things need to be eliminated from the world, not encouraged. (I can guess the next post.)

What happens when you play too much Scrabble: you're looking at E-F-L-O-R-W-?. You immediately spot F-L-O-W-E-R-S, but you pause, because you're not 100% sure it's a word. "Flower...something that flows...yes, that should be a word."

Had to laugh when Meadow Soprano laid "oblique" (season 3, the episode where she's sick and playing with Jackie Jr. in her dorm) in such a no-big-deal way. I've never played "oblique"--not even sure I'd recognize it on the rack if the letters were scrambled enough. She didn't mention the 50-point bonus, either.

Same scene, three years later: Jackie Aprile, Jr., worst Scrabble player ever. (Three words: "ass," "poo," "the"...laid two s's so he could get four points. (Actually was after more than that, but that didn't work out either.)

Totally legit: "quashing" on a triple-triple for 216 + 50 = 266 points (729 for the game). I knew I was headed for a high game score, so I wanted to take a screenshot right when the game ended--it was Pogo against the computer--but I forgot they immediately go to a different screen, so I didn't get a chance to.

legit flex

If you were trying to figure out the theoretically highest-scoring play you could make, I have to believe "quashing," situated so that you could hook an 's' onto the beginning for "squashing" (a triple score) and start a triple-triple in a downwards direction (you'd need to hook onto another letter in the middle of that word), would be part of it. You could probably score over 400 points on a single play.

I'm still sore about this 12 years later:

https://live.staticflickr.com/3292/2830369713_c6d93b2d28_c.jpg

SK(A)TINGS, 167pts penultimate move, overcoming my 155pt lead.

(I'm not really; Pam used to kill me on a regular basis.)

and a callback to the first post in the thread!

"Skatings"--I'll never understand some of the permissible pluralizations of -ing words in Scrabble. Even "skating" as a noun seems weird to me ("We had a great skating yesterday afternoon"?--wouldn't you just say "We had a great skate"?).

I thought about (s)quashing, and I don't think you could get over 400. If you hooked on "sizzlers," with the first 'z' a blank and the common 's' in the top left corner, you'd get:

squashing = 22 x 3 = 66
sizzlers = 26 x 9 = 234
bonus = 50

total = 350

Which is less than the record play, 392 for "caziques."

http://bestlifeonline.com/highest-scoring-scrabble-move/

Now I'm compelled to figure out "caziques" hooked onto "quashing." That might do it.

looked @ some screenshots, its almost the 4 yr anniversary of someone playing 'uniquest' on me for 275 pts in wwf (final score of that game was 737-428, i kept it respectable lol)

This has already been a big issue a couple of times in the past (going back to the late '70s, I think).

http://www.cnn.com/2020/07/09/us/scrabble-slurs-ban-trnd/index.html

This was a good article on the debate, especially on the reasons not to ban them:

https://slate.com/human-interest/2020/06/scrabble-players-debate-slurs.html

Thanks, I'll read that for sure. It was Stefan Fatsis I blame for my addiction in the first place--his Word Freak got me started 15 years ago.

That was interesting, thanks. Yeah, it's a tough call. Words are often offensive based on how they are used, or certainly how they are received, but they're still ... words, with meanings, offensive or not, that could and do appear in books, and music, and movies, in all sorts of contexts, sometimes to be offensive, sometimes to comment on offensiveness, and so on. Removing these words from Scrabble play seems like a slippery slope, not because of censorship or because it's any great loss, but because there must be countless dumb semi-words in the Scrabble dictionary that probably have equal basis for removal once you apply some sort of (non-point) value to it. At the same time, there are some words whose complete erasure from the English language would probably make the world a better place, so ... I dunno.

Hmm, thinking about it a couple of more minutes more, I think a better solution could have been to allow those words but penalize their play. Fewer points, or subtracting a few points, something like that, which would both disincentivize their use and also acknowledge their offensiveness. Just like in professional sports, there are certain things you can do to foul or draw a foul or otherwise do something wrong on purpose strategically, even if it comes at a cost. Playing these words could have been recontextualized as desperation moves that come at a price, which I assume is kind of how they were often played, anyway.

Kudos to Gabriel in The Americans (Frank Langella), who plays both "phlox" and "stygian" against a very skeptical Philip. (Philip lays "askew," no blanks visible, and is credited with 20 points on a double-word score. The only way that works is if he extended "as" with the "kew," but why would either of these very good players have played "as"?)

Usual disclaimer: against the Pogo computer, where you're allowed to "steal" a blank (i.e., if the blank's on the board and you have the matching letter on your rack, you can switch). So scoring is much easier (I'm over 400 about 90% of the time).

I think this is my highest single-game score ever, and also the first time I laid two triple-triples ("quainter" and "braiders"--the first was for 203 points). I took a screenshot of the board right before my final play, but then accidentally replaced it with this.

http://phildellio.tripod.com/778.jpg

sweet!

I can't seem to post photos anymore on ILX, so you'll have to trust me here...Highest single play ever, I'm pretty sure: "mesquite" across a triple-triple, with the 'q' falling on the double-letter, 311 points (261 for the play + bonus). I laid down "quite" initially--the 'u' was already down--which would have been worth 72, noticed 'mes' still on the rack; "'mesquite,' that sounds familiar..." It was my third play of the game: I started with "cutties," then "tux" for 26, so I had 411 points after three plays. Followed with "wailers," and I started thinking of an 800-point game. Finished with 735.

Pogo, computer, etc.

I can post photos again, so here was my "mesquite" play from two months ago.

https://phildellio.tripod.com/mesquite.jpg

Also, I took Scrabble as my category for a Zoom trivia group tonight. My questions:

1. What are two most valuable tiles in terms of point value?
2. What are the two most valuable tiles strategically?
3. Which three consonants are the most common tiles (name one)?
4. What is a triple-triple?
5. Within 100 points either way, what is the highest game score ever in tournament play?
6. Within 10 years either way, when was the game invented?
7. What is the 7-letter word that uses the ‘q’ and all five vowels?
8. What is the meaning of either ‘qi’ or ‘za’?
9. Name one of the two famous game companies that rejected Scrabble?
10. In the film Rosemary’s Baby, what does Rosemary learn when she spills out all the Scrabble tiles and starts anagramming?

Obviously, some of those are giveaways. My categories for the last three--movies, post-war presidents, and the Beatles--produced average scores of 2 or 3 out 10, even though I thought most of the questions were basic. So I'm feeling pressure to up those scores. Meanwhile, I routinely score 2 or 3 out of 10 on categories like Italian cooking or inventions. I live in a different universe, evidently.

365 points on one play ("quizzers")--she out-mesquited me.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/windsor/chatham-scrabble-word-score-quizzers-1.5915155

The fuck.

ha that is great, I love that the app enables some official validation

Not only did she draw two z's and a q, but also the necessary u, plus some other nice vowels and an s. Her word play was excellent, but her tile draw was off the charts and over the moon.

I think best of all, it's not some obscure word that no one has ever heard of.

Classic until somebody starts trying to tell me I can't have Antinazi cos they want it to need a hyphen.
Gorlumme what a complete load of tosh. plenitude of irrational convolution, like.

After almost 20 years and approximately ___________ games of online Scrabble (too embarrassed to fill that in), first time I ever played "gumshoe."

https://phildellio.tripod.com/gumshoe.jpg

Scrabble Go accepts the word "grrrl".

Just thought you should know.

This has happened to me before, and it's pretty much the best evidence I can think of that you play way, way too much Scrabble: you're looking at f-l-o-w-e-r-s on your rack, and your first thought is "Is that a word? Someone or something that flows?"

There is a great story in Gwen Raverat's "Period Piece," her memoir of growing up in the Darwin household, where they're playing anagrams and Charles Darwin wanders through, looks at the board and goes "Moth-er? There's no such word as "moth-er."

Sounds about right. You just start to see words differently, automatically breaking them down into recognizable building blocks, and four-letter-verb + "ers" are the easiest bingos to spot, hence "flow-ers."