The Elusive QUETZAL: Owl #2 Puzzle

May 04, 2006

Owl #2 Puzzle

I recently renewed my membership to the NSA so that I can play in the upcoming New Orleans tournament. My new membership packet came with the latest Scrabble newsletter. I forgot how much I loved receiving it.

For the first time, I decided to try to enter the contest in it. The rules were to play a series of words 2-8 letters in length, that were only new words from the recently adopted OWL2 (Official Word List). The person who can score the most wins.

I seriously obsessed about it for a good three days. I'm sure my wife thought I was crazy, but I think she's used to me obsessing about Scrabble for now, with all the notecards and the exercising on my exercise bike with a LeXpert slideshow going.

Anyway, my first instinct was to play an 8 letter triple-triple, along with a 7 letter double-double paired with a strong opening 5 or 6 letter play. You know, where the triple-triple would have a high scoring letter land on the double-letter score at the same time. It was a good thought. I used HUMIDEX (the 2x2) and JACUZzIS (the 3x3) to make some big points.

Then I thought about extending the opening word out to the triple word score, so that the triple-triple would likewise triple the extended opening word. I found some of the new six letter words that can be extended both with one letter, and a second letter. That would make it reach the TWS.

For example, if I worked from the front, I could play EBOOKS, then hook it to make REBOOKS, then extend that to the TWS to make PREBOOKS.

But I found the best ones would work with end hooks. I had to decide whether to use QABALA (to QABALAH, then QABALAHS) or CHUPPA (to CHUPPAH to CHUPPAHS). And the best 3x3 that would end with a S and still have the big money letter hit the DLS was KLEZMERS.

I figured that by playing QABALAHS, I was wasting the Q, because I had to play a two letter word somwhere. Anyway, long story short, this was my entry:

1. chuppa 8h 36
2. Knawe m6 12 (K is a blank)
3. hexylic n8 175
4. diff l10 32
5. qi k11 49
6. Kye 6m 13
7. klezmers o1 407

Total: 724

Another cool thing was sending the e from kNAWE out next to the TLS so that the X from HEXYLIC bumped it for an outrageous sum. Then I used the k to send out the word (kYE) to anchor my 3x3.

This is my first contest, so I have no idea about the techniques. I used LeXpert and my Palm pilot Lampwords program to figure out the words (Unlike LeXpert, Lampwords lets one search only new words, which is very nice).

It was a great excercise to learn the new words. I'll never forget DIFF, or HEXYLIC, or MANGA (from an earlier try) because of it.

And even cooler was that I was to send the email to Joe Edley at the NSA. He's one of my heroes. And then after I sent it, he sent me an email to acknowledge that he had received it. I'm not sure if it was an automatic response or if he personally had to do it (my guess is the former), but I'm tickled nonetheless.

Even if I find out that I lost, which is likely, I'm very curious to find out what the winning entry was. I mean, how can you beat a single play of 407 points?