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FactsAreUseless posted: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. That said obviously this thread is specifically about competitive play anyways, so whatever.
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May 19, 2015 18:24
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Hey, speaking of chess, are there any mind games that go on during your opponent's turn? Shenanigans like wandering away from the table, singing idly, staring at the little clock (is there even a little clock?), clacking your remaining tiles around on your rack, that sort of thing? What's with the gigantic ugly blue tiles that look like the numbers on my grandmother's phone?
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May 19, 2015 18:29
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twodot posted:I think there is a pretty clear divide between games where there is a large skill divide, but a poor player understands what's happening, and where a poor player doesn't. For instance, I'm pretty terrible at chess, but there's no strategy so advanced that I wouldn't think it's legal. Then there's games like Magic where the rules are very complicated and advanced players routinely do things I think are illegal, or tell me what I'm doing is wrong. Scrabble is almost entirely about knowing what's legal better than other people (and rack management and board placement). An advanced Scrabble player is free to player gibberish against me, and I'm basically coin flipping on whether I should challenge or not. If you were playing someone like me I would give you free challenges flakeloaf posted:Hey, speaking of chess, are there any mind games that go on during your opponent's turn? Shenanigans like wandering away from the table, singing idly, staring at the little clock (is there even a little clock?), clacking your remaining tiles around on your rack, that sort of thing? http://protiles.net/ The wooden tiles don't work because you can feel which letter is on each. Also you need a tile that is different on front and back so people can't put one on the board upside down. actionjackson fucked around with this message at 18:44 on May 19, 2015 |
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May 19, 2015 18:34
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FactsAreUseless posted: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. It wouldn't feel like Something Awful if there weren't bloviating dumbasses accusing anyone who enjoys anything they don't of being autistic. There's quotas per thread and stuff twodot posted:I think there is a pretty clear divide between games where there is a large skill divide, but a poor player understands what's happening, and where a poor player doesn't. For instance, I'm pretty terrible at chess, but there's no strategy so advanced that I wouldn't think it's legal. Then there's games like Magic where the rules are very complicated and advanced players routinely do things I think are illegal, or tell me what I'm doing is wrong. Scrabble is almost entirely about knowing what's legal better than other people (and rack management and board placement). An advanced Scrabble player is free to player gibberish against me, and I'm basically coin flipping on whether I should challenge or not. That's funny because as someone who's also terrible at chess that is one game specifically where I have jack poo poo idea what's going on beyond the basic movement rules if I play someone better than me, and I will just get stomped as I have basically no idea what to do or what any of the strategy is. The people mad about Scrabble just seem mad that there are lots of obscure words in the Merriam Webster dictionary
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May 20, 2015 18:07
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qi is a bullshit word. its a loving chinese name, why is this poo poo legal
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May 20, 2015 18:16
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Bitter Mushroom posted:qi is a bullshit word. its a loving chinese name, why is this poo poo legal This isn't a "justify words for me" thread. Please contact Merriam-Webster.
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May 20, 2015 18:17
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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. my house rule is that if you cant explain what the word means, it aint legal. Additionally, I played monopoly with some mega nerds once who had all kinds of extra deals that basically turned it into a 3 hour corporation game where they bought up other players debt. Not played monopoly since
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May 20, 2015 18:21
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No one cares, please stop making GBS threads up my little thread thanks
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May 20, 2015 18:31
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I think you'll find no one cares about competitive scrabble, but they do care about house rules for boardgames
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May 20, 2015 19:25
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I know lots of words but I find that I'm average at best among casual scrabble players. Next time I play I am going to take your advice about leaving a good rack after a play because I literally never thought about that before. Every played boggle? Is there competitive boggle too? A lot of similar pattern recognition going on, but way less contribution of luck, I think, because both players work from the same letters.
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May 20, 2015 20:04
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slap me silly posted:I know lots of words but I find that I'm average at best among casual scrabble players. Next time I play I am going to take your advice about leaving a good rack after a play because I literally never thought about that before. Yeah it's really important and I never thought about it either when I played as a kid. Once in a blue moon I'd get a bingo; now I average a bit over two a game over the long term. I'm not really into boggle, but yes I know some people that are insanely good at it. I don't know if there are tournaments or anything, but there are groups where people get together to play. I would agree that there would be less luck, though there doesn't seem to be any strategy.
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May 20, 2015 20:16
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Are there any other boards for scrabble? Like have you ever tried playing on like a rectangle board or one with the double/triple letter scores in different spots (and do things like this even exist?) Also are you better or worse at words with friends than at scrabble?
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May 20, 2015 22:45
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turbomoose posted:Are there any other boards for scrabble? Like have you ever tried playing on like a rectangle board or one with the double/triple letter scores in different spots (and do things like this even exist?) No, and those boards do exist, words with friends uses that. And speaking of, I don't play that because of said board orientation. The orientation of the board affects strategy.
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May 21, 2015 00:11
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actionjackson posted:No, and those boards do exist, words with friends uses that. And speaking of, I don't play that because of said board orientation. The orientation of the board affects strategy. Sure it affects strategy, but why don't you like that? I'd think it'd be an interesting change of pace/chance to try and adapt your strategy. Or is the thinking more "this wouldn't help me get better at scrabble as played in competitions, so I don't care"? Edit: speaking of strategy, is there any meta-strategy at tournaments? E.g., I will try and win this game by at least x but fewer than y points, so that my next round will be against Bob instead of Alice, because I can do better against Bob. Backing that up a step - how much does playing against different players change the game, and your strategy? Are there more defensive vs. offensive players? Are there broad archetypes? junidog fucked around with this message at 03:38 on May 21, 2015 |
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May 21, 2015 03:32
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junidog posted:Sure it affects strategy, but why don't you like that? I'd think it'd be an interesting change of pace/chance to try and adapt your strategy. Or is the thinking more "this wouldn't help me get better at scrabble as played in competitions, so I don't care"? This is the most interesting thing to me as well. I used to play competitive Magic: the Gathering (if there's any place where it's okay to let that slip it's surely in a competitive Scrabble thread) and I watched Word Wars and honestly the similarities to competitive Magic was uncanny. Especially when the guy with the dreadlocks was complaining to his friend about how his opponent drew both blanks when he drew none and if it had gone any other way he would have won - I must have heard people tell me similar things in exactly the same tone of voice hundreds of times. Do you play any other games at a similar level to Scrabble or know anyone who plays another game at a similar level, and have you ever found similarities in strange places?
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May 21, 2015 15:52
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junidog posted:Sure it affects strategy, but why don't you like that? I'd think it'd be an interesting change of pace/chance to try and adapt your strategy. Or is the thinking more "this wouldn't help me get better at scrabble as played in competitions, so I don't care"? I mean, the only people I play are other tournament players, and they don't really use it either because there are apps where you can play the game on the actual board. Also the lexicon is different to some degree, though I have no idea why. You can't really plan your tournament strategy like that with out some sort of collusion, which is expressly prohibited. There are definitely players that are more offensive than defensive. I wouldn't say I change how I play much personally vs. them. In the larger word source that I use it's harder to "shut down" a board since there are so many hooks you can make. Karmoderm posted:This is the most interesting thing to me as well. I used to play competitive Magic: the Gathering (if there's any place where it's okay to let that slip it's surely in a competitive Scrabble thread) and I watched Word Wars and honestly the similarities to competitive Magic was uncanny. Especially when the guy with the dreadlocks was complaining to his friend about how his opponent drew both blanks when he drew none and if it had gone any other way he would have won - I must have heard people tell me similar things in exactly the same tone of voice hundreds of times. Do you play any other games at a similar level to Scrabble or know anyone who plays another game at a similar level, and have you ever found similarities in strange places? lol that guy in the dredlocks is named Marlon Hill. He bitches about everything.
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May 21, 2015 16:20
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Bitter Mushroom posted:qi is a bullshit word. its a loving chinese name, why is this poo poo legal Bitter Mushroom posted:my house rule is that if you cant explain what the word means, it aint legal. Additionally, I played monopoly with some mega nerds once who had all kinds of extra deals that basically turned it into a 3 hour corporation game where they bought up other players debt. Not played monopoly since Bitter Mushroom posted:I think you'll find no one cares about competitive scrabble, but they do care about house rules for boardgames Scrabble is a fun game. I'm not great at it, but my friends and I had more fun once we picked up QI, XI, XU, JO and QAT (being stuck with those letters forever is not fun). I don't know a whole lot of the other two-letters, aside from the obvious ones people use day-to-day. many johnnys fucked around with this message at 19:49 on May 21, 2015 |
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May 21, 2015 19:46
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quote:Official Scrabble book adds lotsa ridic new words lol, s33med approps  they should prob add numbers so you cn rite betta 4realz  edit: Though at least these new "words" are actually, you know, used by English-speakers. As opposed to "QAJAQ" or "ZA" or "TE" or whatever-the-gently caress. Kaal fucked around with this message at 20:43 on May 21, 2015 |
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May 21, 2015 20:30
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New words allowed in Scrabble
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Kaal posted:lol, s33med approps I've definitely heard people say "a slice of za"
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May 21, 2015 22:10
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actionjackson posted:I've definitely heard people say "a slice of za" They sound today like the people who say "hashtag" out loud will sound in ten years. Do they ever remove words from that dictionary?
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May 21, 2015 23:04
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flakeloaf posted:They sound today like the people who say "hashtag" out loud will sound in ten years. Yeah definitely. I know PH used to be good in the international word source. VIN (wine) used to be good in the American word source.
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May 21, 2015 23:14
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What's the deal with swearing in Scrabble then? Any sweet games you've clinched by crushing them with a tripleword score "FUCKWIT"? Any players with a particular predisposition to rudeness? In your position I'd be mounting psychological word warfare by using insults that obviously pertain to my opponent.
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May 22, 2015 12:18
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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. Yeah that was me, I have no idea why they took out the letter or why it would make a difference since either side could use said letter. It was a universal thing though for every group that played it even semi-regularly.
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May 23, 2015 00:22
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Jeza posted:What's the deal with swearing in Scrabble then? Double points for swears is always a good house rule. 50 point bonus for oval office mandatory. The Scrabble app on my phone doesn't accept any swears which is some bullshit.
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May 25, 2015 19:28
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If a blank tile is played and is ambiguous (two or more letters would form a valid word), how do you keep track of what it actually is? Does this ever come up as a problem?
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May 25, 2015 23:44
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PT6A posted:If a blank tile is played and is ambiguous (two or more letters would form a valid word), how do you keep track of what it actually is? Does this ever come up as a problem? In tournaments it's written or circled on a slip of paper. As to player personalities there is a wide range, from really nice people to overcompetitive assholes.
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May 26, 2015 00:26
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Kaal posted:lol, s33med approps A lot of these slang words would never be used in high-level play and most of the rest would come up so rarely that having them added to the dictionary doesn't make a whole lot of difference. No tournament player is going to be throwing down "bezzy" or "obvs" any time soon, and something like "cakehole" or "twerking" will only get played if the right rack combines with the right hook, which is exceptionally unlikely.
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Jun 14, 2015 17:32
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Have you ever seen Countdown OP? Why don't you go on that and become an octochamp and meet the lovely Rachel Riley instead of a load of fat smelly scrabble men.
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Jun 15, 2015 16:52
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gently caress, I wish America had Countdown. I'd try out for that show SO loving HARD. P.S. Yeah, I'm another tournament scrabble player, but my rating is poo poo (high 1400s) and I almost never get to play anymore so whatever.
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Jul 14, 2015 04:56
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Is ISC the place to play online? The client looks sketch as all hell.
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Jul 14, 2015 15:20
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Startyde posted:Is ISC the place to play online? The client looks sketch as all hell. It does look sketchy, but pretty much every expert who plays at all online is on that server. I personally interact quite a bit with people like Conrad Bassett-Bouchard, current reigning national champion, on there. I've also known CBB since, like, 2004, after we talked about the band Soilwork on the ISC Blue Wher fucked around with this message at 02:50 on Jul 15, 2015 |
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Jul 15, 2015 02:48
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How do you deal with a Z J or Q that you can't immediately score big with? Do you dump a Q to play QI for 11 points rather than keep it around hoping for a better rack? I've never noticed an advantage either way but I'm a casual player.
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Jul 15, 2015 03:20
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Keith Atherton posted:How do you deal with a Z J or Q that you can't immediately score big with? Do you dump a Q to play QI for 11 points rather than keep it around hoping for a better rack? I've never noticed an advantage either way but I'm a casual player. I say get rid of the Q as soon as humanly possible. It's absolutely clunky most of the time!
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Jul 15, 2015 07:09
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Ditch it ASAP. The big points are coming from bingos and you're many times less likely to get one if you've got a Q on your rack.
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Jul 15, 2015 13:58
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Startyde posted:Is ISC the place to play online? The client looks sketch as all hell. Yeah it's pretty hideous though. I don't use it. I play in a club each week though. I also play against a computer program called Quackle. Keith Atherton posted:How do you deal with a Z J or Q that you can't immediately score big with? Do you dump a Q to play QI for 11 points rather than keep it around hoping for a better rack? I've never noticed an advantage either way but I'm a casual player. The Q is the worst individual tile so you should get rid of it asap, unless you have a very specific situation, like there is a favorable imbalance of U's remaining in the pool. The J is somewhat good, the Z is amazing, especially in the international dictionary.
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Jul 15, 2015 16:57
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Do you often see multiple words on your rack, but you decide to choose a word that's less points but more stylish against your opponent. Like "loser" or "terrible" how often does that happen?
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Jul 15, 2015 17:42
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*takes a chomp* posted:Do you often see multiple words on your rack, but you decide to choose a word that's less points but more stylish against your opponent. Like "loser" or "terrible" how often does that happen? No not really. If I play something that's less points than the alternatives it's for rack balance and sometimes defensive purposes.
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Jul 15, 2015 17:58
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actionjackson posted:Yeah it's pretty hideous though. I don't use it. I play in a club each week though. I also play against a computer program called Quackle. I always saw the V as the worst individual tile, since it's not in any 2-letter words so you can't dump it easily. On the other hand, the X is amazing since it's in AX, EX, XI, OX and XU. (These are all with the US dictionary)
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Jul 15, 2015 18:13
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C is my worst letter
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Jul 15, 2015 18:44
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Hadaka Apron posted:I always saw the V as the worst individual tile, since it's not in any 2-letter words so you can't dump it easily. On the other hand, the X is amazing since it's in AX, EX, XI, OX and XU. (These are all with the US dictionary) C suffers from the same problem as V, but at least it's a little more common so it's easier to get rid of.
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Jul 15, 2015 18:45
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