…with Gary Moss

Archive for April, 2010

There are of key life lessons that show up in front of our eyes and/or are blasted into our ears on a regular basis. Unfortunately we are not always ready to see or hear those messages when they appear.

A common thread that weaves its way through many of my blogs is that ‘We only do things for our own reason; . . . for no one else.’ Sometimes it may seem as though we are only taking some action to please another. Wrong! We are primarily seeking their approval or expect some kind of a payoff for our own benefit.

Whether people are conditioned by lessons learned from their mentors or by religious dogma, many people wander through life without a healthy belief in their own abilities and power. Most of those folk settle for life serves them and rationalize away never having achieved the life that they say they want.

The proof is in ‘what is’ all around us. Those people featured on the TV News as ‘Persons Of The Week’ and others as ‘Heros’ got there because we recognize some ‘actions’ that they took.

Most winners of national scrabble tournaments made their way to the Winners’ Circle by some action that they integrated into their lives. There is not a single national scrabble champion who simply paid a fee, walked into the arena, and got lucky. Each winner took some efficient study regimen and employed it for weeks and months, like an olympic athlete training for a marathon run.

If you want to move up in the ranks, you need to get this!

#1  Don’t squander your energy by using inefficient systems that steal your time and energy.

#2  Dismiss old notions you tell yourself about what you can and cannot do.  (Know that you CAN DO anything.)

JFTSOI (Just For The Spell Of It) produces study tools that keep you focused; help you avoid squandering your precious time. Stop studying randomly. Harness your time and energy to produce maximum results. The STEM BOOKMARK, pictured on your right is one in a series of more than 100. They will assist their users to identify and play the most common bingos that appear on racks in almost every game. (Right now you just don’t know those words. The STEM SERIES will help you recognize and remember bingos.) CLICK HERE.

Both approaches of participation, playing and competing, can be fun.

That’s not saying that each of us can enjoy both of these formats equally. As for me, I can’t think of a single game that I enjoy playing without competition being an inviting factor. Even when the game does not require competition, I tend to create it into the event. Working a crossword puzzle or doing a sudoku puzzle is not necessarily a competitive event, but I challenge myself to complete the puzzle, or I time myself to see how quickly I can finish the puzzle. I’m just a competitive sort of guy when it comes to games.

There is a whole other group of people who tell me that they have fun playing scrabble, with friends in home gatherings, where they play with only words that are part of everyday, common language. Those folks have no use for “all those silly two and three letter words” that competitive players utilize. They’d shun on you playing a word that they didn’t recognize. To each his own.

Games teach us skills. Games expand our knowledge. Competitive Scrabble has the power to stimulate our curiosity and expand our word power. Building word power leads us to discover the ways we learn; learning leads us to choosing tools to expand our knowledge quickly and efficiently.

Club and Tournament Scrabble is not your you grandma’s brand of scrabble. It’s the scrabble of Joe Edley, Chuck Armstrong, Mark Landsberg, Rita Norr. It’s the scrabble of Joel Sherman, David Gibson, and David Weigand. (All Champions)

If you want to learn what it takes to go from here to there; from being a casual player to becoming a scrabble mavin, from being a novice who moves up in the ranks to expert . . . . . . check out SCRABBLE 101.

There are many elements that are a part of every scrabble tournament and even though you might say that they are all the ‘same’, they are all so very ‘different’.

The quality of the experience makes the difference. JFTSOI tournaments are different.

I don’t deny that I felt a bit of a letdown, after all my hard work promoting the 20th Annual Orange County, that only 20+ players enrolled to play.

But one lesson that I have learned well over the years is that people do things for their own reasons, not mine. It seemed that so many of the ‘regulars’ whom I approached to play in the event had their own excuse: “it’s Reuben’s Bar Mitzvah”; “my brother is visiting from Minnesota”; “my girlfriend don’t want me to go for the weekend”; “you don’t pay enough prize money”.

Another lesson that I’ve learned is that the players who do come will have a great time as long as they have an opponent to play.

My biggest challenge is working hard to make the number of plays an ‘even’ number, so no player has to sit out a single game with a ‘bye’. Thanks to a new, first time player, Diane Kerner, who signed up on Friday afternoon, that came to be. The next concern of a director, in forming a competitive environment is the grouping and pairing of players, I ended up with a close proximity to perfect; one group of 14 and one group of 12. (Being a 13 Game tournament, the smaller group would have 2 king-of-the-hill rounds in rounds 12 and 13.)

The mix of players was fun too. Most of the players knew each other from meeting at past tournaments and local club play. The ages of players ranged from 7 to 80+. There were past tournament winners and two newbies. Players came from as far south as San Diego, CA. and as far north as Ventura, CA., and there were two players who live right at Laguna Woods Village, the setting for the event in Laguna Woods, CA.

The beginning of every tournament is filled with the hopes and expectations of every player. First time players earn their initial scrabble rating by playing in a sanctioned event. Those players are hoping for some resulting rating number greater that 500 (a raw novice). Other players will see their rating numbers adjust either upwards or downwards in relation to their level of play. (Beat a higher ranked opponent and watch your rating soar; lose to a lesser ranked opponent and watch your rating plummet.) Such is the life of a tournament competitor.

The #1 seed in Division B was Richard Strick from Santa Monica. Richard came out of the gates roaring and never looked back. He held 1st Place from the beginning game to the very end, winning 10 of the 13 games. The youngest player in Division B was Cooper Komatsu, age 7, playing in only his second tournament. One seasoned player shared that while she was playing Cooper she created an opening, purposefully, next to a ‘triple line’. She wanted to see what, if anything, Cooper would do. (If he left it alone she planned to use the ‘triple line’ for herself.) “What happened”, I asked. Then she told me how Cooper bingoed on the triple line and went on to win the game. DUH!

In Division A, the top 4 seeds took full command. They were like a pack of determined wolves, devouring anyone who got in their way. #1 David Pearl; #2 Cesar Del Solar; #3 David Whitley; and #4 Rachel Knapp. They all have many previous tournament wins to their credits. After all the dust settled, the results were so close that we even went back and re-re-verified all the scores of the two contenders. Cesar beat Rachel out by a single point.

During the competition there were several recounts that changed the final scores. This only goes to emphasize how important the ‘exact’ math is determining the ultimate winner. This is a first result like this for me in the more than 250 tournaments that I have directed over the last 20 years.

Click For Complete O.C. Results ……………………….. Click For Infor of 1st Sunday Tournament, May 2

Many people think that there is a single ‘correct’ play. That point of view assumes that any other play is incorrect.

Sorry. Things are not that clear and simple. The complete answer must take into account ‘what if’. And because there are so many variables in the game of scrabble, the best answer may only be a suggestion that the greatest probability is X or Y and therefore Z is the best play. And as soon I tell some player sitting with 7 vowels to exchange 6 tiles, instead of playing off 3 for 22 points, that player exchanges tiles and draws 6 more vowels. (What was the probability of that happening?) And yet, just like the blackjack player, who counts cards, an astute scrabble players can figure out the odds of drawing a specific tile, related to knowing the unseen tiles at any point during the game. (Taught during ‘tracking’ in SCRABBLE 101.)

Yesterday at Club #350 I watched the ends of two different games where the would be winners each lost on the last play of the game. In both cases the eventual losers didn’t use available information to block their opponents’ winning plays. Too often, as players, we are solely focused on offense, scoring points. To be a frequent winning player we must give an equal share of attention to defense.

“The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home.” ~ James Madison

“A Jedi uses the Force for knowledge and defense, never for attack.” ~ Frank Oz

“That’s how you win – pitching and defense.” ~ Derek Jeter

“I always root for the defense. ” ~ Wellington Mara

“In silence – and in self-defense – I figured things out in my own little way.” ~ Loretta Young

WARNING ! ! !

If and when you become the great scrabble player that lurks within you, ordinary players will no longer want to play with you. You may also find it boring to player others who are no longer a challenge to you.

If you finally win the lotto or your idea sells and you become independently wealthy . . . . what then? You could become very bored with all of your new found free time.

If you live to be 110, without some plan for your later years, you may be a very lonely soul having outlived your friends and family.

But you can always count on scrabble being there for you. There will always be more to learn. There will always be more to memorize.

Here is a tease from my 5 Letter ‘Z’ list: ‘hamza’ ‘zamia’ ‘zoeal’ ‘zebec’ ‘zooid’
Get the ‘Z’ list with all 227, the ‘Q’ list of 79, the ‘J’ list of 184, and the ‘X’ list of 209, 5-Letter-Word-Lists on a printable PDF file -or- on a hard copy through the snail mail. CLICK HERE!

It was some time ago, in the early ’70s. I was Headmaster at Bloomfield Nursery School & Kindergarten just northwest of Detroit, Michigan in the suburb of West Bloomfield. We were a private, non-denominational program. It was a time when women were liberating themselves. For many women, it meant developing their own careers. That meant they needed preschool and child care for their youngsters. It was a very busy time for me.

In 1973, my ex-wife and I had 3 children under the age of three. Other than the first hand lessons that I was learning by experience, the only other knowledge I had about kids and their development is what I had learned in books, attending lectures, and some student teaching.

One of the very interesting cases that presented itself in 1973 was of a young three-year-old girl, Julie, who attend on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings. She was always all smiles when our van driver pulled up to her door about 8:30 AM. She’d give her mom a kiss good-bye, buckle up in her seat, and sing songs with all the kids as they drove, picking up others and making their way to school. Julie greeted her teachers with a hug and headed straight to the puzzle rack. She loved to climb the climber, build with blocks, and adorn costumes and play pretend. But when it came to Arts & Crafts, Julie’s mood shifted like Jekyll and Hyde. On her best days she’d sit there quietly with her head down. On most days she’d cry, especially if the teacher insisted that she pick up a crayon or a paint brush and try. This went on day after day.

The fall parent teacher conference came not a day too soon and this behavior was at the top of the list for discussion. The teachers learned that Julie would not do any Arts & Crafts at home either. She liked to read books, listen to music, participate in gymnastics, and help her mother with cooking. And then something very subtle came out. Julie’s dad was an architect who had a studio in his home. His sketches were displayed prominently around the house. After a little detective work, the teachers discovered that this three-year-old had decided that she couldn’t compete with dad, so she wouldn’t draw at all.

I meet too many adults like Julie at BORDERS, ARBYs, and The Neighborhood Cup. They’ll walk up to me filled with enthusiasm for the game of scrabble. They look at the players, engrossed in their games. Then they look at the words on the boards and discover that they don’t know several of the words. And one-two- three, they walk away having made the decision that they can’t play at our level. (More like, they won’t try to play at our level. Some are afraid that they’ll embarrass themselves. . . as if we cared. I play silly things that I think are words. . . all the time.)

Is there something that you’ve avoided doing, by prejudging yourself and your ability?

I know what that’s like; I’ve done that too. I avoided Sudoku puzzles for the longest time, believing that I’d never ‘get it’. I can now do up through level 4 with ease.

There is no need for anyone to miss out on all the fun that exists in the world of competitive scrabble. And you won’t have to go it alone. There are many of us who will be happy to hold your hand along the way.

Learn how and where to get started. Send me an email with your phone number and a good time talk.
jftsoi.moss@gmail.com

If you’ve been reading the scrabble tips in my blogs, you know that I tout the value for serious players to study STEMS. If you are new here, ‘stems’ are sets of letters that possess a high-probability, when grouped with other letters, to create bingos. A bingo is the creation of a word using all 7 tiles from your rack on a single turn (It results in a bonus of 50 points.)

So, the other day I was observing a player at club. The rack was ‘S’ – ‘A’ – ‘T’ – ‘I’ – ‘R’ – ‘E’ + ‘O’. If you’ve read my chirps you may remember that ‘SATIRE’ is the #2 ranked word stem. The player whom I was watching most likely remembered this too. First he moved the tiles around slowly; he made some notes on the side of his score sheet; he squirmed in his chair; he sighed heavily; he moved the tiles around on his rack frantically; he kept glimpsing at his clock, which had ticked off more than 5 minutes on this single turn.
Then, he murmured, “Oh, fudge,” and played ‘site’.

I nearly fainted. I was so angry I wanted to walk over to him and shake him. But, Rule 144.87, section B3 prevents directors from making any physical contact with players within 100 yards of official club locations, playgrounds, and fast food restaurants.

If and when a player chooses to study a stem, it is very important to begin by making a list of the ‘add on’ letters that do not work with that stem.
Example
SATIRE + A = ‘aristae’ ‘asteria’ ‘atresia’
SATIRE + B = ‘baiters’ ‘barites’ ‘rebaits’ ‘terbias’
SATIRE + C = ‘atresic’ ‘cristae’ ‘raciest’ ‘stearic’

And the letters that do not work with SATIRE
are: ‘J’ ‘K’ ‘O’ ‘Q’ ‘U’ ‘X’ ‘Y’ ‘Z’

If the club player had remembered that ‘O’ + SATIRE was not
a bingo rack, he would not have wasted 5+ MINUTES.

What should the player have done instead?

There is not one single answer without knowing a lot more information about the specific game. But from the perspective of salvaging a bingo out this great rack, here are two suggestions:
#1. Play off the ‘O’ and possibly draw a letter that will provide a bingo. (Do not ruin the entire rack by playing ‘site,’ unless the purpose is to be defensive, blocking a vital spot from your opponent’s next play.)
#2 Go to the next level; learn the 8-Letter Stems. SATIRE+?+? These words are played through a letter that is already on the board. If you have SATIRE+O on your rack, here are the possibilities:

SATIRE+O thru a ‘D’ = ‘asteroid’
SATIRE+O thru an ‘H’ = ‘hoariest’
SATIRE+O thru a ‘J’ = ‘jarosite’
SATIRE+O thru an ‘M’= ‘amortise’ ‘atomiser’
SATIRE+O thru an ‘N = ‘notaries’ ‘senorita’
SATIRE+O thru an ‘R = ‘rotaries’
SATIRE+O thru a ‘T’ = ‘toastier’
SATIRE+O thru a ‘U’ = ‘outraise’ ‘sautoire’
SATIRE+O thru a ‘V’ = ‘travoise’ ‘viatores’ ‘votaries’

To learn how to effectively obtain this kind of information and develop a personalized program to increase your word knowledge, check out SCRABBLE 101, my online class, especially designed to help players move up in the ranks.

Today is TAX DAY in the USA. I don’t get it. Didn’t this country get its start as a result of an uprising of its citizens, over being taxed? But I guest mankind, due to a lack of thinkers and problem solvers, keeps falling back on old practices and traditions. The legislature in California is the best example of the blind leading the blind. They have raised the cost of doing business so high, as a result of taxes and regulations, that they have driven many industries (that use to pay California taxes) right out the state.

Some people have developed ‘cryogenics’, freezing away bodies after death, in an attempt to cheat death by coming back at some future time, when science presumably will have the necessary remedy. But for now, instead of being planted in the earth, those believers are suspended indefinitely, in some deep freeze.

Then there is the cruelest joke of all. What was Alfred Butts thinking of when he placed ’9′ i’s into the mix of 100 tiles, for the game of scrabble? I invite you to take a walk with me, at Club #350, near the end of most any game, and look at the tiles remaining on the racks of the players. What you will witness is a plethora of i’s. This is more prevalent among the lesser players. Mavins have paid their dues and already walked that path, as they grew their games in past seasons. Mavins have learned, with the help of tracking and the infusion of word knowledge, how to avoid the racks with two many i’s.

I don’t have any solutions for you when it comes to Death or Taxes.

I can provide a little help when it comes to having too many i’s on your rack. Have a ‘FREE’ list on me. This list includes the words with 2 or more i’s. CLICK HERE

If you see fit and would like to make a donation to JFTSOI to help us continue to provide these blogs and information, Click Here.

I heard it reported this morning, on AM radio news that Susan Boyle said, “If you have values, standards, and talents, looks are not important.” If we had a group photo of the top 100 players in the scrabble ranks, you’d know that she is ‘right on’.

It was further reported that leading Dermatologists, worldwide, have since received a growing number of requests from prospective patients for values, standards, and talent implants.

Early last month in hotels and fine dining establishments in Miami, Florida around the Dermatology Convention, March 4 – 8, dermatologists were overheard discussing the possible blow to their practices, should Boyle’s words ever be released. Some of the leading zit men huddled and projected the possibility of an implanted chip, behind the left ear, that might influence values, standards, and talents. (Sitting in a nearby booth, a group of Apple developers, celebrating the upcoming release of the iPAD, overheard the doctors.)

The gurus from Apple chuckled to themselves as they listened to the seemingly, futuristic proposals of the doctors. However, one dreamer on the Apple team, who had been involved in the construction the ‘scrabble app’, spoke up. He told other members of his team that he believed that it was highly likely that the technology is already available, in the Apple vaults, to construct an implantable ‘scrabble chip’, in humans. Only approval from the USDA is holding up its release.

Not a word has been heard from any of the members of the Apple team since leaving their lunch. Speculators believe that they are holed up, in some secret Apple laboratory, refining their scrabble chip and lobbying for its approval.

Life is often like a series of stacked dominos. Every action stirs some reaction.

Scrabble tournament directors now fear that a very unfair advantage will be held by those with the most money, who opt to implant such a chip.

The speculation leads some to believe that the chip has already been implanted in some. This may account for the super-human-like abilities of some of the past scrabble champions (something like Mark McGuire and steroids.) The entire scrabble tournament world could be jeopardized.

Scrabble tournament directors are rushing to counter the uncertain scrabble chip. They are already seeking inventors who might develop a body scanner to detect scrabble chip implants. One director from New York suggested that a new rule be adopted by NASPA to require tournaments to have separate divisions for any player possessing an implant. Without a detection device however, no one knows how directors would even know, or could fairly group players.

But until all that occurs, this scrabble director can tell you for certain that the best way to build your personal word knowledge and your word power is with WHIZ CARDS and a study regimen.

Invention……………..Inventor

Walking Erect………….Tarzan Erectus
Murder…………………..Cane Ben Adam
Cave Painting………….Schmo Cro-Magnon
Hieroglyphics………….Thebe Tut
Paper…………………….Ts’ai Lun or Emperor Wu
Socks…………………….8th Century B.C. Greeks
Toilet Paper……………China: Tang Dynasty
Printing Press…………Gutenberg
Rock, Paper, Scissors..Japan (1850ish)
Dental Floss……………Levi Spear Parmly
Criss-Cross Words…..Alfred Mosher Butts
(aka SCRABBLE)
Light Alert………………Herbert Weingarten
Protiles…………………..Robert Schoenmann
Custom Boards………..John Cornelius
Whiz Cards…………….Gary Moss
The Internet……………Al Gore
Global Warming………Al Gore
Magic Jack……………..Dan Borislow
iPAD………………………Apple

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ALFRED
‘father of scrabble’
April 13, 1899 – April 4, 1993

All scrabble mavins began at the beginning. Where else?

Many ‘champion’ home scrabble players stop to observe us playing at club, with the notion of becoming instant club players, with the expectation of becoming instant winners because of their success around the kitchen table.

WRONG.

Home players generally know and play words used in common, every day conversation. They know only about 5% of all the words in the dictionary. Club players, on the other hand, work at learning some, to all of the rest, of the dictionary.

When a home player looks at a board at club they may see words on the board that they don’t know. Words like: ‘QI’; ‘ENTASIA’; ‘CWM’; ‘OI’; DHOTI; ‘MBIRA’ and others. The home player’s comment is, “Those aren’t real words.” BUT THEY ARE REAL WORDS.

When playing scrabble in North America, the OWL2 (Official Word List, 2nd Edition) is the complete list of words permitted in sanctioned club and tournament competition. The word list is determined by a committee under the auspices of NASPA (North American Scrabble Players Association).

Many of those newbies, after realizing what they DO NOT KNOW, unfortunately, vanish from the scene. Most are not up to the challenge of learning new things. Most are not prepared to lose many games to season players, while reestablishing their sea legs.

The answer for any new player who wishes to bring themselves up to speed is Simple, but not Easy.

The answer is about developing and using a planned study regimen. For those who enjoy learning new words this can be a fun time. There is always more to learn.

Beginners need to start by learning the 101 2-Letter-Words that are legal to play. Most of you reading this already know most of the words on that list like: ( ad, aw, be, do, it, me, no, to ). And then there are the words you may not know: ( hm, ki, oi, qi, sh, za ). Some of you are thinking, “Those are not real words”. That’s what most people say when they don’t know something. As a wise man once told me, ‘We Don’t Know What We Don’t Know.’

Here’s a link to the 2-Letter-Word-List on my web site. I bet, if you apply yourself, that you can learn all 101 of the 2′s in a week or two. You must learn these words cold, if you want to be a winner at club. These words will allow you to ‘hook’ the words you wish to play onto other words already on the board.

If you want the 2s on WHIZ CARDS (flash cards), they are available from JFTSOI by CLICKING HERE.