January 2005 Archives

from the desk of Robert, the scrabbliest Waugh

Last night while playing Scrabble I drew these letters for the game opener: EHILORT. Seeing that I was only one E away from HOTELIER, I played HOTEL with the L on a Double Letter Score, instead of the H as one would expect. My usual opponent and I don’t play at the level where we think much about the other player’s moves, so I figured he wouldn’t notice the unusual placement. And I was betting he would either not know HOTELIER or not draw the needed letters before I drew another E. On my third turn I hooked HOTELIER to the Triple Word Score for a modest 33 points.

When asked about the word, I explained I had seen it while working on a list of comparatives and superlatives that end with -IER and -IEST. I’ve noticed when playing by myself (with an open dictionary) that a good number of my bingos come from this set of unlikely adjectives. In one game, after playing TWINIEST and LINTIER, I had to ask myself, do people ever say, “That yarn is twiniest, but this one is the lintier?” Many are not what you would expect.

So I began working on a list of the 1149 adjectives which can take the IER and IEST endings, a subset of all the comparatives and superlatives in the TWL. This combines the IER and IEST lists into one, listing only the root. In other words, for the price of learning one word — the root — you get the comparative and the superlative for free.

Now that I've had the Handmark Scrabble since Christmas, I guess I can offer some opinions about it.

I must confess that I play it almost constantly. In fact, I've been on the ISC much less than usual. With the colder weather I just am more comfortable playing while snuggled underneath a blanket. I have so far resisted the temptation to play it while in a steaming hot bubble bath. I've already dropped flashcards in the tub, which was bad enough. Dropping the Palm in the tub would be disaster.

Even with the computer set on Expert, I still tend to beat it by 200+ points. The computer player starts off well. It even sometimes plays a bingo in the first 5 moves or so. Eight moves into it, we're usally pretty close. But after 8-10 moves it becomes a total idiot. It will play a single S on a word. It will play two letter words for 10 points. It seems to play a lot of extensions but not a lot of hooks. It even trades in its rack sometimes.

Of course, its vocabulary is incredible. But otherwise it's clueless. Computer players always seem to play horrible defense, but this one takes the cake. It sets me up all the time, especially with those S's hanging off the end of a word.

I don't know why it becomes stupider halfway through the game. I have two guesses. One is that it has no sense of rack management, so that by halfway through the game it has total crap on its rack. I can't ever see what its rack is, even after the game is over, so I don't know how bad it really is. I don't think bad rack management is the reason because it does trade in its rack occasionally and it still plays badly. My other theory is that as the board becomes more complex, the small computer just can't make enough calculations in the short amount of time allocated to it to make its move. (It usually moves within 5-10 seconds). So it becomes stupified.

Since a straight up match isn't challenging, I've taken to trying to score the most points I possibly can, like those English players I've read about. I've broken 580 a couple times. I've hit a couple triple-triples (which has never hapened for me on the ISC or in club play). I leave the triples open all the time.

Some things that annoy me about the program:

-The Q sometime loses its tail, so that it looks like an O. I don't know how many times I've tried hooking the Q. Either that or I briefly wonder how OUAD or OUOIN are playable.

-Although it remembers all of your games, you can't replay them one move at a time. Instead it plays the game in a rapid-fire mode without showing the scores or even who played what word.

-It doesn't have the TWL dictionary, but the OSPD dictionary. Fortunately it allows you to over-ride its validation so you can play LEZ or a 9 letter word.

-You can't move your tiles while the computer is thinking.

-Once in a blue moon the computer opens with a single letter. Obviously it's some kind of bug. I just abandon the game and start another one.

Some other things I like:

-It has definitions. You can look up the words that are on the board from a drop down menu, or you can enter words. It's like having an OSPD.

-Placing tiles on the board is easy. Undoing them is easy.

-It saves all the games, even games in progress.

Despite my criticisms, I'd say that I've already got my $20 worth. I can play anytime, anywhere. I bring it to work to play during my 15 minute breaks. I almost always play a game before I go to sleep, after I turn out the bedroom lights. The Palm's screen is bright, bright enough for me to use as a flashlight. So my only concern is that Handmark Scrabble might cause me to burn my eyes out.

I was playing against my Palm Pilot Scrabble computer when it opened with WOODS. With the TWS only 3 spaces away, I thought surely I would eventually get RED for REDWOODS or DAG for DAGWOODS. I checked my rack every play to see if I had something for it, but I never did. About halfway through the game my computer opponent finally put down IN?WOODS. I was perplexed, what was the blank? It was a K for INKWOODS. Intrigued, I looked up the three-letter extensions for WOODS. There's a whole bunch more of them than I thought, 14 of them. It makes me wonder if I indeed did have a play and missed it.

Here they are:

NUTWOODS
FATWOODS
REDWOODS
SAPWOODS
INKWOODS
DAGWOODS
BAYWOODS
DYEWOODS
LOGWOODS
GUMWOODS
PLYWOODS
BOGWOODS
DOGWOODS
BOXWOODS*

They all good without the S as well.

*BOXWOOD and WOODBOX are both good.

A big thanks goes out to Julie Jones for making The Elusive QUETZAL the featured link at SCRABBLE® Junction. I feel like I won an award.

I visit SCRABBLE® Junction regularly, mostly for the links and word lists. I consulted the links recently when I was trying to find Scrabble related software for my Palm computer.

She let me know what she did by leaving me a message on the ISC. I didn't know we could do that. The ISC impresses me more and more everyday.

I just saw an episode of CSI that seemed to crib a few pages out of Word Freak.

The victim is a morbidly obese man with a t-shirt that says 735. The policeman makes a joke that maybe the 735 is his target weight. We find out that the victim died due to choking on a tile that has a letter on it. It's obviously not a Scrabble® tile because it's round and black and white.

We find out the man was in Las Vegas to attend a "Logos" tournament. It looks like a Scrabble® tournament, with clocks and racks and crossword type configurations, except there is no board. When one loses a challenge, he loses a turn and a minute from his clock.

There are letters found in his stomach that, along with the one he choked on, are: EINVX. It takes the "genius" investigator several tries until someone else shows him that it anagrams as VIXEN.

The victim was known as "Mr. 735", the person who scored the most points in a single game, which sounds a lot like Mr. 770 (Mark Landsberg).

One suspect complains about losing a game to a "blue hair" who was constantly "coffeehousing". Another suspect is a trash-talking African American (echoes of Marlon Hill perhaps?). My guess is that one of the show's writers had just read Word Freak. I wonder if Stefan Fatsis got any writing credit.

The motive for the crime appears to be when a the victim plays EXVIN. When his opponent questions its validity, the victim explains that its definition is a "wine lover who no longer drinks". When the murderer adds an S to form EXVINS, the victim challenges it and supposedly wins the game. Later, the murderer approaches the victim in the bathroom, with a gun replica, and makes him "eat his word", but he chokes on the last letter and dies.

I was surprised that the solution to this crime didn't involve a complicated computer simulation. Of course, the other case in this episode did use a completely amazing computer simulation where a database of sofas is consulted and one particular model is placed in a fire simulation that matches the layout of the house where variables such as open windows and air drafts can be changed. Where they get their software, I'd like to know...but I guess that's outside the scope of this particular blog.

Dave Zimmerman sent me this account of an ISC game that he played where he fished for a ten-letter bingo at the end of the game and got it.

It's Better (or at least just as good) Sometimes to be Lucky (and hopeful) than Good...an ISC Story

I played a game at ISC (Internet Scrabble Club––www.isc.ro) tonite that I just have to tell someone about. It demonstrates that if you aren't really good (and your opponent is the same) you can plan to be lucky and still win, sometimes. There are other lessons, but I'll get to those later.

I've read that intermediate games include a lot of errors and this one was no exception. My opponent got things started by playing HURT from AHORTUZ. There is a 42-point opening in this rack that I'm sure many of you know. (answer (1) at bottom of message)

My rack was AEEEOTW, which includes ETWEE (a new one to me), but even if I knew it, I probably would have exchanged. I held an E and drew six.

My opponent than played ZIT for 32. My rack was ADENPRS, out of which it was not too hard to find PANDERS, which I hooked with SH for 68. So far, so good for me.

I bested my highest scoring play on the ISC. I was playing against a computer player.

My rack is shown at the top of the board: ?AEIPSZ. Can you find the best play? Click on the link below for the answer.

I've had several Scrabble® books checked out of the library for quite some time now. I've read them a couple times already, but I've been holding onto them in order to review them.

It seems that the Scrabble collection here in the East Baton Rouge Parish Library is on the dated side. With the exception of Word Freak: Heartbreak, Triumph, Genius, and Obsession in the World of Competitive Scrabble Players and The Official Scrabble Players Dictionary (Third Edition), the Scrabble books are at least 17 years old. That means you have to be careful to note the changes in the dictionary since then. I guess that means I must make sure they get a couple copies of Everything Scrabble. In fact, I haven't written in my copy of it, because I'm thinking that I might donate it to the library someday.

My favorite of these "dusties" is Joel Wapnick's The Champion's Strategy For Winning at Scrabble® Brand Crossword Game (1986). While most Scrabble books tend tend to be heavy on board positions and puzzles, Wapnick's book also has a lot of well written prose. He explains his views on the aesthetics of Scrabble, on rules, on the dictionaries, and health. His explanation of rack balancing and rack leaves is a must read. He uses numerous examples, and his analyses are thorough.

Another highlight of the book is several fully annotated games, where he explains the reasoning behind each move. Then he rates each player's game based on a "best play percentage" which is the number of "best" plays divided by the number of plays made. A lot of this seems subjective now that so much of this type of analysis are done with computers. But Wapnick knows the game inside and out, and much of what he says is enlightening. Wapnick is Canadian, so he sticks with the North American rules and dictionary.

Another intereting title is The Scrabble Companion by Gyles Brandeth and Darryl Francis (1987). The book is written with both North American and British players in mind so it has to constantly distinguish between the two dictionaries. It has an excellent discussion of the dictionaries, but even better is a discussion of the words. It explains comaparitives and superlatives, derivatives (think UN- and RE- words), foreign words, -ISE/-IZE words, obsolete words, etc. I think most players would benefit because they explain the reasons why some words are acceptable, while others are not-not just within the context of English grammar, but within the context of the Scrabble® rules.

Following these discussions are 8 fully annotated games. 4 are played with Chamber's Dictionary and 4 are played with the OSPD. Then they are further subdivided into "open" games and "knockout" games. The open games, which are preferred in Britian, are the games where each player simply tries to score as much as possible. Triple-triples abound. The knockout games are closer to the North American style of play where a player tries to shut the board down once getting ahead. For me it was amusing to see the annotators decide not to take their highest scoring play because it would shut down a triple-triple lane, which then the opponent then takes. These annotated games take up most of the books.

The final section consists of word lists, mostly 6 letter stems, divided into sections that show the words that both dictionaries take, then OSPD only and Chambers only. The book is probably too old now for the lists to be very helpful, with the changes in the dictionaries. But I'm sure they were bingo gold back in 1987.

A good book for beginners is The Ultimate Guide to Winning Scrabble Brand Crossword Game by Michael Lawrence and John Ozag (1987). My library's copy is pretty beat up, but it has some good stuff in it. The explanations of various strategies are written in plain language. I found it to be a little too dumbed down, but this might be a good book for those people who find all other books on Scrabble to be too esoteric and pretentious. The diagrams are large and the examples are numerous and right on the money. Again, like with the other books, it is a bit too old. I think Everything Scrabble covers the same ground as this book.