SCRABBLE: Learn By Doing
Two people sit down to play a game of scrabble. Player ‘A’ has never played the game before, but has spent the previous year memorizing the OWL2. Player ‘B’ has an IQ of 110 and has been playing a minimum of twice a week at scrabble clubs during the past year.
Who is most likely to win the first game?
In my opinion, Player ‘B’ has the upper hand. Words alone, without the ‘DOING,’ will not win the game.
Who is most likely to have the best winning record after ‘A’ and ‘B’ play weekly over the coming two months? In my opinion, player ‘A’ will enjoy the edge.
I see it all the time. Some newbie, with degrees, MAs & PhDs, up the kazoo, comes to club for the first time, bragging about how they can do the Sunday New York Times Crossword Puzzle, in pen, in about 30 minutes. Then, in their first game, they proceed to score less than 300 points, go over on their clock on time, and never record their opponent’s scores. DUH.
We all learn and improve by DOING. There is no better substitute than experience.
Wait a minute! I hope I am not giving you the impression that player ‘A’ who memorized the OWL2 was just spinning his wheels and wasting his time.
There are some people who have been ‘doing,’ coming to clubs for more than 10 years, who never study word lists. They believe that they can move up in the ranks by playing frequently. Let’s assume that they play in 2 clubs each week, playing 4 games in each session; now lets assume that they play another 6 games each week online. That is a total of 14 games each week. Now lets take the average number of turns per game (17) and multiply times the number of games played (14 x 17 = 238). 238 represents the number of words played each week. (At least 10% of the words played are ‘repeats’ .) So, 238 – 23 = 215, the number of different words played in a week. 215 x 52 weeks = 11,180, the number of words played in a year, if they were all different. But if you ever tracked your words from week to week to week, you’d be amazed that a minimum of 40% of the words are words that you have played in previous weeks (40% is very generous). Subtract 4,472 from 11,180 and we have 6,708.
There are more than 155,000 words in the OWL2. In one year, this average player has played 6,708 words, or only 4.3% of the words therein. Do you call that doing? I don’t.
Most players do actually have lives that transcend the scrabble board. That’s the way it should be. But self deception has never helped anyone improve their lot, be it scrabble or studying for the bar exam.
Spend just the time that one uses to play a single game on line each day (25 minutes) to study 10 new words, and that will add up to familiarizing yourself with 10 x 7 x 52 = 3,640 words in a year. That’s equal to more than half of the words that you might normally play in a year. If you choose those words carefully, beginning with ones that have a high-probability of appearing on your rack, your game results will experience a quantum leap.
•Learn By Doing
•Do More To Learn More
Start with something spicy. Learn all the ‘naughty words’ on the POO LIST; they are in the OWL2, but not in the OSPD4; they are legal to play in club and tournament games. CLICK HERE.