…with Gary Moss

I am one of millions of scrabble enthusiasts who enjoy playing all day, all night. You might think that with directing 3 scrabble clubs each week, directing a monthly scrabble tournament every month, and then attending other scrabble clubs in my area, I would have had my fill. But, not exactly. Late in the evening, after I have written the next day’s scrabble blog and after I have updated scrabble club stats and my web site, I enjoy going online and playing some more scrabble.

It is always fun to go online and find some player I know. I’ve traveled around the USA and been part of the scrabble scene for more than 20 years, so I know a lot of players out there. Meeting new players can be fun too. I enjoy it when some unknown opponent chats and tells me where he/she lives. I’ve played individuals from every continent, except Antarctica.

The part of playing online that I do not enjoy are the JERKS. You never really know who they are; players are concealed behind their ‘screen names’. I assume that most are relative newbies and younger males from the tone of their expletives. They generally own a very limited vocabulary with the most common and trite words in the dictionary. They also are unable to imagine that others have the ability to know and recall a volume of words without the aid of a dictionary at hand.

I remember the day after I had learned at club that the word ‘woven’ takes an ‘s’ and played it online. It sent my online opponent into a rant, accusing me of being an ‘anagrammer’. An ‘anagrammer’ in this sense is someone who uses an electronic dictionary to find their next play. God forbid I should play a bingo against one of these JERKS. Usually they’ll quit. Most know some tricks of how to ruin your evening by jamming the system, preventing you from immediately choosing a next opponent. But, that’s part of the cost of playing unknown quantities. Don’t get me wrong, there are enough positive experiences to override the negatives.

I refuse to ‘dumb down’ my game for the sake of the JERKS. I always play to win. That requires that I continually review the words I know and continue to add to my knowledge. The JERKS are not reading this blog today. I frequently share information to assist scrabble players in building their word knowledge in the most efficient ways. Today’s reminder is that some letters and some words have a higher probability of showing up on your rack; therefore, to play more bingos, those are the words to learn.

No need to reinvent the wheel. Scrabble players in past years discovered the secret and created a system called ‘STEMS’. I have taken this information and put it on BOOKMARKS and WHIZ CARDS. All you have to do is devote a little, regularly scheduled study time.