…with Gary Moss

Archive for January, 2010

It’s not a pretty sight but it’s a necessary step if you want to enjoy a roast goose in plum and apple sauce. The finished presentation looks so much more appetizing and causes mouths to salivate. But there were a lot of steps and a lot of preparation that needed to occur to achieve the ends. Similarly, there are many step to go through as you prepare your scrabble feast. Learning the words and the basic strategies is a lot like plucking feathers. Without going through this step, you’ll always be a kitchen table scrabble player.
The chef learns about seasonings and stuffings; there are tools that make the job easier like proper knives, the roasting pan, and even the type of oven with the proper settings. If asked, a chef may tell us stories about the first time he cooked a goose and subsequent times when he improved on his techniques and recipes.

The competitive scrabble player learns about the words, the use of hot spots to earn premium points, hooks, bingos, and tracking. She learns about tools that make her job easier like WHIZ CARDS, The Franklin, Zyzzyva, and Quackle. If asked, the seasoned player could tell you stories of the thrill of victory and the agony of defeats.

Be it culinary arts, scrabble, or some other pursuit, there is a process, there are steps and stages, time and practice are required for mastery.

If you have not put in your time, if you have not been properly schooled and prepared, when you attend your first scrabble competition, I can guarantee you that your goose will be cooked.

SCRABBLE 101 an online class.

If you’ve played a bit of scrabble, you know the situation and the frustration that comes with it when all you can draw are vowels, or all you can draw are consonants. Why is that? It seems sooooo unfair. It usually occurs when you are playing against a stronger player, when you could use a little advantage.

Just know that most players experience these kind of happenings.

Some believers of Karma know that it is payback for all those naughty and uncaring acts that you were party to in your past.

Mathematicians know that it is just part of randomness that exists in our universe; there’s no avoiding it.

I neither believe in Karma or am willing to just sit back and suffer the ravages that come out of the tile bag without a fight. I am the kind who would never just lay down and die or simply pray. I would do something. Here are ’7′ things to do if and when these tile dilemmas occur.

7. Draw with the ‘other hand’.

6. Walk around your chair ’7′ times before drawing the next tile.

5. Shake the bag for the full 20 seconds permitted by rule, and draw from different parts within the bag.

4. Employ a surrogate tile picker.

3. Call for the director, delaying the game, allowing the Earth to turn a little more, to alter the alignment of the Universe.

2. Quit scrabble and take up checkers instead.

1. Cast a ‘SPELL’.

- or -

Order a list from me and do a little studying.
Heavy With Vowels
Heavy With Consonants
CLICK HERE

Remember that idyllic week when you woke up every morning feeling rested; the air smelled so fresh; the sun shone so brightly; the gentle warm breezes felt so delicious as they caressed your skin?

Today, in paradise, it is a whole other story. We’re on storm watch. There are a series of storms coming in from the Pacific that will wash over southern California. (Remember the lyrics? “It never rains in California . . . . . it pours, man it pours.”) Some of the lookie-loos who are headed toward the ocean, to see the monster waves, will ignore all the warnings, wander up close, to get a better look, and be swept away by an errant wave. A surfer or three will give up their lives to an undertow. Some innocents, who built their dream house in a special location, especially for the view, will watch their home become buried under a sea of mud, washing down the mountains, due to the recent fires.

Remember that night at scrabble club a few weeks ago? You were undefeated; you had your highest 4 game series for the year, enjoyed a triple/triple, and played 10 bingos during the evening.

What has happened to your game? Last week at club you lost all your games; you suffered a humilliating loss to the lowest ranked player in the club; you could barely break 300.

When I lived in Michigan I remember something that people always said. “If you don’t like today’s weather, just wait a day.” That same saying can apply to so many things in so many places.

Life has its cycles. Geologists know it by looking at rock stratification. Stock Market analysts know it by watching the trends. Historians know it by watchings similar events repeat themselves centuries apart.

And yet there are those who refute it, steadfast to their stubborn blindness Creationists deny it. Al Gore actually thinks that Man influences climate change. And those people who live at the edge of Seal Beach, what can be their rationale?

From what I have learned in life, I offer this advice to serious scrabble players:

Learn the words, learn the strategies, learn the rules, and learn patience. Be ready to pounce when the world turns and the cycle is favorable.

To prepare yourself efficiently, consider the online class: SCRABBLE 101.

compromise |ˈkämprəˌmīz| noun
An agreement or a settlement of a dispute that is reached by each side making concessions : an ability to listen to two sides in a dispute, and devise a compromise acceptable to both | the secret of a happy marriage is compromise.
• a middle state between conflicting opinions or actions reached by mutual concession or modification

Any of you who were around in the year 1850 may well remember the election which was really about the future of slavery and the Union. However, if you listened to the rhetoric of the primary candidates, the Whig Party’s, General Zachary Taylor and the Democratic nominee, Lewis Cass, there was hardly a word spoken on the real issues. The arguments on this volatile issue, was instead taken up in the Congress, with relation to new states being admitted into the Union. There were diehard believers on both sides of the issue. Some would personally rather see the Union crumble, rather than compromise. But compromise they did, for the time being.
• California was admitted as a free state;
• New Mexico and Utah were organized without restrictions on slavery;
• Texas, also unrestricted as to slavery, had its boundaries set and received $10M for the land that would become New Mexico;
• The slave trade (but not slavery itself) was abolished in the District Of Columbia;
• A new Fugitive Slave Act provided federal jurisdiction to assist slave owners in the recovery of escaped slaves.
Any of you who were around in the 1990s may well remember the dictionary disputes and the compromise. Since the Scrabble Trademark was and is owned by HASBRO, the voice of the then NSA membership was heard, but had no power in the ultimate decission. Most players defended words as words and pressed for all words to be included in the Official Scrabble Dictionary. Advocates for ‘political correctness’ made a list of words that they considered to be ‘NAUGHTY’ and lobbied for their ouster from the dictionary. The non- compromise resulted in the printing of 2 separate items. The OWL2 seen on the left is the ‘Official Word List’, produced and sold by WORDGEAR, a subsidery of NSA, includes the ‘naughty words’. Those words are legal to play at clubs and tournaments sanctioned by NASPA. The OWL2 is not sold in book stores. I will sell you one; CLICK HERE.
The OSPD4, Official Scrabble Players Dictionary, is published by Merriam Webster and sold in book stores. The words therein are used in school competitions. Thanks to the politically correct individuals, the ‘F’ word, the ‘N’ word, the “MF’ word, the ‘S’ word and 140 other words no longer exist. And accord to the president of Iran, the Holocost didn’t happen either. Now I feel much better.
And lastly, hats off to all those personal compromises that enable players to slip away from their significant others, in order to fit in their scrabble fix.

If you know the Official Rules of Scrabble, then you know that proper nouns are not acceptable. With that being said, it is a little more complicated than that. You see, some words have more than a single meaning/definition. ‘Gloria’ is a common girl’s name; ‘gloria’ is a noun defined in the OWL2 as ‘a halo’.

Okay, but there really aren’t that many names that have a second meaning, right? How many do you think there are? 10? 35? 75? 150?

Would you believe that there are somewhere in the neighborhood of 650 words that are also names. Here are a few of them.

I have prepared the list in two forms. If you want the list online, JFTSOI is prepared to send it to you in a PDF format. If you’d prefer having a laminated list, printed on card stock, that is available too. To see the costs of my lists, CLICK HERE.

Some people will simply go for it and create the list on their own. Go for it.

As a scrabble club director, because we play One-On-One at club, I often sit out when the number of players is odd. When I sit out, in order to amuse myself, I walk around the players and peek over their shoulders at their racks.

(It is always easier to see a good or great play on someone else’s rack, than on your own.)

But the thing that pains me most is when one of the long term club players has a rack like:

I watch them move the tiles around, looking for their best play. Even though ‘coffee-housing’ is not proper etiquette, the player may utter, “I know that there is something here.”

(If they had been paying even the slightest bit of attention to my preaching over the years, they would see that they have a ‘SATINE+?’ rack. They would know that there are ’69′ 7-Letter-Words in this set of letters.

Then, after 3 – 4 minutes running off of their clock, they play:

They use their BLANK for an ‘R’ and earn 18 – 22 points. I run for a ‘barf bag’, trying not to be conspicuously distraught.

What were they thinking? Obviously, they were not thinking. Here is the list of bingos that they had on their rack. Even if they didn’t know some of the 69 words, there are surely others that should have jumped out and bitten them in the behind:

ENTASIA, TAENIAS, BANTIES, BASINET, ACETINS, CINEAST, DESTAIN, DETAINS, INSTEAD, NIDATES,
STAINED, ETESIAN, FAINEST, EASTING, EATINGS, INGATES, INGESTA, SEATING, TEASING, SHEITAN, STHENIA, ISATINE, INTAKES, ELASTIN, ENTAILS, NAILSET, SALIENT, SALTINE, SLAINTE, TENAILS, ETAMINS, INMATES, TAMEINS, INANEST, STANINE, ATONIES, PANTIES, PATINES, SAPIENT, SPINATE, ANESTRI, ANTSIER, NASTIER, RATINES, RETAINS, RETINAS, RETSINA, STAINER, STEARIN, ENTASIS, NASTIES, SEITANS, SESTINA, TANSIES, TISANES, INSTATE, SATINET, AUNTIES, SINUATE, NAIVEST, NATIVES, VAINEST, TAWNIES, WANIEST, ANTISEX, SEXTAIN, ZANIEST, SAINTED, ZEATINS

New club players usually do not think in these terms when they first begin to compete. But once a player is told the secret of how to achieve higher scores, it is incumbent on them to digest the information and put it into practice.

Use Some Of The Right Words.

The Man Is Richest Whose Pleasures Are Cheapest.
~ Henry David Thoreau

Therefore, scrabble enthusiasts must be the richest people in the world.

Give me an enthusiastic opponent, a scrabble set and some paper to keep score upon and I’m in Nirvana. Occasional ecstasy overwhelms me when I identify a bingo on my rack that plays on the board. Playing in proximity to a restroom and a food source makes it all the better. I can be in most any major city on business or vacation and find a group of willing strangers to play a game with me at their local club. If I ever find myself suffering from a lonely night, a computer and the internet can bring an array of online players into my living room to chase away my cares.

Woe to the golfers who require links and clubs; always risking the loss of costly golfballs; always dependent upon Mother Nature’s elements.

Woe to the downhill skier who requires costly runners and white powder; at the verge of extinction due to ‘global warming’ (reference Al Gore).

Woe to the theater goer who is furloughed or terminated from their job. They may never be able to afford the price of an orchestra seat again.

Hail to the scrabble player who can play at clubs for fees as low as $2 – $12 for a 4 game session.

Hail to the scrabble players who can challenge themselves online all day and night, avoiding the inane servings on commercial TV.

Hail to the scrabble players, who through their usage on the board, keep alive words like crwth, duumvir, and unununium.

Considering all the money I’ve saved, I think I’m going out this afternoon to check out Denzel Washington in his new movie, ‘The Book Of Eli’.

“We’re gonna have a good time THEN.”

That is one of the lines from Harry Chapin’s song, Cat’s In The Cradle. Bottom line, for many of us, THEN never comes or comes way too late after we’ve missed a whole lot.

And yet, it’s not as though the time between ‘then’ and ‘now’ was simply void. We chose to fill it with other things that seemed so more important at the time. And maybe those other things were our priority way back when. We did choose to do them and spend our time that way instead of some other alternative ways.

We all are the sum total of our experiences and our choices. There’s no going back. Time travels in one direction, as far as we know. Maybe there are time machines that allow redoes. We see them in science fiction. (I remember when I was 6 years old, in 1948, when Captain Video could talk to others by speaking into his wristwatch; unimaginable; who were they kidding? only science fiction.)

I meet people who find me on the internet and call me, telling me that they are interested in playing club scrabble. Many of them tell me that “I’ll do it THEN”: “I’ll begin attending: “When I am ready” or “When I learn the 2-Letter-Words” or “Next week.” 99% of them never appear. 99% of them are hit by the streetcar that runs down the center of the 405 Freeway. (You get the point.)

Life can work that way. We rarely do anything we put off until THEN. Years’ ago, a cousin-in-law and her husband were hard working school teachers. They saved every extra penny, lived very frugally, worked side jobs, and denied themselves vacations and the frills. They dreamt of retirement when they would purchase a luxury motorhome and travel from sea to shining sea. Before their work life reached retirement, at age 48, my cousin Nori developed breast cancer and died soon thereafter. She never got to THEN.

I’ve had my share of THENs. But now I work hard at not putting things off. The problem for living on this other side of the coin is that many times there are not enough hours in the day. Every day is filled with so many thoughts and ideas; every day offers opportunities to choose from so many different projects. When I find myself excited by an idea, I jump into the doing of it. When I am into a project I become very impatient, staying up late nights and rising up early each morning, working, working toward completion.

Currently I am consumed by ‘CONSOGRAMS’. My friend and Club #350 member, Amnon Meyers, uses this study method successfully. This learning system is based on learning words in relation to the family of consonants in each word. As I am developing learning tools for myself and others to use with this approach; each question solved begs another question. To date I’ve worked only a week’s worth of days and am only up to ‘G’. I know that the stopper that leads to incompletions, for me and many others, is setting the project down and thinking, “I’ll get back to it THEN.” So, I’ll keep on keeping on until the project is finished. Watch for a finished project in about 30 days.

What are you putting off until THEN?

BINGO – Has nothing at all to do with the game of ‘Bingo’. When playing Scrabble, a bingo is the action of playing all 7 (seven) tiles from your rack on a single turn, resulting in earning a 50 (fifty) point bonus score.

DOUBLE/DOUBLE – Is a word played on a single turn that covers two DWS (double word score) squares. The word played, need not use a specific number of tiles from your rack. The word played may incorporate tiles that were already on the board, between the two DWS spaces. The play earns 4 (four) times the face value of the double/double plus any additional words created with hooks. If 7 tiles were used from the players’ rack, a 50 point bonus is rewarded too.

TRIPLE/TRIPLE – Is a word played on a single turn that covers two TWS (triple word score) squares. The word played, need not use a specific number of tiles from your rack. The word played may incorporate tiles that were already on the board, between the two TWS spaces. The play earns 9 (nine) times the face value of the triple/triple plus any additional words created with hooks. If 7 tiles were used from the players’ rack, a 50 point bonus is rewarded too.

HOOK – A hook is a single letter, added to a word that already appears on the board. The most common hook played is usually the ‘S’. New players need to learn that every letter in the alphabet can be used as a hook with certain words. (The word ‘onetime’ is on the board. Does it take any hook? No, the word ‘onetimes’ is not a legal word. But, ‘zonetime’ is a legal word.) Some people refer to all additions as ‘hooks’. That is not precise. The addition of ‘re’ to ‘place’ forming ‘replace’ is not an example of hooking.

EXTENSIONS – Adding ‘re’ or ‘ing’ or ‘ed’ or ‘non’ is the act of adding an extension. Extensions are very valuable when used thoughtfully. When you think about extensions, they will influence where you place words on the board. (One player opens the game with the word ‘THINK’ and plays it horizontally with the ‘K’ on the center square, for 26 points. Another player puts it horizontally with the ‘T’ over the center star and the ‘K’ on a DLS (double-letter-score), earning 34 points. In the second scenario, the opponent adds the extension ‘ing’, making the word ‘THINKING’ and extending it to the TWS (triple-word-score), earning 48 points. Ooops!

All of these topics and MORE are taught in my online class, SCRABBLE 101 and featured in my full length DVD, SCRABBALUTION.

Become an even better player, starting today.

No, I don’t mean tacky; I said ‘TRACKIE’.

You may not know what I mean when I refer to tracking and scrabble in the same sentence. But just because you don’t know about tracking, don’t judge me to be wrong before hearing me out.

Did you know that the best players of the game of scrabble are math whizzes? Or are you one of the people who thinks that the game is all about words? Stop and think again. Scrabble has a given set of 100 tiles; a geometric board with patterned hot spots; always 12 E’s, 9 I’s, etc.

The official scrabble rules permit a player to bring a ‘tracking sheet’ to the table (see on right). As players place words onto the board, a player may cross off letters on the tracking sheet that correspond to the letters on the board, thereby knowing at a glance, which tiles are still in the tile bag or on the opponent’s tile rack.

Those who are mathematically inclined, when seeing the tiles remaining on the tracking sheet, can often predict whether it might be a good time to exchange tiles – or – which tile/tiles to play off and obtain a favorable draw, when replenishing tiles.

Tracking is one of secrets of the champions that I expound upon in my online class, Scrabble 101.