Scrabble Offers Many Levels Of Play Within The Game
Most of us scrabble players have our feet planted firmly on the ground and find ourselves whining from time to time about TOO MANY VOWELS or NOWHERE TO PLAY OUR BINGO ON THE BOARD.
The first time that I was exposed to the ‘UPPER CRUST’ was when I was a raw novice. I had signed up to play in one of my first tournaments in Cleves, Ohio, between Cincinnati and Indianapolis. I was coming from Detroit and sought out others to share the ride. I found myself in a car with four of the elite players. The conversation during the five hour ride was bewildering for a novice. It was primarily about 7 and 8 letter words that ended with the letter ‘U’.
When you listen to the EXPERT SCRABBLE PLAYERS complain, it is almost like listening to people speaking in tongues, minimally, like people speaking an entire other language.
I was privy to receiving the post below, on a scrabble chat network. Zev Kaufman is a 1752 rated player, from Montreal, Canada. Robin Pollack Daniel hales from Toronto, Canada and is one of the highest ranked women players in the world, at 1885.
Zev writes:
“For some reason, which I can’t explain, I was not feeling well Monday morning. I was queasy and had trouble concentrating. I was playing Robin in round 10 at Dayton . She had bingoed with DEGREED for 82 to go up 223 – 128. The last D landed in the triple- triple lane at L15. I had a blank and spend some time looking for a nine-timer but didn’t
find any, so I made another play. Later I ended up bingoing with both blanks for a pedestrian 70 pts. . Even after another 74 pt baby bingo which emptied the bag , I lost the endgame when I picked AADGGRV versus her CEIRTTU with her to play. 
She went out in two to win 438 – 409.
Immediately after the game I wondered if I had missed a triple – triple. She had pulled out her laptop to quackle herplays – so I asked her to check my rack to see if I had missed anything. A second after I told her my tiles – AEILOX? -I say , ” EXOr(D)IAL ! – how the hell did I miss that ?! I even have an anamonic for DARIOLE + ? = TAXI GLOVES .” Instead of the 31 pts I got for OX , I could have had 185 for EXOrDIAL, which would have put me up by 90 – and the heavy favourite to win. I was very upset with myself for missing a relatively easy find . It was bugging me the entire tourney ( apologies to my roommate Tony Leah who had to put up with my moaning ) so when I got home last night , the first game I quackled was this one to see if I could have squeaked out a win . That is when I discovered that I had given Robin the wrong rack! When she played DEGREED , my rack was actually AIMTXY? , and that was the rack I had spend a while looking for a triple-triple ! There was none, She then played 15g WOOFE(D) for 39 killing the lane. ( Those who know me on ISC as zevwolf , should find this quite ironic 
My next rack was the one I had mistakenly asked her to check – AEILOX?.There was no possibility for a ninetimer anymore – in fact – there were no playable bingo at all on that turn.
I had been torturing myself for 5 days for nothing – DUH! I guess you might say the moral of the story is that one should be more careful when choosing a rack to examine
WARNING: DON’T LET THIS HAPPEN TO YOU !
”
By the way, just in case you can’t sleep tonight and want a word list to study. . . . There are twenty-one 8 Letter Words in the OWL2 that end with the letter ‘U’. They are:
ABOIDEAU; ABOITEAU; BERIMBAU; CARCAJOU; COUMAROU; FLAMBEAU; FROUFROU; HAUSFRAU; JIUJITSU; JIUJUTSU; KABELJOU; KEIRETSU; KINKAJOU; NUNCHAKU; PIRARUCU; PRIEDIEU; ROUSSEAU; TIRAMISU; VERMOULU; WILLIWAU and ZAIBATSU.
Now go study your 2′s.