M&N Scrabblefest Grand Final Day

Apparently I'm the 'Scrabble Wizard'.

tabula rasa said 3 days ago:

It's on! The Melbourne final will be held in Cobra (upstairs at the Tote) on Thursday 14th with a "kickoff" between 7 & 7:30pm. All those interested are most welcome to attend. Will the newcomer (me) be able to take on the Scrabble wizard? Be there to find out!

Come and watch me play the Melbourne Final of the Mess & Noise '07 Scrabblefest. Win tonight and I'm off to Sydney to play a bloke called Hillsonghoods to win the whole thing.

The pundits hyped and feared me from early on in the two month competition. Admittedly I've had an easy run and yes, I've probably played more scrabs than most people in the comp but I could pick up three U's and four I's in my first go.

Anyway, I've heard this Tabula Rasa bloke has stupidly resilient concentration, and from our negotiations over time and venue it's become apparent he's into boardgames in a big way.

Tote tonight.

There will be a crowd.

My cheersquad won the toss and will be barracking from the Victoria Park end of the Cobra Bar.

Lazy bastards couldn't be arsed making a banner.

73 Sleeps Until Scrabble Gets A Whole Lot Easier

A big bunch of new words become legal for Australian Scrabble players on May 19. Me and me scrabs mates are so excited, we're having a party, stuffing ourselves with ZA (pizza) to celebrate.

Why the party?

Now the only two letter Z word is ZO, for J is JO and F has only FA and FY BUT from May 19 onwards, we'll be able to play ZA, JA and FE!

Other notable inclusions are:

BOI: a boyish lesbian
ZOOT: Finally! I've been arguing for its inclusion for years.
ZEP: a long, zeppelin shaped sandwich
PYREX: a brand name sure, but I'm not complaining
LINUX: to shut the nerds up
ALF: an Australian yobbo
FAA: useful to hook onto AA
EMO: yes, that's right as in the dark clothed and dreary music fan
ONO: a Hawaiian fish
EXO: apparently Aussie slang for excellent
ZOL: a spliff
FIGJAM: yes, that's right
SJOE: now JOE can take an S both ends!

But we do lose some words including: PH, PHS, EMF, HAFIS, POOGYEE, JELLIFORM, WAISTBOAT, PILHORSE, NANNYGHAI, LIVERWING and MUFFETTEE.

Remember, however tempting it may be, using any of the new words before May 19 is like opening your Christmas presents before Christmas Day..... CHEATING!

Scrabble's New World Record: 830!

As you would all know, the Scrabble world is in shock after Massachusetts' Michael Cresta scored a world record 830 in a tournament last week.

While I wouldn't ever doubt the game taking place, as it was an officially sanctioned tournament, how the score mounted seems quite iffy.

According to world Scrabble's #1 writer and commentator (yes, I know but really you gotta read his life changing Scrabs book, Wordfreak) Stefan Fatsis,

the game has been heralded as the anagrammatic equivalent of Wilt Chamberlain's 100-point game in 1962 or Don Larsen's perfect game in the 1956 World Series: a remarkable, wildly aberrational event with potential staying power. Cresta's 830 shattered a 13-year-old record, 770 points, which had been threatened only infrequently.

Here's my quibbles.

Cresta started two bingos (seven letter bonus 50 pointers) behind, 169-0 and then played FLATFISH, a triple triple for 239 points!

Then he passed three out of four goes, mucking about with the Q and the X while his competitor scored two more bingos.

While this was happening, another potential triple triple was being dutifully ignored by both players. I would have closed it.

But what happens? Oh, Cresta sees the triple triple and plays QUIXOTRY for 365 points!

Fatsis makes the point.

Technically, Cresta's strategy was unsound. Fishing for a once-in-a-lifetime play might be understandable in a casual game, where winning is less urgent. But in competitive play—even in a club setting, where there's less on the line than in a rated tournament—exchanging letters three times, as Cresta did, to enhance some combination of Q, U, I, and X is unorthodox at best, suicidal at worst. (The strategically correct move was to dump the cumbersome Q and move on.) In Scrabble, the player who waits for the miracle word usually loses. The implication: Cresta wasn't terribly worried about whether he won or lost.

It could only happen in America.

Why? There were a LOT of passes in the game. Some because in America if you fail on calling a challenge you lose your turn. That doesn't happen here.

Also in America ZA is a word!

My top score for an online game is 621, top tournament score is 447 and the Australian tournament record is Bob Jackman's 689.

Want some scrabble tips? Click here to read some I put together after being pulverized in club scrabble against some of the world's best players.

Obviously Cresta didn't read my tip on getting rid of the Q!

'It's Your Word Against Mine' Says Baseball Bat Scrabble Killer

From OddStuff New Zealand....

An argument during a game of scrabble led to the man being bashed at least 40 times with a baseball bat and stabbed five times in the back, a court has been told.

Brendon Tahau, 26, of Rotorua died after 10 violent minutes.

In the High Court at Rotorua a Rotorua pair admitted killing Mr Tahau. James Wharetakahia Hamiora, 22, unemployed, pleaded guilty to Mr Tahau's murder.

His associate Gabriel John Kingi, who turns 19 next week, pleaded guilty to manslaughter.

The court was told Mr Tahau had visited a friend on August 25 last year and they settled in for a night of scrabble.

Hamiora, Kingi and another man turned up at the house.

When Mr Tahau took exception to the way Hamiora was speaking to his friends, Hamiora held up a bullet and put a cigarette against it saying he was going to shoot a hole through the wall.

Mr Tahau told Hamiora not to disrespect his friend's house and the pair argued.

Hamiora got a silver aluminium baseball bat from his car and began bashing Mr Tahau. Kingi joined in, punching Mr Tahau.

Mr Tahau tried to get away, screaming at them "what is the matter? What is your problem?"

At this stage Hamiora stabbed Mr Tahau in the back at least five times while Kingi continued to punch him and hit him with the bat.

Mr Tahau had numerous injuries to his head, body and limbs and died a short time later as a result of a stab wound to his left lung.

Thanks to Nina, my Strange Shet Heppens In New Zealand Correspondent, for the tip!

My First Scrabble Win

My First Scrabble Win, originally uploaded by glennpeters.

Look what I won at last Sunday's Dandenong Scrabble tournament!

And I won $10.00!!!

Out of the hundreds of games played throughout the day, my word FRITTED was the biggest scoring at 115 points.

I came fourth in my division and shot up over 130 places in the Australian rankings to be the 569th best scrabs player in the country.

You can check out my entire scrabble career statistics here.

What I Know To Help You Win At Scrabble

Get ahead, stay ahead.
Melbourne scrabble guru, Geoff Wright chants these words most games he plays. Even if your opponent plays DOG for 12 points, make it your only mission to play CAT for 14 points.

ALWAYS resist having more than one of the same letter in your rack, ALWAYS.
No exceptions, even if you have two S's. Get rid of one because if you pick up another, it'll take three goes to get rid of them.

Good tiles are like fish. They can go bad.
Hold on to the Q for three moves, waiting to pick up a blank to make a bingo and meanwhile your opponent plays three dumb looking words and has made a 70 point break on you.

Resist the staircase.
When you play little words to stick around the double word score tiles, the board starts to resemble a staircase. This closes the board real quick. If you're behind, it's hard to catch up and if you're ahead it's hard to post your best ever score.

Learn words.
There's quite a few good books out there. Good scrabble buddy, Andrew Fisher wrote a brilliant one called How To Win At Scrabble which is available at yer local bookshop. He also put me on to downloading the fun word game training program, Lexpert.

Make it a house rule to play with the two letter word sheet which comes with the game open for everyone to see. It speeds up play and helps a boring game end before the late movie starts. Here's one if you don't have a copy and here's a big page of other word lists.

Good words to know. QI, QAT, QAID, SUQ, EUOI, KOA, KOI, AA, AE, AIA, REV, TAV, VAV, JO, ZO, AZO, DZO, AZON, ZEK, ZEL.

Click here to read all my scrabble stories. You may learn some more....

Uruguay Down And Now For The World Scrabble Championships

Australia has two players in the top ten after eight rounds of the World Scrabble Championships in London. Melbourne Scrabble Club's (my club!) Andrew Fisher is coming fifth and would be coming second if he didn't lose to clubmate, Naween Fernando who's coming 13th.

At scrabble club I've played many games against Andrew and only once come within 20 points of him. I've played Naween only twice and he beat me by around 60 points each time. Andrew has taught me quite a lot about Scrabble and is a top bloke. I really hope he wins this.

Another Melbourne based player, wunderkind 16 year-old, David Eldar's tall poppy's been cut in his first World Championship. He's coming 74th.

Game highlights, transcripts, commentaries and a webcam can be seen at the World Scrabble Championships website.

Number 710 With A Bullet!

In only a month I have jumped 106 places to be the 710th best Scrabble player in Australia. Yay!

ASPA Rankings List.

The Nightwatchman's Dissapointing Scrabble Tournament Comeback

I made my much awaited comeback to competition Scrabble at the Noturno tournament at the Prince Patrick last night. Didn't do too well with one win and four losses. Some say I may have been rusty after the long break but I put my losses down to laziness and good competition.

Game 1 vs Gillian Kinder
I was thrashed 260-472. Just like Collingwood against Freo last weekend, I was killed as soon as the ball was bounced. The 112 ranked in Australia, Kinder (I'm ranked 814!), started with MEDIATE for 74. I returned serve with PITS for 8 probably to show where the game was already heading. Late in the game she made her own comment on the game, playing SWINDLE for 110 bloody points. This loss put me at the very bottom of the tournament ladder.

Game 2 vs Cheryl Jearam
Another schmozzle, 278-395. At 99 all, I picked up this beautiful rack. RRLUIII. Exchanged 4 tiles and Jearam (ranked 107) NEVER (27 points) looked back. Oh, except when she SLAPPED me for 65 points. I BEAT her for 31 but then her game became NICE (20) and SAUCY (26). Not even a NICER (7) JAB (20) could save me in this game.

Game 3 vs Mohammed Hegazi
My only win, 447-271. Heading into this game Mohammed (ranked 612) was in worse shape than I was. His head was in his hands because he had just been beaten by over 300 points. The guy who beat him got something like 630 points, a schlacking which may go down as one of the year's record scores. Ouch. If there's one thing I've learnt from my Scrabs mentors, Geoff Wright and Andrew Fisher is its okay to kick a bloke when he's down in Scrabble. One night I won an internet game 621-280. One word I played that game was DEGLAZES for 271 points. I came into Scrabble club the following night glowing. Then I played Andrew. He beat me 670-260. Against Mohammed I felt like I could do no wrong. There's nothing WIMPIER (I played for 82 points) than going easy on a bloke.

Game 4 vs Dorothy Barraclough
Dorothy's ranked 403 so I thought this could be a close one. It was for most of the game but she ended up beating me 359-296. Her win came when she played TESTING for 76 points.

Game 5 vs Carol Masciti
I lost 323-342. I should have won this against the 689 ranked lovely lady. In my last go I needed 12 to win the game. I played a speculative EDE for 16. Carol challenged and went out with LION to win the game. As soon as she put her final tiles on the board I saw what I missed. The nearest word to my eyes was ROPE. If I put the D on ROPE instead of playing the phony, EDE, I would have won the game. For the rest of the night I felt like two of the words I played in this game- a GIT (25) and a GOOF (12).

The winner of the tournament was indeed, Andrew Fisher who is later this year representing Australia and of course our great Melbourne Scrabble Club in the 2005 World Championships. Andrew's one of the world's top professional players and for last night's win he earned himself a whopping $20! See, there's money in this game.

For Victorian Scrabble news, competitions, ratings and membership, visit Scrabble Victoria's website.