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actionjackson
Jan 12, 2003

:banjo: HELLO FRIENDS

I made a thread about this several years ago, it had some interest so here we go again!

I've played competitive Scrabble since 2008. My word cred:

Highest rank: 19th in North America
Best major tournaments (in all of these I was in the top division):

2010 Nationals (18th out of 116)
2011 Nationals (10th out of 108)

Arden Cup (prestigious 20 game tournament held in Chicago every year)

2011: 1st
2012: 2nd
2014: 2nd

I also competed in the World Scrabble Championship in London last fall.

I currently play in a larger dictionary (compared to what is used in North America) known as Collins Scrabble Words (CSW) which is used somewhat in the US, but is the standard in other countries for the English language game.

:banjo: actionjackson please tell me how you got to be a Scrabble superstar person

Study a lot, by that I mean anagramming. I've studied most words between 2-8 letters (there are 115,215 in total). I (and most players) use some kind of flashcard program and study "alphagrams" which are the letters in alphabetical order. So for example if I see BEEIQUZ I know that's BEZIQUE, and hopefully I see that in a game as well. The programs use the Leitner system for memory retention. I also use a website called Aerolith which gives me a random set of 50 alphagrams each day for each word length - you solve as many as you can within a few minutes. I rarely score below 95% (if I do it's probably because too many girls are sucking my dick at the same time).

For example, I was able to anagram this entire list within the 4.5 minute time limit today (the number next to each alphagram is the number of solutions).

:banjo: See if you can do some anagramming!



:banjo: Why did you get into competitive Scrabble?

I like words and language in general, but I'm also more mathematically minded (I'm a statistician). There's a lot of strategy to the game in addition to having a strong vocabulary. Obviously with studying pattern recognition is important.

Plus you get to learn some pretty weird words, or words that just have bizarre definitions. A few of my favorites:

BERDACHE - An American Indian transvestite
SOUTPIEL - an English speaking South African. Literally salt penis, someone who has one foot in South Africa, one foot in Britain and his penis dangling in the Atlantic
LAYDEEZ - ladies as pronounced in a mid-Atlantic accent
UNUNBIUM - a synthetic element
BOOTYLICIOUS - Slang sexually attractive, esp with curvaceous buttocks

:banjo: HOW DO I BEAT MY GRANDMA AT SCRABBLE

1) Learn all the 2-letter words
2) Try to play parallel as much as possible to increase your score. Also look to put consonants on bonus letter squares on these plays. You can even get cool combos, like a high value tile doubled or tripled PLUS a double or triple word score! Wowzers!
3) Don't use an S unless you can get 20+ points extra by using it (unless you have a bunch of them at once)
4) Only use a blank if you can get a bingo (using all tiles, 50 point bonus) or a huge non-bingo play (for example, if you can play a word with a power tile like JQXZ on the triple letter score + a double word score)
5) Balance your rack - try to keep the distribution of vowels and consonants balanced - if you have an odd number of tiles, it's better to have more consonants than vowels
6) Avoid duplicated tiles as much as possible

99% of players just think about how much they score, without considering what their rack leave is. 30 points leaving ES is a fuckton better than 40 points leaving UU.

:banjo: Questions?

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The Valuum
Apr 11, 2004
I knew a couple of people in prison that were insane at scrabble, they knew all the 2 letter words and many 3 letter ones. I'd look at the board and it'd seem like half of the poo poo on there wasn't even english.

Oddly enough there are prison rules for scrabble, they take out all the blanks and a certain letter. I want to say J but I might be wrong, I -think- it might have been one of the high point letters. Reason being they said was that it made the game unbalanced. I could never come close to competing with them.

Bip Roberts
Mar 29, 2005
My scrabble story is when I was a kid my uncle played JONQUIL on the triple and I flipped the board.

GORDON
Jan 1, 2006

by Fluffdaddy
If you've been ranked 19th in North America, who here do you think is going to be able to give you any pointers?

photomikey
Dec 30, 2012
Well, 18 people, in particular.

Lot 49
Dec 7, 2007

I'll do anything
For my sweet sixteen
I got into scrabble a few years ago. I then got out a couple of months later when I realised just how much work it takes to be actually good at the game.

So kudos to you for sticking with it, must have taken a lot of dedication.

Here are a bunch of random questions I have.

1. Ever earned any money from tournaments?
2. Phonies. Does this happen a lot at high level play or hardly ever? Ever play any words you knew were bad just out of desperation or whatever?
3. Did you ever see Word Wars and if so what did you think about it? I liked it.
4. Ever read Word Freak and if so what did you think about it? I thought it was okay. Should have been shorter, too much history of the game stuff.
5. Ever played against anybody who appears in the book or the film?
6. Best player you have played against?
7. Is Nigel Richards the best scrabble player ever?
8. Ever thought about quitting?

If you can be bothered to answer any of these than thanks :)

The Valuum
Apr 11, 2004
What's your opinion on up-words?

PT6A
Jan 5, 2006

Public school teachers are callous dictators who won't lift a finger to stop children from peeing in my plane
Do you know anything about how Scrabble works in other languages? I assume the letter distribution is different, but are things like accents taken into account? Are there any specific languages that you know of that make for a particularly different game, in terms of strategy?

EDIT: I ended up getting curious about this and looking it up on my own. Accents and other diacritics matter in some versions, but not others, and it doesn't appear to be consistent between languages. Spanish doesn't use accents, but distinguishes between N and Ñ, and uses separate tiles for CH, LL, and RR -- those may not be spelled out using two individual tiles. In contrast, the Basque version has tiles with digraphs, but you are also allowed to spell them with single-letter tiles.

PT6A fucked around with this message at 17:23 on May 16, 2015

actionjackson
Jan 12, 2003

GORDON posted:

If you've been ranked 19th in North America, who here do you think is going to be able to give you any pointers?

When did I ask for pointers?

Lot 49 posted:

I got into scrabble a few years ago. I then got out a couple of months later when I realised just how much work it takes to be actually good at the game.

So kudos to you for sticking with it, must have taken a lot of dedication.

Here are a bunch of random questions I have.

1. Ever earned any money from tournaments?
2. Phonies. Does this happen a lot at high level play or hardly ever? Ever play any words you knew were bad just out of desperation or whatever?
3. Did you ever see Word Wars and if so what did you think about it? I liked it.
4. Ever read Word Freak and if so what did you think about it? I thought it was okay. Should have been shorter, too much history of the game stuff.
5. Ever played against anybody who appears in the book or the film?
6. Best player you have played against?
7. Is Nigel Richards the best scrabble player ever?
8. Ever thought about quitting?

If you can be bothered to answer any of these than thanks :)

1. Small amounts. I got $600 from winning the Arden Cup. For finishing 10th in Nationals I got like $250.
2. Not that often. It's very rarely intentional. I have yes, though only against people who I have a significant edge on.
3. Yes. Actually I have a perfect record (6-0 I think) against the person who won Nationals in that episode (Joel Sherman). I saw it before I got into the game so it seemed weird at the time.
4. Yes, and I've met the author. I thought it was interesting.
5. Yes, Brian Cappaletto, Joel Sherman, Nigel Richards, a bunch of other people I'm sure.
6. Nigel. 0-6 against him, though two of those games I basically hosed up at the end in a close game.
7. Yes, there are a few others players that are close. Two are retired (Brian, and a guy from India named Ganesh). Komol from Thailand, Adam Logan from Canada are both incredibly strong. English language Scrabble is incredibly popular in Thailand and Malaysia.
8. Nah, it's pretty fun. I take little breaks sometime though. I didn't play much over the winter. I'm also not planning on travelling to tournaments very often anymore, as I'm interested in spending my vacation time going overseas instead. The next worlds is in Perth so gently caress that.

The Valuum posted:

What's your opinion on up-words?

I played it once. It was okay, but I didn't find it particularly interesting.

One game top players like to play (usually at tournaments after play is done for the day) is anagrams. Usually you have two sets of tiles (blanks excluded) placed upside down, and each person takes a turn turning over a tile. The idea is to take either a set of letters from the pool, or combine letters from the pool with another word that has already been made to make a new word. The trick is there is a minimum length (usually 8), and you can't steal a word if it's just a form of that word, or if there is no rearrangement of letters.

For example, if the starting pool is DEFNOORS I can take FRONDOSE.

If C and U are in the pool, someone can steal that word with COFOUNDERS.

Whoever has the most letters among their words at the end wins.

PT6A posted:

Do you know anything about how Scrabble works in other languages? I assume the letter distribution is different, but are things like accents taken into account? Are there any specific languages that you know of that make for a particularly different game, in terms of strategy?

EDIT: I ended up getting curious about this and looking it up on my own. Accents and other diacritics matter in some versions, but not others, and it doesn't appear to be consistent between languages. Spanish doesn't use accents, but distinguishes between N and Ñ, and uses separate tiles for CH, LL, and RR -- those may not be spelled out using two individual tiles. In contrast, the Basque version has tiles with digraphs, but you are also allowed to spell them with single-letter tiles.

It's pretty similar except for the tile distribution of course. Obviously some have unique letters. The main difference between English language Scrabble and most other languages would be how powerful the -S is. If you were playing in German for example, plural hooks would be a non issue as you usually add on two letters or use an umlaut to distinguish pluralization.

actionjackson fucked around with this message at 21:27 on May 16, 2015

ImPureAwesome
Sep 6, 2007

the king of the beach
Does scrabble bleed into other parts of your life? Do you try to rearrange street signs or dream tiles? Do you use scrabble words in normal conversation?

Wrestlepig
Feb 25, 2011

my mum says im cool

Toilet Rascal
Are there particular words that pro scrabblers hate?

actionjackson
Jan 12, 2003

ImPureAwesome posted:

Does scrabble bleed into other parts of your life? Do you try to rearrange street signs or dream tiles? Do you use scrabble words in normal conversation?

Scrabble words are just words from a dictionary so I'm not sure what you mean.

It is true that I habitually anagram things I see in real life out of habit. I remember I saw a VW Touraeg and said OUTRAGE immediately. Or I told a coworker that the shortest word you can make with all the letters in her name (Cynthia) is HYACINTH. If you can't guess I'm still single.

chaos rhames posted:

Are there particular words that pro scrabblers hate?

There would be no reason too. Perhaps a few words that are hard to spell correctly like OEUVRES.

actionjackson fucked around with this message at 16:47 on May 17, 2015

FactsAreUseless
Feb 16, 2011

What determines if a word is English for the purposes of Scrabble? I've noticed the Scrabble dictionary is full of things like defunct foreign currencies.

actionjackson
Jan 12, 2003

FactsAreUseless posted:

What determines if a word is English for the purposes of Scrabble? I've noticed the Scrabble dictionary is full of things like defunct foreign currencies.

They have several source dictionaries, and it counts if it is in at least one of them. I know, for example, with CSW that the Oxford English dictionary is one of the sources.

You certainly could use a defunct currency in English language, like "The mark was the currency of Germany before joining the European Union."

ImPureAwesome
Sep 6, 2007

the king of the beach

actionjackson posted:

Scrabble words are just words from a dictionary so I'm not sure what you mean.

my impression is there are a lot of obscure words in scrabble, does it effect your vocab in conversations?

actionjackson
Jan 12, 2003

ImPureAwesome posted:

my impression is there are a lot of obscure words in scrabble, does it effect your vocab in conversations?

Oh. I do on rare occasions use more obscure words, but I've always done that. The vast majority of obscure words only apply to specific areas of study which don't concern me, or I don't know the definition so I can't use it in practice. Sometimes I'll see them at work though, which is cool, like research involving genetics - "myc," "riflip," "homeobox."

flakeloaf
Feb 26, 2003

Still better than android clock

actionjackson posted:

Scrabble words are just words from a dictionary so I'm not sure what you mean.


On that, what's it like to play against someone who doesn't actually speak English?

SubjectVerbObject
Jul 27, 2009
So let's say I have BEZIQUE, but there is no way to play it. The best I can do is add BE somewhere and get under 20 points. Do you do that, or do you pass and hope to put it somewhere the next round? Obviously it depends on what is on the board and what is left, but I am looking for how you balance getting high value bingos versus getting letters out.

actionjackson
Jan 12, 2003

flakeloaf posted:

On that, what's it like to play against someone who doesn't actually speak English?

I've only done that a few times. It's pretty much the same. The Thai players know enough English to get by. They obviously have a great vocabulary, they just don't know how to implement it into spoken language well. During the game itself you only really need to be able to say the score or challenge.

SubjectVerbObject posted:

So let's say I have BEZIQUE, but there is no way to play it. The best I can do is add BE somewhere and get under 20 points. Do you do that, or do you pass and hope to put it somewhere the next round? Obviously it depends on what is on the board and what is left, but I am looking for how you balance getting high value bingos versus getting letters out.

It would be incredibly strange for your best scoring play to be BE for 20 with that rack. In any case, you want to unload your power tiles (QZ) as quickly as possibly for as many points as possible. The basic strategies for scoring come down to playing higher point tiles for larger scores, and then building your rack towards the lower point tiles that are far more likely to make bingos. Passing is never the right play, outside of some very rare circumstances which don't apply here (if you want an example of when passing can be correct, let me know).

actionjackson fucked around with this message at 16:38 on May 18, 2015

turbomoose
Nov 29, 2008
Playing the banjo can be a relaxing activity and create lifelong friendships!
\
:backtowork:
I assume throwing tiles back happens fairly rarely as well?

actionjackson
Jan 12, 2003

turbomoose posted:

I assume throwing tiles back happens fairly rarely as well?

Yeah, the more word knowledge the more you can get out of bad racks, and with rack balance you end up with less bad racks overall. You're most likely to get a bad rack after drawing seven tiles, i.e. the starting of the game or after a bingo.

Khizan
Jul 30, 2013


actionjackson posted:

(if you want an example of when passing can be correct, let me know).

I would like an example of when passing would be correct, please.

actionjackson
Jan 12, 2003

Khizan posted:

I would like an example of when passing would be correct, please.

This only works against lovely players, but if you open a rack that has no 7s but makes lots of 8s, you can pass, hope they make a play which will likely give a bingo.

For example, IORSTUV makes no 7s but makes an 8 with every vowel.

However smart players will just exchange in response unless they have a playable bingo of their own.

More realistically:

You are up by, say, 60 points. There is one tile left in the bag, and the Q is unseen. There is no place to play the Q on the board. Looking at the remaining tiles, you see that if the Q is in the bag, your opponent has a bingo in several spots (i.e. they cannot be blocked). If you make a play and your opponent bingos, he/she will end up winning because he/she will get +20 from your rack for the Q, along with his/her bingo score. The correct play here is to pass. If the Q is on his/her rack it won't matter either way, but by passing, your opponent will be stuck with the Q on his/her rack after playing his/her bingo. You can then go out (and you can simply play off one tile at a time to maximize your score, since he/she is "Q stuck" and is thus forced to pass) and win pretty easily. In this scenario, the only way to guarantee victory is to pass.

actionjackson fucked around with this message at 23:21 on May 18, 2015

Hadaka Apron
Feb 12, 2015
What are your all-time highest single-game and single-play scores? Mine are 573 and 221 (for CHOWDERS on two triple word scores), and I'm sure that yours are much better.

actionjackson
Jan 12, 2003

Hadaka Apron posted:

What are your all-time highest single-game and single-play scores? Mine are 573 and 221 (for CHOWDERS on two triple word scores), and I'm sure that yours are much better.

Do you play competitively at all? My high game is 665 which was in a Nationals. I think I had six bingos. Highest 3x3 was EQUISETA 212 against Quackle, a computer program.

Safety Biscuits
Oct 21, 2010

Lot 49 posted:

4. Ever read Word Freak and if so what did you think about it? I thought it was okay. Should have been shorter, too much history of the game stuff.

I read this and it totally turned me off the game, because of the intense memorising, anagramming, tactics, etc side. It turned it into a game about manipulating letters instead of words for me - the words became superfluous. Which is fair enough, but not appealing to me. I haven't really played since, but I only play with my family so that doesn't mean much.

Jeza
Feb 13, 2011

The cries of the dead are terrible indeed; you should try not to hear them.
Why doesn't it surprise me that the greatest players of Scrabble are mathmeticians and ESL people. I've always found it irrationally irritating that people pervert a simple vocabulary game for kids into some hyper-competitive game where most of the words played aren't just not in common parlance but complete loving gobbledygook.

I think it's a hangover from when I had a roommate who played Scrabble semi-competitively and forced everybody in the house to play one time. Everybody was having a good time playing regular words like dick and doublebutt while he was just throwing down qqrqwr arfsaf fsjetsd bullshit words and just referring us to his Scrabble dictionary, while having no idea what the words meant. He was a physics major too.

I guess what I'm saying OP, is never play Scrabble with normal people. Keep your perversion isolated.

FactsAreUseless
Feb 16, 2011

Jeza posted:

Why doesn't it surprise me that the greatest players of Scrabble are mathmeticians and ESL people. I've always found it irrationally irritating that people pervert a simple vocabulary game for kids into some hyper-competitive game where most of the words played aren't just not in common parlance but complete loving gobbledygook.

I think it's a hangover from when I had a roommate who played Scrabble semi-competitively and forced everybody in the house to play one time. Everybody was having a good time playing regular words like dick and doublebutt while he was just throwing down qqrqwr arfsaf fsjetsd bullshit words and just referring us to his Scrabble dictionary, while having no idea what the words meant. He was a physics major too.

I guess what I'm saying OP, is never play Scrabble with normal people. Keep your perversion isolated.
I too hate when people have fun with a game in ways I don't approve of. I hate it! gently caress! drat!

FactsAreUseless
Feb 16, 2011

Actionjackson, you talked about prison Scrabble having special balance rules. Are there any commonly-known balance problems with Scrabble? Most games played at a competitive level have identified balance issues.

Jeza
Feb 13, 2011

The cries of the dead are terrible indeed; you should try not to hear them.

FactsAreUseless posted:

I too hate when people have fun with a game in ways I don't approve of. I hate it! gently caress! drat!

Scrabble is gay enough already without turbonerds unravelling the english language into a nonsensical stream of q's and z's for their own sick amusement. Do it in the privacy of your own homes.

Hadaka Apron
Feb 12, 2015

actionjackson posted:

Do you play competitively at all? My high game is 665 which was in a Nationals. I think I had six bingos. Highest 3x3 was EQUISETA 212 against Quackle, a computer program.

I've only played in one tournament, which was pretty casual. I have a rating in the mid 1200s on the Internet Scrabble Club.

flakeloaf
Feb 26, 2003

Still better than android clock

It's no different from that one guy who's awesome at Goldeneye but still takes Oddjob and uses the golden gun anyway because that's just the kind of "fun" that makes your friends want to play again and again. Unless you're all entomologists, there needs to be a house rule against busting out ZYZZYVA.

actionjackson
Jan 12, 2003

I'm not sure why people are getting all pissed off in a thread about Scrabble but okay. I'll respond briefly.

1. Yes there are some very competitive people that can be annoying, however this is true of any activity. The vast majority of Scrabble players I've found to be pretty friendly. I wouldn't continue to play tournaments if I didn't like the people; I'd just sit at home and play on my computer.

2. Why would you be upset at someone playing a word you don't know? That's not the game's fault, that's your fault for having a worse vocabulary. If you study, you will build up that vocabulary over time.

flakeloaf posted:

It's no different from that one guy who's awesome at Goldeneye but still takes Oddjob and uses the golden gun anyway because that's just the kind of "fun" that makes your friends want to play again and again. Unless you're all entomologists, there needs to be a house rule against busting out ZYZZYVA.

That's literally the most improbably seven letter word in the game. I'm not sure if it's ever been played. So it's kind of an odd example. Why would you have to be an entomologist to play a word that is a type of insect??

FactsAreUseless posted:

Actionjackson, you talked about prison Scrabble having special balance rules. Are there any commonly-known balance problems with Scrabble? Most games played at a competitive level have identified balance issues.

I never said anything about prison, that was the first person who responded in the thread. There is a huge balance issue with Scrabble which is the luck factor, which is why tournaments are more than a few games. However even then a person can be very unlucky or lucky in any given tournament. One metric people like is blanks drawn - the tournament I won, there were 20 games (so 40 blanks possible), and I drew over 30 of them. A player like Nigel is so strong that he can overcome a lot of bad draws, however he still has bad tournaments (bad for him meaning not winning). He finished out of the top eight at worlds last year, which was pretty shocking.

actionjackson fucked around with this message at 16:27 on May 19, 2015

twodot
Aug 7, 2005

You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

actionjackson posted:

2. Why would you be upset at someone playing a word you don't know? That's not the game's fault, that's your fault for having a worse vocabulary. If you study, you will build up that vocabulary over time.
I'll start with the most important thing which is: Jeza is an idiot. That said, if a friend offers to play a game of Scrabble, and you don't lead with "I have every 2 and 3 letter word memorized, also I have a dedicated program for studying 7/8 letter anagrams", you're being a dick.
edit:
538 did an article on Richards:
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-scrabble-king-is-dead-long-live-the-scrabble-king/

twodot fucked around with this message at 16:32 on May 19, 2015

Jeza
Feb 13, 2011

The cries of the dead are terrible indeed; you should try not to hear them.

actionjackson posted:

2. Why would you be upset at someone playing a word you don't know? That's not the game's fault, that's your fault for having a worse vocabulary. If you study, you will build up that vocabulary over time.

Food for thought: it doesn't count as vocabulary if you don't know what it means or can't deploy it in a reasonable grammatical sentence. It's more like parroting a string of numbers or symbols learned purely through rote. Given that many of the best scrabble players don't even speak English, I think that's a fair assessment.

I'm not upset over people playing words I don't know, I was making fun of the fact that lots of top scrabble players don't even know the meaning of the words they are using either. I also think it's super dumb that two letter words can get used, and things like BRRR or PSST.

actionjackson
Jan 12, 2003

twodot posted:

I'll start with the most important thing which is: Jeza is an idiot. That said, if a friend offers to play a game of Scrabble, and you don't lead with "I have every 2 and 3 letter word memorized, also I have a dedicated program for studying 7/8 letter anagrams", you're being a dick.
edit:
538 did an article on Richards:
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-scrabble-king-is-dead-long-live-the-scrabble-king/

Yeah I understand that, I don't play anyone that isn't a competitive player as well. It wouldn't be any fun anyway.

Jeza posted:

Food for thought: it doesn't count as vocabulary if you don't know what it means or can't deploy it in a reasonable grammatical sentence. It's more like parroting a string of numbers or symbols learned purely through rote. Given that many of the best scrabble players don't even speak English, I think that's a fair assessment.

I'm not upset over people playing words I don't know, I was making fun of the fact that lots of top scrabble players don't even know the meaning of the words they are using either. I also think it's super dumb that two letter words can get used, and things like BRRR or PSST.

Well knowing the definitions isn't required, but I enjoy learning them anyway. But practically speaking, it would be just about impossible to memorize the definitions of over 100,000 words. If you have an objection to what words are acceptable or not, your issue is with dictionary makers, not Scrabble. Are you saying there are no two letter words you think are valid (which can't be right)? Or that two letter words simply shouldn't be allowed in the game?

actionjackson fucked around with this message at 16:55 on May 19, 2015

flakeloaf
Feb 26, 2003

Still better than android clock

actionjackson posted:

Yeah I understand that, I don't play anyone that isn't a competitive player as well. It wouldn't be any fun anyway.

That's kind of what I was driving at. Some people genuinely do think it's fun to play people well beneath their own level and stomp them into a fine paste. gently caress those people.

The object of the game is to choose words from the large book of legal words (which you aren't allowed to go riffling through during your turn) and spell them with the letters you have. People who know more of those words are going to have an advantage, so whatever. If you speak in grunts and your opponent got his logodaedalian scout badge at the age of nine, you're going to get pummeled. Either come up with a handicap rule or play something else. Who gets angry and flips scrabble boards anyway? Isn't that why people learn how to play Go?

flakeloaf fucked around with this message at 17:14 on May 19, 2015

actionjackson
Jan 12, 2003

flakeloaf posted:

That's kind of what I was driving at. Some people genuinely do think it's fun to play people well beneath their own level and stomp them into a fine paste. gently caress those people.

The object of the game is to choose words from the large book of legal words (which you aren't allowed to go riffling through during your turn) and spell them with the letters you have. People who know more of those words are going to have an advantage, so whatever. If you speak in grunts and your opponent got his logodaedalian scout badge at the age of nine, you're going to get pummeled. Either come up with a handicap rule or play something else. Yahtzee and Connect Two are fun.

Well in tournaments they have divisions, based on rating, to account for this kind of thing. Some players like to play those much better than they are though as a learning experience. Even those in the bottom division of a tournament would pummel the vast majority of casual players though.

flakeloaf
Feb 26, 2003

Still better than android clock

actionjackson posted:

Some players like to play those much better than they are though as a learning experience.

The first time I saw someone play one word adjacent to another and rack up a bucket of points for all the two-letter words, I completely gave up on doing well and spent the rest of the game watching what the other guy was doing for amusement. I learned nothing, had fun anyway :)

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FactsAreUseless
Feb 16, 2011

Why would you come into a thread about competitive-level Scrabble and complain that having a wide skill gap between the players makes casual play unfun? That's true for literally every game except actual roll-and-move board games or the card game War.

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