It's probably intuitive that the two FFs play well with each other. That long F sound seems like a good way to end a short word. In fact, there are 4 three letter words, 35 four letter words, and 81 five letter words that have two Fs.
Warning: Scrabble nerd alert. The following information was derived by using an anagrammer and plugging the information into a spreadsheet.
- For four-letter words with two of the same consonant: FF?? ranks fourth with 35 anagrams. SS?? has 92, (the majority of which you would never use), LL?? has 67 anagrams, and TT?? has 48 anagrams.
- For five letter words: FF??? ranks 7th with 81 anagrams. SS??? wins with 518 anagrams, LL??? has 206, TT??? has 177, RR??? has 163, DD??? has 109, and NN??? has 108.
For Scrabble play, if you had to pick a double consonant combo to have, its probably the best outside of LL, SS, and TT as far how many short words use it. But unlike those other letters, F is worth more points and won't make a lot of bingos. You will want to play both FFs off together to clean up your rack.
If you had to think of any words with double FFs that you use in everyday conversation, you might get a handful off the top of your head: OFF, BUFF, CUFF, IFFY, MUFF, RIFF, PUFF. There at least 30 words four letters and less that you won't know. And for me, that's the crux of the matter. Most of these words are not common and require some Scrabble nerd style memorization. For example, look at the three letter words: AFF, EFF, IFF, and OFF. Of these, only OFF makes sense to the layman. But if you think that ?FF is all the vowels except for U, then they are easy to remember.
I'm trying to get a grasp on the 4 letter words, so this is what I came up with. I broke them into groups.
No vowel: One word. PFFT! That's easy.
Two vowels: FIEF and FIFE.
Then you deal with the front and back hooks of the three letter words:
?AFF: I remember front hooks by thinking BCD (the first 3 consonants in the alphabet) and then the word "GReeNWaY" (ignoring vowels). Remember the BCD, it comes in useful later. There are no back hooks, AFF is an adjective so no plural. The hooks look like this BCDGNRWY:AFF:
?EFF: Easy. T in the front and S on the back (it's a noun, the letter F, so it pluralizes). T:EFF:S
?IFF: My phrase for the front hooks is BaD JiM RoT. BDJMRT:IFF:Y The defintion of IFF is "If and only if" so I remember that the back hook is Y and only Y.
?OFF: Remember BCD from -AFF. It's back again along with the lone T from EFF. BCDT:OFF:S. OFF is a verb so it takes an S along with -ED, -ING. An alternate memory device is to remember that OFF is a brand of bug spray. DDT is a bug spray used a long time ago (BC is a long time ago).
Then there is ?UFF. BCD is there again. Or try this phrase (ignoring vowels): "BiG CaT DouGH LuMP RaT" As in the "a big cat saw a lump in the dough and it was a rat." That would make you say UFF*!
Also remember that every single one of the four letter words ending in -FF takes an S. From BAFF to TUFF. All of them.
These memory devices are useful when you are first learning words. Hopefully, over time, you will start to recognize the words in their own light.
The details for the 7th Annual Cajun Scrabble Fest came to me today.
The tournament will be held on June 28 and 29th, 2008 in Metairie, LA. The entry deadline is June 26 with no walk-ins. There will be three divisions with an option to expand it to four if necessary. I'm sitting in the middle of the second division. More details are at Cross-Tables.
I'll have to reschedule my work schedule, but I will be there, along with my secret weapon.
Here's a map to the venue:
The results are in from the 2008 Dallas Open. Since I was unable to go myself, I decided to cyberstalk the Louisiana contingent. The live coverage of the event is surprisingly extensive--with game commentary complete with Quackle analysis, round commentary, photos with captions, as well as results and statistics.
Lila, Lindsay, James, and Peggy represented our state well. Lila had the best record thanks to a five game win streak at the end.
Poor Peggy is mentioned in the Round 1 commentary:
...A similar mismatch was going on two tables over between Jason Katz-Brown (Cambridge, MA) and Peggy Altazan (Zachary, LA). I see dIAZINS, BESTRODE, and HAYRIDE. This was Jason's win, 456-251. [sic: it was actually 556-251] Even as kind and gentle as Jason is, as the game ended, Peggy had the look of a deer in the headlights. She shook her head and handed me the result slip and said, "I lost by 300 points!" I assured her that just about anyone here would fare about as well against our MIT phenom. I hope she has some better balanced games today!
Lindsay is mentioned in the Round 6 commentary and photo captions:
...I mention Lindsay because of her traveling mascot, Dwight Schrute, the bobblehead doll. He sits beside her quietly, bobbing along as she writes on the table or when she hits her clock.
Aside from stalking the Louisianians, the game commentary from board one are fun to look at. There was one game where there was new record for the highest loss in a tournament: Stefan Rau lost with 552 points to 582. Some say the record is tainted due to the 3 phony bingoes in the game. But it's still a fun game to watch.
In the game of Peter Armstrong vs. Geoff Thevenot, someone on the CGP mailing list praised the play of UNVEIL as a bit of inspired tactical play, setting up a Q play on a TLS with the threat of a TLS-DWS combo at the same time. I don't think I would have done that with the X still unplayed, but maybe I lack cajones.
The penultimate game features a five bingoes, two of which use the blank for a K: MOONWALk and GIVEBACk. Wow!
I highly recommend going through the game commentary, testing yourself by asking "what would I play here?" and then slapping your own face each time you get it wrong. "Oh yeah! mARTAGON! How could I have missed that?"
I was going back over some games to reconstruct my Bird Bingo Life List, when I noticed a tournament game where Ben played bIRDIES against me. The OSPD4 defines it in golf terms, but I think I can claim it as a bird word.
It's too far back for me to remember much about it, but here's what I said about the game at the time:
...So I went into the first game with a "damn the torpedoes" type of attitude. If I was going to do well playing against players who I thought had better word knowledge than me, I would have to play aggressively. Thus I played a big fat phoney for my first bingo, AUXINES* (UNISEX and AUXINS are good). It stayed on the board. Ben played bIRDIES to take the lead late in the game. But I luckily drew a Z late in the game and played ZOOEY, a new word, for 34 points and went out on the next turn. Ben's unplayed tiles gave me 12 points to win by 9. I had just defeated the top-rated player in the division.
If this isn't something I should blog about then I don't know what is:
From Our Roving Reporter in the Field: Scrabble Cheating for 826NYC (Or How to Beat John Hodgman and John Oliver in an Unfair Fight): A librarian blogs about a benefit Scrabble game with Jon "700 Hoboes" Hodgman and John Oliver (from the Daily Show) and Sarah Vowell (The Partly Cloudy Patriot) as judge.
The Baton Rouge NAST qualifier was this weekend. The North American Scrabble Tour is an unusual format. I think they are loosely based on the poker tournament formats that have been gaining attention. There are qualifiers across the country. These are short one-day tournaments (only 6 games) so as to maximize the luck factor, and paired so that low rated players can play some games against highly rated players.
The way that I drew my pairings, I played both the highest rated player and the lowest. As would be expected, my final record was right in the middle, three wins and three losses.
Game 1 vs Lila: I got into time trouble early. I don't know why, but I seem to get anxious during the first game of some tournaments. That makes me second guess myself a lot and I usually play badly. For example, in this game I tried to play EE*. I did have a nice bingo with REDOWAS for 90 points. I had a chance to win at the end, but with time trouble, I snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. I don't think I've ever been so angry at myself. 377-399.
Game 2 vs Annette. After regaining my composure, I drew and played AIRHEAD on the opening play. I later played RETAINS, which I spent way too long trying to turn into something bigger. Despite a 20 point time penalty, I win 396-317.
Game 3 vs Keith. I embarrassed myself in front of the top player. I didn't even break 300. I did get in a DIORITES for 70. CUSPID sat in the TWS lane for half the game, just needing an -OR extension to reach another TWS. Keith said he had been waiting to get an OR so he could play there. Of course, I didn't know the word, so in an embarrassing coincidence, I played off an OR to make GOR for 6 points. 284-403.
Game 4 vs Russell. After the smackdown from Keith, I played Russell in his first tournament. This time, I was on the other end of an embarrassing two letter phoney, WU*. But to his credit, Russell played well and got a good bingo with HONKERS for 78. I got ApERIENT and EXILERS. I thought ApERIENT was a good find, given the rack AEEINR? with a T on the board.
Game 5 vs Jonathon. Things weren't looking good for a while. At one point I was down 182-327. But an unchallenged phoney, MALTERS* (try ARMLETS, LAMSTER, TRAMELS), got me back into the hunt. I then opened up a bingo lane late, and was able to play ANODIZES for 88. I pulled ahead briefly, but lost by 10. 412-422. One consolation is that this game won me the prize for High Loss ($10).
Game 6 vs Carolyn. After the first turn, there I was, looking at AIIMTSU, wondering what I could possibly play off to fix this terrible rack. I had an R to play through. Hmmm. Then I saw TIRAMISU. I had to write it down 4 times to check my spelling. It went unchallenged, but I was so unsure that I refused to play an S on it for the whole rest of the game. I actually played spAWNED somewhere else. FInally, she played SINCERE and hooked the S. I held the play, triple checked my spelling, TIRAMISUS, and luckily let it stay. I won 380-366, but was even happier to check the spelling and see that it was right. I must have showed it to 6 different people before we picked up the board. Someone said that TIRAMISUS was mentioned in a New York TImes article about Scrabble several years ago. Although it didn't score a bunch of points (68), the style points made it the highlight of this tournament for me.
This was the first tournament where I attempted to record all of my racks. So when I got home, I gave Quackle a try, and started analyzing the games. I'm starting to get the hang of it, despite its lack of documentation. There will probably be more on that later.
I guess its about time I get around to posting about my excursion out to Yazoo City for the yearly MLK weekend tournament there.
Because I'm a cheapskate, I decided not to stay the Friday night in Yazoo CIty, but to drive in early the morning of the tournament. I saw on the Google maps that it was about 3.5 hours. With games starting at 10am, I figured I needed to leave my house by 5:30 am to make sure to make it with time to spare, since I had never been there. Of course, when I left that morning closer to 6am, it was raining upside down. Driving alone through the dark in the storm, I started to feel like I was in the first scene of car insurance commercial. But once I hit Hammond, I started to feel better with the approach of light.
A little ways north into Mississippi, I noticed the rain acting funny. It wasn't pounding my windshield like before. I looked on the thermometer on my dashboard. 32 degrees. Hmmm. Kind of floaty rain, big floppy rain. Then suddenly I was in a snowstorm. Dangit! Traffic in front of me slowed to 45mph. Southerners, me included, avoided getting in the left lane to pass, which by now was covered with an inch of snow. My ETA started slipping forward into the future. Normally snow is a welcome treat. But I had bingoes to play and many miles to cross.
Luckily, the weather cleared after an hour. And despite driving straight through Yazoo City the first time (that was a town?), I was able to turn myself around, get directions at a gas station, and navigate the potholed dirt road next to the railroad tracks to find the venue with 30 minutes to spare.
This was my first tournament in Division 1. I was going in with a 1270 rating and was expected to win about 4 of 11 games. I had no delusions about winning the division, but I did want to come out with a winning record. I took pictures of most of the game boards.
Game 1 vs Noreen: Things were looking good early when I was able to clear out my terrible rack with VROUWS. I bingoed first with SLeNDER (which later became SleNDERER) and later with SCrUPLE (yes it can be singular). I drew pretty well and it was a smack-down, 457-278.
Game 2 vs Rod: Rod wiped out my nice spread with a 312-481 smackdown on me. I tried to play SATURNES* to get a 3x3 (I was getting confused, thinking of SAUTERNE). Rod challenged it off, of course. And I played SAUNTERS next turn. He played FOREGUT, which I thought was pretty nice.
Game 3 vs. Kaye: I thought I opened nicely with LIVERY for 32, but she played SILENCER to shut me up. I bingoed with HARIcOt and got a 63 point OXEN to pull my wagon into victory, 399-354.
Game 4 vs Lila: Lila answered my IDEATES with LUsTInG. I came close to playing SKEETER for not many points when I stumbled upon RESTRIKE. I squeaked out a win with a 33 point DELI, 357-343.
Game 5 vs Jacqueline: I played DEEJAY for 54 early on, but the request lines were all closed after that. I didn't even break 300. 284-431.
Game 6 vs Richard: You would think that if I bingo twice, (RENTIER and GAOLERs), and Richard doesn't bingo at all, I would come out on top. I lost 371-397.
Game 7 vs Helen: Helen plays like the town will blow up if her clock hits 20:00. She let me get by with AUXITEs*, which I could have sworn was good after analyzing a similarly bad play (AUXINES* in my first game in Baton Rouge just a few months previous). She's was thinking about a juicy front hook for BAUXITES on the TWS lane. But I was totally clueless and played the B off somewhere else. I later got EMOTIONs and got my first win against her, 386-315.
I was 4-3 after the first day of play.
Game 8 vs Brenda: We exchanged bingoes, SALTIEST and OUTPRICE. But then I lost 3 challenges playing some big fat phoneys, while she rubbed salt in my wounds with some valid bingoes of her own: INFUSES and DILUTER. AIRFIELD is one I should have got, but missed. I lose 314-474.
Game 9 vs Danny: He opened with OX and I put down RESURGE for 72. Later he responded with HONORERS, through the R and hooking the OX for OXO. Nice. But then he tried the phoney, WEALING*, which I challenged off, mostly because it stole my spot for CRANIATE, which I played for 64. But I was a little nervous about hanging the E in the 3x3 lane. Then the room started to slow down when I pulled a ?RS. I pulled an HVLI after that. Shallow breaths. I thought "There's no way he'll leave it open for me". But I knew what he had from having challenged it off before, and I kind of saw that there was not much to do with it down there. He played of his W with LAW up top. I took a moment to collect myself and laid down SHRIVELs on both TWS. It took a while for me to figure out (14x9)+50, but I arrived at 176 points. My first triple-triple in a tournament!
I was so struck by my own good luck, that I forgot to hit my clock for about 2 minutes. Danny bingoed later with DINNERS for 84, while I eyed the high game on the wall. Well, I did beat the high game, but then someone else put up a new high game score that beat mine handily. I couldn't complain with a 538-411 win and a clear cut favorite for the tournament high word. We both totaled 949 for an average of 31.63 points per turn. 5 bingoes between us. Not bad.
Game 10 vs James: The karmic pendulum then swung the other way. I get RUNTIER, but then he got STRAINED, REGAINS, and VINTAGE. Nothing fancy but enough to beat me by 110. 347-457.
Game 11 vs Jimmy: I was 6-6 and out of the running for the money. But I so badly wanted a winning record. I let Jimmy get away with PANICK*. He played BURSTER and then I got RETINOL and LIMPEST. I was concentrating so hard on hooking what I suspected was a bad PANICKS* with TREASON, that I totally missed that fact that he played IH. Luckily he didn't challenge my PANICKS*. That would have made me steam, if he did that and then I realized I let him get away with IH. I later passed on playing RETTING, which is good, and walked away with a winning record with just 3 points.
I proudly accepted the prize for high word, which elicited some oohs and aahs from the crowd when it was announced. The prize was $10. I thought about framing it, but hopefully there will be more like that to come. My rating jumped up to 1301, a new peak rating.
My trip back was all sunshine, although a funny thing happened at a gas station in Mississippi. I walked into the store and there was a young policeman talking to the clerks.
"You know what happens when you put those in a bottle of Pepsi?" He gestured to the Mentos on the counter. "It'll blow up!"
"Gaw! For real?" the clerks said.
"Yep! I saw it on that Mythbusters show!"
I walked up to the counter with my water, but the clerk ignored me as he pulled out his cellphone.
"So you want to see what happens when you tie 50 sparklers together and light them? It's here on my phone."
"Really?" said the cop.
The clerk finally started to ring me up. "Just wait for about 30 seconds, then you'll see."
I was halfway out the door with my drink when I heard the cop go "Woe!"