There Are Tricks To Every Trade
When Mary (Margie) Gordon had a game, scoring more than 600 points, last year, you may have thought that she was a ‘national champion’. Well, Margie is special to all of who play at club #350, and that game was a very exciting achievement, but it was the result of many things coming together at the same time: years of playing the game; word knowledge; understanding where to place words to maximize points; knowledge of the tricks of the trade; and a touch of good fortune.
Games in the 600′s aren’t too common, but they do occur at Club #350 and other haunts where serious scrabble players butt heads. One of our occasional visitors at CLub #350 is Mark (Mr. ’770′) Landsberg, who played his 770 game in an NSA sanctioned tournament, earning him a spot in the Guinness Book of Records.
When I play opponents at online sites, where we don’t know one another, and if I am fortunate to have tiles to create uncommon words and/or high scoring plays, the opponent will often accuse me of cheating and simply abort the game. I find that very frustrating.
The truth is, all players can improve their game and most people have the ability to learn and employ the ‘tricks of the trade’ to achieve greater success and winning.
The question is. . . Is it your priority? Are you willing to devote the time and energy to get yourself from here to there?
For most of the last 20 years I have been a sort of Johnny Appleseed for scrabble. I have created clubs and tournaments in more than 10 states, primarily in Michigan and now in California. As a trained educator, I have developed learning tools and an online class, Scrabble 101, to teach others The Secrets of Winning at Scrabble (available as an ebook.)
http://web.mac.com/jftsoi/www.wordgifts.net
If you want to learn the secrets of stems, hooks, tracking, and more . . . . . Contact me. We can get you started on the road to becoming a more frequent winner by tomorrow.
WARNING ! ! Once you become really good, other lesser players won’t want to play with you, for the dread of losing.