Archive for May, 2010
SCRABBLE: A Side Game
Playing Scrabble is a joy in itself and yet some scrabble club directors, like myself, attempt to create even more fun and competition within each session by organizing mini competitions. Sometimes players might compete for the highest scoring word played during the session or the highest scoring game. Some directors have taken it even further by manufacturing competition-categories for each game played. I have been doing the latter for many years.
Each category applies to a specific game. Game #1 might be for the highest scoring non-bingo; game #2 might be for the highest scoring word that relates to basketball. If the latter, the director takes on the role of word judge in relation to the submissions. If one player submits the word ‘balls’ and another submits the word ‘foul’ they might both have the same number of points and they both fit the category. The director must decide upon the winner. In past years I gave away lotto scratch-off tickets to the winners of each designated category. Unfortunately, most scratch-off tickets are losers. It is not any fun to win, only to lose. So, as an alternative, for most of this past year, I have been giving each category winner an entry ticket to a Jackpot Drawing. Instead of purchasing scratch-off tickets at $1 each, I put all those dollar bills into a Jackpot. Then once each month we hold a drawing. The person whose ticket is drawn wins the entire Jackpot for the month, usually amounting to about $40. During the first 9 months of doing things this way there have been 9 different winners. And I think this system levels the playing field so that all players, regardless of their rating, have a chance to become a Jackpot winner.
For the past 10 years I have been conducting an annual in-house tournament to determine a club Champion. The Club #350 Championship has been in the form of an 8-game, modified-swiss-pairing event, held on the two consecutive Thursdays at the beginning of June. This is an unrated tournament so as to allow club members who are not members of NASPA to compete. The winner of this tournament gets (1) bragging rights, (2) FREE club play for an entire year (Value of $360), and (3) custody of the club trophy with their name added to the trophy.
To play in the CLUB #350 Tournament all that is required is that you show up to play and preregister by paying the $10 entry fee. You can sign up as late as 4:30PM on June 3. The competition begins at 5:00PM. All official rules and word lists of NASPA will be in effect. I, Gary Moss, will be the tournament director. All word judging will be done by computer, using the Word Judge program on Zyzzyva. (For Location, CLICK HERE.)
SCRABBLE: Planning Ahead
It’s never too early to make plans, especially for travel. And with that said, I’ll admit that my style of living, in the now, gets in the way of me making many plans for future events. I do schedule my clubs and tournaments as much as a year in advance. There are locations to reserve, tournaments to register with NASPA, and promos to publish. Whenever travel is a part of the equation, timely plans and reservations can save hundreds of dollars.
This week I received the first official enrollment for my 2-Day WINTER HOLIDAY CLASSIC Scrabble Tournament, December 18-19, 2010. That prompted me to think about promotions. Many times I do all the work of setting up events only to end up with only average turnouts. I know from feedback of those in attendance that the events were well planned and enjoyable. The only reason that more people don’t attend some of my events is for my lack of advertising and promotion.
If you haven’t been to a JFTSOI scrabble event, you have missed some really good times and great competitions. Please come to more of these event in the future.
We create the scrabble scene for one another by merely being there.
Many of you reading my blogs live in clime that are much cooler than sunny California. What better place to go for a scrabble event than southern California. Be it during the snowy months for our northern neighbors or the summer months near the ocean for our friends in parched desert communities, Laguna Woods offer some of the best weather and attractions on the planet (in addition to scrabble).
I have put together some scrabble packages including, club play, tournament play, local lodging, and local attractions. CLICK HERE.
Some possible components of your scrabble vacation with us: play scrabble daily, Saturday thru Thursday at different local scrabble clubs; take a One-To-One scrabble class on the topic of your choosing; enjoy a garden room at The Laguna Hills Lodge; choose from attractions like Disneyland, Laguna Beach, Master’s Of The Arts, The California Angles (baseball), The Anaheim Ducks (hockey), Sea World, shows in Hollywood, attractions of San Diego, and more . . .
Plan ahead and make your reservations today. Contact me asap and I will assist you.
SCRABBLE: The Value Of Things
When is ‘twenty’ worth 32 or ‘fifteen’ worth 84? When counting your score playing scrabble, silly. Seasoned players understand that the placement of words onto the scrabble board can make a definite difference in the ultimate number of points that any given word can score.
Think of the 15 x 15 square board as a grid with an X axis (horizontal) and a Y axis (vertical). We can identify each of the 225 squares by name, using the X and Y axes. The square in the upper left hand corner would be A1; going across the top would be B1, C1, D1, etc.
The center square, with the star is H8. To make ‘fifteen’ worth 84 points, assuming that it was the first play of the game, the word would be played horizontally, beginning at D8. (The first play of the game must be place over the center square (H8), and therefore earns double points.
An unexperienced player might have the exact same rack of seven tiles. He/she would take a look at the combination of EEFFINT and play ‘fit’ or ‘feet’ or ‘teen’. They would most likely place the first letter of their word on the square with the star. They would score 12, 14, or 8 points, respectively.
What a difference; it all begins with one’s trained perspective and one’s expectation.
An aside: The North Hills Middle School recently conducted its annual fund raising drive to support the Art and Music Departments. The goal was a mile of dimes. Various events from car washes to bake sales to a carnival were a part of the drive. Collections at each of the events was made in dimes. A sub committee of trustworthy honor students were appointed to count the coins, wrap the coins, and deposit the coins into an account at the local bank. The treasurer of the student council, Tommy Singleton, was made chairperson of the sub committee. Tommy wanted this year’s event to be very successful; his sister was going to enter the school in the fall and she planned to be a member of the school choir. Tommy had a bit of knowledge about numismatics and imagined the possibility of finding some dimes in the mix that were much more valuable than just 10 cents. He coaxed and cajoled the members of his committee to be on the lookout for certain coins as they counted and wrapped the piles of dimes. On the first day in the counting house, even though the vast majority of coins were only worth 10 cents each, 6 mercury dimes were discovered with collector values of $8 to $27 each. The added value would have be missed had it not been for a different perspective.
Once a player ‘gets it’ that player begins to look at words and the board differently. If this blog impressed you, you might start looking more carefully at the coins that are in your pocket or in your purse.
Scrabble players who use my stem/bookmarks as a study tool are quick to give me a call when all of a sudden they ‘get it’. You can ‘get it’ too. But first you have to get it. CLICK HERE!
SCRABBLE: It’s A Puzzle To Some
What do you conjure up in your mind’s eye when you hear or see the word ‘SCRABBLE’?
Some will drift into their memories to past holiday times with family and friends, gathered around the kitchen table, playing a single game that could last the whole day long.
Some think of it being a game that is only for brainiacs and nerds, requiring volumes of knowledge.
Teachers may see an opportunity for teaching word and math lessons, in a fun environment.
With the introduction of the ‘scrabble app,’ for the iPhone and iPad, millions of people just like you may now view scrabble as a way to connect with friends and/or while away bits or free time during an average day.
We all view scrabble within the context of our own personal interests. One player who began playing at my clubs in the late 1990s had a background in painting and mosaics. When she formed her words on her board she was as interested in the aesthetics of the presentations as she was in the words themselves. She didn’t win very often, but her board had a symmetry beyond compare. (She also took a very long time to complete every turn.)
Some people use scrabble as a status symbol. They claim it proudly as one of their areas of mastery. One of those guys who I know will also tell you, if you should ever meet him, that he is a member of MENSA. And yet the truth be it, he only ranks as a mediocre ‘B’ player in the scrabble community.
SCRABBLE is different things to different people.
Rules & Official Word List
If you want to learn the NASPA version of the game and build your word knowledge I have a wonderful online class that is just for you. Along the way you will learn ways to improve your memory. The skills learned are not only applicable to scrabble. They’ll work for any discipline. CHICK HERE
SCRABBLE: Changes & Scams
I was observing two scrabble players playing in the park last week. It was a casual game at a picnic table. I walked over and asked permission to look on. They invited me to watch. The first thing that I noticed was that the dictionary on the table was the green, 3rd Edition of the OSPD. The players were not using a timing device and one of the players was playing much slower than the other, sometime using as much as 5 minutes per turn, while the other player made each play in less than a minute. Player #1 played ‘QI’. Player #2 challenged. Since ‘qi’ was nowhere to be found in the OSPD3, the play was taken off the board.
Choose The Right One
One of the things that really annoys me is when the ‘decision makers’ at Hasbro alter the design and even the traditional colors of the scrabble board. Not too long ago in the late 1990s, the plastic grid of the board was close to perfect. The ridges around each square would nestle the tiles in place, so they would not slide around the board. Then in the early 2000s some board designer, connected to the grid-manufacturing-process, decided to retool the board. The once perfect ridges were gone and the tiles, on the new boards, slid around the board whenever it was turned. It was obvious to me that the new design was never tested by a ‘real’ scrabble player. How foolish!
One of the new versions of the scrabble board is extremely upsetting to me. Somebody in production had the idea to change the colors of the ‘hot spots’ that have been standard for more than 50 years. Ridiculous! The new format gives me a headache; I refuse to play on that board. What were they thinking? For me, their change is as profane as painting the Mona Lisa with a frown.
New players to the game may never realize that anything has changes if they are just starting out.
Beware! I have recently watched a series of You Tube videos of some guy giving poor advice on how to improve the way you play the game of scrabble. I couldn’t believe the tips that he was offering. Almost everything he suggested was absolutely wrong, in my opinion. It made me feel ill that newbies might watch this trash and take it to heart.
It prompted me to think about the many snake oil salesmen who are out there, spewing information on so many topics; where self-acclaimed experts are persistently trying to convince us and sell us their ideas or their products. We are all most vulnerable when we don’t know.
Buyer Beware.
If you have a question about anything scrabble related, and you trust me, just send me an email: jftsoi.moss@gmail.com
SCRABBLE: People Ask Me
The one question that I get most from people is, “How do you do all that?” Maybe they ask me that because so many of the things that I do are online and so visible. Yes, I am web master for my own web site (www.just4thespellofit.com) and I write and publish my daily blog (www.scrabblesense.com) and I direct 3 scrabble clubs, and I produce a monthly scrabble tournament (The 1st Sunday Tournament).
So what? I bet that you do a whole lot of things with your life too.
We all do the things that we like to do and the things that we have to do. I have been very fortunate to mostly find ways to do things that I love to do. Even when I’ve worked for others I have always been somewhat choosey as to the jobs that I applied for and worked at. There were times when things didn’t work out ideally. I imagine that we all experience that.
Years ago most people found one job and then worked that job for their whole work-lifetime. Today that is highly unlikely to occur. How many different jobs have you had . . . so far? As for me, here’s my short list: paperboy; milk truck hopper; brick washer; game-room attendant; camp counselor; sales clerk; youth group advisor; dock worker; classroom teacher; painter; tutor; school head master; business owner; scrabble director; promoter; salesman; seminar facilitator; census taker; textbook question writer; money counter; web master; personal coach; and a few others between gigs.
Another frequent query is, “How do you know all that?” All I can say is that I don’t think I am unlike others around me. We all learn many things as we weave our way through our lifetime. I can’t tell you a single thing about the favorite games of children in Qinghai, China. But I have a keen memory about my personal life experiences and the life lessons that fill my 67 years. I’ve been a curious guy most of my life and have always looked for a better way, more efficient way, to do things. At times my style of looking for better ways of doing things has up set others who’d rather keep things the same and go with the status quo. I don’t go out of my way to be a ‘know-it-all,’ but I usually have an opinion or a story about almost every topic; as you may know from reading my blogs . . . if am not shy about sharing my opinion.
I hate it when I lose friends and readers who have opposing opinions and points of view. I still take those losses way too personally. Another life lesson has taught me that we cannot please everyone. People will do and believe for their own reasons.
And Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus.
SCRABBLE: The Search For Solutions
It’s a wonderful day in America. There are opportunities all around us.
I hadn’t been over to The Apple Store in more than a week. My excuse is that I have been busy as a worker on the 2010 Census. But today I had some time and even though I didn’t have a specific computer related question, I signed up to attend the 8AM projects session. (One thing that life has taught me is: when you get off the track, like a train, it is difficult to get back on track again.)
I know that a lot of you are PC people and I may have turned you off by my mere use of the word Apple, but please read on. I made The Apple Store a regular part of my life about 3 years ago when I purchased an IBook. At the time, my biggest desire was to be able to be my own Web Master, controlling the publishing and alterations to my own site (without paying out the $75/hr – $100/hr fees to others for serving that function.)
I learned that Apple/Mac had become very, very user friendly. Their class, called One-To-One, was available to anyone purchasing a new Apple/Mac for the fee of $100/year. That entitled me to a weekly 1:1 session of an hour, with a ‘Creative’. Creatives are the men and women who are literally computer geniuses. In my sessions I could ask for whatever instruction I required at the time. On times when I didn’t have a specific question, I signed up for my session anyways and asked the creative, “How can I do this better?” or “What shortcuts should I know?” There was never a lack of things to learn. My computer skills improved. Within a few meetings I was off and running. Today I have one of the biggest web sites on iWeb, with hundreds of pages. Most, if not all, of my publications pertain to scrabble related information.
One of the most fun things in life for me these days is learning and creating. And when I am working on projects these days, there is nowhere else that I would want to be than at a ‘projects table’ at The Apple Store. While I’m working away on my own stuff there is always a genius nearby to help me get over the bumps in the road. I always learn something new when I go to The Apple Store.
Check out my primary web site (CLICK HERE). Before 3 years ago I did not know how to do any of this; everything you see on my site was created by me.
SCRABBLE: WHAT’s IN YOUR NAME?
In the mid 1960s I was an elementary school teacher for a brief 5 years. Maybe it was back then that I developed my love of words and language. I was always trying to think of some new way to create a challenge for my students that fun to do. (When learning is a drudgery or boring, all the fun is sucked out of it. If there is nothing fun to look forward to doing, minds will wander.) All good teachers face the same challenge on a daily basis.
The silliest thing that I did as a teacher was done simply to prove a point.
My students were using the standard SPELLING workbook. Look at the Word; Read the Word; Say the Word; Spell the Word; Touch the Word; Feel the Word; Eat the Word; Tickle the Word; Write the Word 10 times; Write the Word in a Sentence.
Several somebodies were complaining that SPELLING was boring. The test scores reflected that some kids were not studying. They were all capable of earning 90% to 100%. I had many scores in the 60% to 70% range.
On Monday I stepped outside the box. I told the class that this week we were chosen to learn an entire set of nonsense words that were being considered to be used in a book, being written by a very famous author. What made these words so unusual is that each word possessed all silent letters. (They all looked puzzled.) I gave the an example. I said something like STIRKNOCK but when I wrote it on the board it looked like GREEHAUNT; I repeated that all the letters were silent. There was laughter; there was moaning; there was groaning. I told the class to make their own personal notes to help them remember how to pronounce these words. I also increased the number of words for the week from 20 to 25.
We used the identical methods to study the words that week that we normally used to study our ‘real’ words. At the end of the week, on Friday, we took our final test. No one scored less than 90%. There were more than 20 in the class with 100%.
I think about that lesson frequently at Scrabble Club #350 when one of the players throws down ‘gravamen’ or ‘usufruct’. Yes we are all capable of remembering whatever we choose. We simply have to be motivated. That is why I require an almost outrageous commitment from any potential student signing up for my online scrabble class, SCRABBLE 101. Persons without an intention and a commitment will generally not follow through.
One fun way I stimulate interest in new words is with my NAME PLAQUE. Your name, or the name of someone whom you choose, is printed prominently at the top. Then below, are lists of words made up by using only the letters in that person’s name. Some names can generate hundreds of words. I select some of the highest scoring scrabble words made from the designated name.
This is all put onto a framed presentation. It is a wonderful conversation piece. It is a unique gift for a graduate, for a new born, for a friend who enjoys playing scrabble. All the words on the list are legal entries in the OWL2. Have a look at a sample: CLICK HERE.
SCRABBLE: Thanks To Our Venues
Most scrabble clubs operate on a shoestring. And yet it takes a good amount of, time, knowledge, dedication, and money to keep the wheels turning.
Very few clubs create enough money through dues or fees to even rent a room. So directors like myself expend a lot of shoe-leather trying to identify venues where we can coexist symbiotically. Club members learn to turn a deaf ear to blaring sound systems, played at the whim of a manager; club players learn to put a jacket into their scrabble bag for the times that the air conditioning is blasting at them. I even brought some mini lanterns for players to use when the lighting was especially poor in one venue.
Directors are often hard pressed to find places that will permit a group of word freaks from assembling on a regular basis. It is never fun for a director when he/she loses a venue. Sometimes that club will even disband.
The managers, of venues that might be wonderful locations for clubs to meet, have a host of concerns and requirements. Some will want to know about the kind of insurance the club carries. Come on now; what kind of insurance could a club afford when it only takes in $2 – $5 per person? (None!) Some establishments that serve food may require that each player spend $ X.xx on every evening they attend. (Reasonable. But, I will not limit my club to only the players who have the funds to dine out.) Public facilities, like libraries and community centers, usually require the group to have an official non-profit status. (That is unaffordable too.)
And in spit of it all, there are some places that welcome us and make us feel wanted.
My longest running club has played at BORDERS BOOKSELLERS for more than 10 years. It was not always easy sledding. Local managers are key to having a good working relationship. One wonderful manager will invite us in and there will be no problems for years. Then a new manager assumes the position and he/she doesn’t like scrabble. The next thing we know, there are live acoustical guitar performers less than 10 feet away from us on club night. (They never ask us to leave; we usually spend $100 to $250 per night on cafe items and books and music. They just make the scene unbearable.) But in that instance, we found a different BORDERS, not too far away, with a scrabble-lovin’ manager. (We do bring a sense of classiness along with us.)
Restaurants are favorite venues for scrabble clubs. My Wednesday club once met at BAKER’s SQUARE for a while and then we moved to CARROWS. Eventually, they each wanted more money to be spent by our members, even though most of their booths and tables were empty on the evenings we played there. (When we left, so did the $100 to $200 per evening that we spent there. I don’t get it.) But we have played the last 3+ years at an ARBYs with a wonderful management.
My youngest venue is the most unusual and unique. It is a coffee house, attached to the Aliso Viejo Public Library. We play in a delightful atrium on Sunday afternoons. The coffee house is The Neighborhood Cup, which is privately owned by a group of wonderfully creative people. Besides encouraging us with our scrabble interests, they promote a wide variety of other activities enjoyed my members in their community.
So, our hats are off to the places that CLUB #350 calls home: BORDERS, ARBYs, and The Neighborhood Cup. We could not do it without you. And we salute the many other establishments throughout our communities that step up and help people enjoy their leisures. (It is clear to me that what goes around, comes around.)
Thank you.
Check Out Our Venues: CLICK HERE
SCRABBLE: How Good Are You?
I always thought that I was ‘hot stuff’ when it came to scrabble; other phrases that I could throw in there to reflect how I would have described my scrabble prowess could include ‘thumbs up,’ ‘the bees knees’, or ‘awesome’. Then, I discovered the competitive world of scrabble quite by accident.
It was 1986. I was single again. I was hoping to meet someone. I had always enjoyed playing scrabble as a kid, growing up at home and as a school teacher, around the lunch table at midday. The day was a Thursday. I opened the Southfield Eccentric newspaper to the singles column. There I found a scrabble event listed on the coming Saturday at 9AM at The Presidential Inn on I75 in Allen Park, Michigan. I checked my empty calendar, noticed that it wasn’t my weekend to have my kids, and marked the event down on my TO DO LIST. I immediately felt a stir of excitement. I hated meeting women at bars, singles dances and on blind dates. Maybe I could meet someone who shared a common interest.
Saturday came and I left my home early (Gary time is always 30 minutes early.) When I arrived to the meeting room there were already more than a dozen players present. Some were playing warm up games. I introduced myself and was overwhelmed by the acceptance and friendliness of the group. The director sat down with me and immediately shared some scary news. This event had been advertised in the wrong column. This was not the kind of singles event that I had imagined; but, singles and all comers were very welcome to attend. The event was an ‘Open Competition’ to determine the local players who would qualify to play at the upcoming national scrabble tournament.
She told me that I was very welcome to stay and participate. Furthermore, if I chose to stay and play, I would be expected to play all 7 games throughout the day.
WHEW! What a turn of events! I was already feeling welcome and comfortable. So what if I didn’t meet Ms. Right today; and who knows, maybe I would meet her. And if I was as good as I imagined myself to be at playing scrabble, I envisioned myself at the end of the day, holding the trophy in two hands, high above my head.
The experience was amazing. Every time a newbie has visited one of my clubs over the years I have remembered my personal experience on that inaugural day. It allows me to have empathy with wannabes who are overwhelmed. As I played, in that first competition, I learned how much I did not know. Almost every other word played against me was a total ‘mystery word,’ to me. Almost every word I challenge was ‘acceptable’, and I lost many turns. My opponents scored large scores for 2-Letter-Words and the numbers of bingos that they played were mind-blowing to me.
Whereas some other person would have left early, in spite of their promise to the director to endure the entire tournament, I remained steadfast and took my lickings.
When other players noticed that I had thick-skin and the fortitude to withstand the shellacking, several players approached me and invited me to attend their clubs, with promises that if I put in a little study time, I would soon move up in the ranks. I did . . . and I did.
You’ll never know just how good you are until you try.
Some people tell me that they’ll begin coming around to Club #350 as soon as the ‘learn the 2′s’ or ‘learn the SATINE Stem’. Those people never are prepared enough in their own minds.
The way to show up at a scrabble event is the same way that I did. Just show up. Accept the challenge. If you enjoy words and competition and learning . . . . you’ll find a lot to love about competitive scrabble. You can grow your abilities as slow or as fast as you choose, while you are learning through dxperience.
Check out your knowledge about HOOKS. A hook is a letter that you can use to hook one word to another. Any new words formed must be legal words too. Here is a hook exercise for you to try. CLICK HERE