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Scrabble last night
Posted: Thu May 22, 2008 2:57 pm
by plasticene
I had a pretty special game last night at club. I was playing Ira Cohen, the top player in the club and one of the top players in California. I can't improve on club director Alan Stern's account, which he posted to the Yahoo group for tournament Scrabble players. (My friend Cesar posted the game with his comments at
http://www.cross-tables.com/annotated.php?u=1251, if you want to see how it unfolded.)
At Scrabble Club 44 last night we had one of those magic moments experienced many times over through the years here. Ira Cohen was matched with David Whitley, a fast rising, soon-to-be expert-rated player, who first began attending the club in 2007.
With 12 tiles remaining in the bag David, down 265-393, bingoed at 5A with ARSINES front hooking COFFED with the last S for 80 points bringing his total score to 345, still 48 short of Ira's. Sensing he needed to block the open vertical bingo lines newly created by David's bingo Ira placed MAULER at 4A just above ARSINE for a six-letter overlap creating MA, AR, US, LI, EN, RE good for 41 points! Ira's total was now 434 as he emptied the remaining five tiles from the bag.
Now holding AEIORTZ David was still facing an 89 point deficit on a seemingly closed down board. He arranged the suffix -IZE on his rack and decided to take a chance on a triple-triple at A1 with AROMATIZE through the MA just created by Ira's overlap play. The challenge came back acceptable, David earned 230 points plus 26 more from Ira's remaining six tiles including both V's! Final score: David 601, Ira 434!
A quick glance of "Total Scrabble"
http://www.cross-tables.com/download/totalscrabble.pdf didn't yield any record for largest out play including opponent's tiles but perhaps I just overlooked it. It would seem that the total of 256 points would at least be close to a record. Including the bingo in his prior turn David then scored 336 points in the final two plays en route to victory. In any case it was a truly spectacular finish!
Alan Stern
Director, Club 44 Los Angeles
What a rush!
Posted: Thu May 22, 2008 3:03 pm
by christie1111
That is incredible!
You must still be floating!
Congratulations!
Posted: Thu May 22, 2008 3:03 pm
by tanstaafl2
So you play Bingo at the same time you play Scrabble? Wouldn't have thought a game of Bingo would have that much appeal to Scrabble players...
Congrats on what sounds like an impressive success!
Posted: Thu May 22, 2008 3:06 pm
by kayrharris
Wow, I'm impressed!
Congratulations!
Posted: Thu May 22, 2008 3:09 pm
by tlynn78
Gave me goosebumps. Truly. Congratulations!
t.
Posted: Thu May 22, 2008 3:39 pm
by TheConfessor
That sounds very impressive. Congratulations!
Most of my Scrabble experience came at least 30 years ago, but the way we used to play at home, which I thought followed the official printed rules on the box, was to deduct the value of any tiles held by each person after the first person had used all of his tiles. We didn't add the value to the winner. Was that wrong, or have the rules changed?
I guess it's a necessary skill among elite players to use approved words that exist almost nowhere but in the Scrabble dictionary, but for me, that makes it seem less appealing.
Posted: Thu May 22, 2008 3:59 pm
by SportsFan68
Well done!
Congratulations!
Let us know when you hit Expert.
Posted: Thu May 22, 2008 4:02 pm
by SportsFan68
TheConfessor wrote:I guess it's a necessary skill among elite players to use approved words that exist almost nowhere but in the Scrabble dictionary, but for me, that makes it seem less appealing.
I don't mind that part and love winning a game with a regular word that's not normally played.
I won a match with anticline, adding cline to anti on the board.
I got serry challenged once but still lost the match -- he drew the blanks and most of the esses.
Posted: Thu May 22, 2008 4:40 pm
by Ritterskoop
Way to go! Winning word games is fun.
Posted: Thu May 22, 2008 5:26 pm
by plasticene
TheConfessor wrote:That sounds very impressive. Congratulations!
Most of my Scrabble experience came at least 30 years ago, but the way we used to play at home, which I thought followed the official printed rules on the box, was to deduct the value of any tiles held by each person after the first person had used all of his tiles. We didn't add the value to the winner. Was that wrong, or have the rules changed?
I guess it's a necessary skill among elite players to use approved words that exist almost nowhere but in the Scrabble dictionary, but for me, that makes it seem less appealing.
The rules printed on the box haven't changed: the value of each player's unplayed tiles is subtracted from the respective score, and if one player has gone out, that player adds the value of all the unplayed tiles to his or her score. Club and tournament rules are slightly different: if both players have unplayed tiles, the values are subtracted from the respective scores, but if one player goes out, no points get subtracted. Instead,
double the value of the remaining tiles is added to the score of the player who went out.
Everybody has pet peeves about real words unjustly excluded or non-words unreasonably included in the Official Word List, but it's something we all have to learn to live with. Not knowing what every word means (by a long shot) doesn't take the enjoyment out of it for me, and even though learning the meanings isn't the goal of my studying, I'm constantly learning new ones.
I love encountering (or discovering) "Scrabble" words when I travel. Ulu knives and qiviut blankets in Alaska, ohia trees in Hawaii, akee/ackee trees in the Caribbean, jabirus at the Sydney Zoo, agamas and crakes and nyalas and duikers and babirusas at Disney's Animal Kingdom. I just can't get enough of this stuff!
Posted: Fri May 23, 2008 5:00 am
by NellyLunatic1980
A 230-point play! Excellent job, plasticene!
Posted: Fri May 23, 2008 8:36 am
by peacock2121
Congratulations!
What a way to win!
I am loving it!
Posted: Fri May 23, 2008 8:44 am
by nitrah55
What an exciting story! About Scrabble, no less!
Reading it, I'm so...so...aromatized!
Has anyone started doing tournament Scrabble on TV, the way poker's done? There's got to be a market for it.
Posted: Fri May 23, 2008 8:46 am
by gsabc
Very nice! Congratulations on the win and the great report!
Posted: Fri May 23, 2008 9:36 am
by PlacentiaSoccerMom
I loved reading your story! Congratulations!
Posted: Fri May 23, 2008 10:07 am
by NellyLunatic1980
nitrah55 wrote:Has anyone started doing tournament Scrabble on TV, the way poker's done? There's got to be a market for it.
ESPN will throw on a teen Scrabble game every once in a while, but that's about it.