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posted by LaminatorX on Tuesday August 19 2014, @06:37AM   Printer-friendly
from the word-play dept.

Oliver Roeder writes at 538 that for living-room players, Scrabble is a test of vocabularies but for world-class players, it’s about cold memorization and mathematical probabilities which is why top player are often computer programmers or mathematicians, not poets or novelists. Think of the dictionary as a giant rulebook of valid text strings not as a compendium of the beauty and complexity of the English language. A good competitive player will have memorized a sizeable chunk of the 83,667 words that are two letters to eight letters long. Great players will know a lot of the 29,150 nine-letter words as well.

To the uninitiated, a scrabble game played by top players looks like they had played in Martian. Here’s a taste: In a single game in last year’s Nationals, Nigel Richards, the champion of the 2010 National Scrabble Championship, played the following words: zarf (a metal holder for a coffee cup), waddy (to strike with a thick club), hulloed (to hallo, to shout), sajous (a capuchin, a monkey), qi (the vital force in Chinese thought), flyboats (a small, fast boat), trigo (wheat) and threaper (one that threaps, disputes). Richards has a photographic memory and is known for his uncanny gift for constructing impossible words by stringing his letters through tiles already on the board. "He is probably the best Scrabble player in the world at this point," says John D. Williams, Jr.. "He's got the entire dictionary memorized. He's pretty much a Scrabble machine, if such a thing exists." So, really, how does he do it? As Richards said in an interview posted on YouTube, “I’m not sure there is a secret. It’s just a matter of learning the words.” All 178,691 of them.

 
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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by BradTheGeek on Tuesday August 19 2014, @03:33PM

    by BradTheGeek (450) on Tuesday August 19 2014, @03:33PM (#83123)

    However I am a far above average scrabble player. Some pointers to improve your game...

    Learn all the two and three letter words. Period. This will improve your game better than anything. Knowing how to hook onto nearly anything makes a huge difference in being able to make a decent play where others forfeit.

    Play defensively. Try yo keep vowels from aligning next to a letter multiplier. All vowels are worth 1 point. Only consonants are worth more. If you put a vowel next to a letter multiple, one conconant and one vowel can score huge points for the other player. One of the best examples of this is placing an X (8 points) on a triple letter. The following 2 letter x words are good: ox, ex, ax, xi, xu. Just placing the x will get 25 points (8*3) +1 for the vowel. Placing another vowel will to say make ox and xi will get 50+ points. With 2 letters.

    Watch for when the other player opens this type of play up. Either they missed it, really wanted to play what they had, or have plans to use it. The same goes with triple word scores. The best strategy is to not open them unless you have to. If one is already open, do the following (in order or preference), use it, block it, open another. If you open another it give the other person double the opportunity to score, but will leave one open for you to use and score yourself.

    Against non eidetic players, any unusual words in your vocabulary are good. Losing challenges hurts, and once you scare a person two or three times with legit but crazy plays, they are loath to lose another turn to just about any garbage you put on the board.

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  • (Score: 2) by starcraftsicko on Wednesday August 20 2014, @01:11AM

    by starcraftsicko (2821) on Wednesday August 20 2014, @01:11AM (#83323) Journal

    Agreed, all of that.

    When I play, people routinely score 6-7 letter words on me, but for a double letter at most. They mock me for the 2,3, and 4 letter words I play until they realize that I generally outscore them... triple letter, double word, and more.

    Never be afraid to block a triple word if you can't use it right now.

    --
    This post was created with recycled electrons.