…with Gary Moss

Archive for October, 2010

In my never-ending search for fun ways to approach learning words to play at the scrabble board, I took a different kind of stroll down the isles at my local supermarket.

If you choose to do this, you’ll have to keep in mind that every word is not necessarily a legal scrabble word. The words in the OWL2 (Official Word List, 2nd Edition) are gathered by a committee with their own criterion for inclusion. Always check a word against the OWL2 before you play it in a sanctioned game.

(The OWL2 is not sold in bookstore. I can deliver a copy to you for $20 plus shipping. CLICK HERE)

With that being understood, I’d mosey up and down the isles reading the names of products. Since proper names are generally not permitted in the game, you could not use ‘kellog’, which is a brand name. But just as soon as I tell you ‘NO BRAND NAMES’, you’ll discover that ‘jello’ is permitted. As I warned, there is no logic to the OWL2, thus competitive scrabble is reduced to a memory game. It is about the 155,000+ words in the OWL2 and no others.

In the produce section I found a wealth of words that are not on the tip of my memory, because I don’t eat them on a regular basis. Words like: endive; fennel; chicory; parsnip; artichoke; turnip; kohlrabi; spinach; or rhubarb. It was the same experience isle after isle through canned items, in the meat department, and in the baking section too.

Another phase of the supermarket game is to take a word like ‘CORN’ and consider how you can add to it with a ‘front hook’ or an ‘end hook’. The front hooks for ‘CORN’ are ‘A’, making ‘ACORN’, or ‘S’ making ‘SCORN’. There are 3 back hooks. Do you know all 3? Most people would know ‘S’, making ‘CORNS’. But you can also add ‘Y’ making ‘CORNY’. The one missed by most is ‘U’, making ‘CORNU’: a hornlike bone formation.

Another level of the game revolves around ANAGRAMS (using all the same letters in a word to create a different legal word). Take the word ‘LEEK’. There are 2 other words that you can make using the very same four letters. What are they? If you identified ‘KEEL’ and ‘LEKE’ you were correct.

The best way to set the words that you learn into your memory is by getting out to a local club and playing them onto a scrabble board. When in souther California, you can count on being greeted warmly at CLUB #350 and The 1st Sunday Scrabble Tournament. If you are in some other community and want help finding a local club, send me an email and I’ll do my best to help: jftsoi.moss@gmail.com

You would not be human If you didn’t feel a little nervous before a competition.

I remember 1956. I was in my first year of high school (Mumford) and almost everyone was choosing a school sport, trying out for the teams. I picked track. I thought that I was pretty fast and I had heard stories of my cousin Ira on the track team at Central High. I was pretty confident until we stepped up to the starting line. Once we were off and racing the fear dissipated for the time being. However, that nervous feeling was there at the beginning of every race I ever ran.

I felt nervous, but I was proud and fulfilled.

I remember 1987 on a cold, snowy Saturday morning in February at The Presidential Inn , in Allen Park, Michigan. It was inadvertently advertised as a ‘scrabble single’s event’; it was, in fact, a qualifying competition for a few spots to play in that year’s National Scrabble Tournament. When I looked at the words on the boards I knew that I was in big trouble. I didn’t recognize half of the words on the board. I felt very nervous when I sat down to play my first game. I didn’t want to look like a total dummy. I could only laugh when I opponent played ‘atonies’ and I didn’t know whether or not to challenge. Then I got a great rack: A-E-I-L-O-N-S; I played ‘sealion’. As soon as I hit the clock my opponent screamed, “Challenge”. (It turns out that ‘sealion’ is not acceptable; it is two words: sea + lion.) Later I learned that the bingo in that rack is ‘anisole’. How silly of me!

I felt nervous but I was intrigued and had a different kind of fun, a ‘learning fun’.

Along life’s path I learned an important lesson (It is not an easy lesson to learn and follow through).

Feel The Fear And Do It Anyway.

The more prepared one is, the less the fear and nervousness.

WHIZ CARDS, BOOKMARKS, and a variety of learning tools to improve your scrabble game are available from JFTSOI (Just For The Spell Of It. Call me now or call me later.

Sometimes I wonder if scrabble players, as a group, are more religious than the general population. I wonder that because I often hear the name of God being invoked, both positively and cursedly.

Scrabble fills its players with ‘hope eternal’. Players are always hoping for blanks and esses or the perfect combination: A-E-I-N-R-S-T. Players often moan and groan and sigh when racks like A-I-I-O-U-U-V tumble out on the tile bag onto their rack. Anyone who is good at reading the faces of poker players would have little trouble reading the faces of joy and disgust around a scrabble board.

Hope holds the thought that there will be something better coming out of the bag in the next draw.

Why is it that the better players always seem to get all the good tiles and the great combinations? Is it all luck? What is their secret?

In my online class, SCRABBLE 101, I lead my students through a series of exercises that are in alignment with skills of the ‘experts’. Below are a few of the key concepts. If you want a head start toward improving your game CLICK HERE.
-The longer the words you play, the more tiles you see, the more likely that you’ll receive more of the premium tiles.
-Players who accurately track tiles will know what tiles are still unseen and can then play the odds on subsequent turns.
-The more you know,the more you know: study, review, study, review.

Even though there is a luck factor in the game of scrabble, the best players know that:

The more you know, the luckier you’ll become.

A lot of people go through life overly worried about their self-image. Those worrisome feelings frequently get in the way of allowing them to step out of their box, have spontaneous adventures, and try on new experiences.

I remember the very first time I attended a scrabble club meeting. It was in 1987 in Livonia, Michigan. The director was Jerome Boyd. I thought I was pretty hot stuff around a scrabble board until a few weeks earlier when I wandered into a scrabble qualifying competition, where the winners would go on to represent Michigan in the Nationals. Clubs then and now are always looking for ‘new players’ (fresh meat). When I stepped into the meeting room in Livonia they shook my hand with warm welcomes but licked their lips and salivated at the thought of their ‘next meal’ (me).

As I played my best with common-everyday-words, my opponents were killing me with common-scrabble-words: nerolis; ytterbia; cwm. I felt like a nut. “Were they playing in some foreign language”, I thought to myself? I was afraid to challenge. I assumed that they all knew so much that they would never stoop to playing a phoney against me.

WRONG! I quickly learned that my opponents didn’t know everything. At times when they stretched they memories, looking for a ‘real word’ (real word = any word listed in the Official Scrabble Player’s Dictionary), they might play a phoney. That only made matters worse for me. Now I had to pause on almost every other play and decide whether something like ‘ngwee’ was acceptable or not acceptable.

I felt like a NUT quite often in my early days as a scrabble club player. While I continued to come back week after week and build my knowledge and expertise, I watched many other ‘newbies’ come then go, never to be seen again. Most people do not like feeling like a NUT. Most people seek and want immediate gratification. If that is the way you are built, club scrabble may not be your cup of tea.

Remember the first time you tried to ride a two-wheel bicycle? If you are like me, you fell down a time or two. And then something miraculous happened; you got it! You could balance. After that you felt like you had conquered gravity. You were so pleased with and proud of yourself.

The same process occurs for those who stick with club scrabble. One achieves a variety of skills and advances level by level. When one tracks their own progress, it is easy to step back and observe and measure how far one has come from the beginning of the journey. But in scrabble there is always more to learn, more to know. It is different than learning how to ride a bike, where once you achieve balance you can coast. There is NO coasting in competitive scrabble; if you rest and coast a whole group of other players will pass you by.

I love the game of scrabble, as you may have discerned. Nowadays, sometimes I feel like a NUT, but other times I don’t. But I must always be willing to be vulnerable when I am in the learning process. When I study a list that is new to me, like 8-Letter-Words that contain 5 Vowels, I will not learn them all in a day, a week, a month, a year. And they will stick in my memory to a greater degree when I identify them on my rack and play them on the board. In the process I will probably embarrass myself by playing some phonies. (That’s like falling off my bicycle.) With work and review my knowledge will expand. Soon I’ll be finding and playing words like ‘oogonia’ and ‘aboideau’ or ‘zoogleae’.

If you’d like a copy of the list of 311 words that are 8-Letter Words with 5-Vowels, CLICK HERE

There always seems to be a sense of shock and surprise when a life ends, more so when you know the person who has passed. I guess those feelings comes from the part of us that holds on dearly to the possibility that we are immortal. If we stand back and use our brain (without emotion) and evaluate the reality, we then could understand that life is a road/process that we mortals all travel along.

But, being mere mortals, we are never really capable of letting go of our emotions. It is part of who we are and what makes us humans.

When we experience the loss of a loved one we often repeat cliches that we feel to be true and meaningful: ‘Life Is Precious’; ‘Don’t Waste Your Time’.

When we experience the loss of a loved one we often take actions in there memories: ‘change our personal lifestyles’; ‘initiate fund raising to fight the hideous disease that stole away our loved one.’

When we experience the loss of a loved one we experience a significant emotional event which is a prime time for humans, when new habits and behaviors can stick.

But the human condition is fragile. A resolution made today is often broken two days later. The power is not in the making of the resolution. Power exists in putting a strategy in place to anchor the resolutions that will make a difference in our lives. Power exists in transforming resolutions into new habits, over time. (A minimum of ’21′ Days of repetitive actions are required to establish a new habit.)

It is not necessary to experience a Loss in order to take action to improve your life. Loss, however, does create an urgency and influences us to take our personal inventory; it urges us to open our eyes a little wider and get real with the quality of things.

The scrabble community in southern California experienced a devastating loss this week with the passing of Emilie Pandolfi, at the young age of 68. Emilie loved playing scrabble. She and I would often play 10 and 20 game marathons at public restaurants, pausing only to talk with inquisitive passersby. We would always invite them to which ever local club they lived closest to. She initiated scrabble classes and competitions in her 5th Grade classroom, using scrabble as a language arts teaching tool. I always supplied her with 2-Letter-Word-Lists.

Now that Emilie is gone, it is up to you and me to pick up some of the slack. She did so much that I don’t even know if we can fill the gap. BUT, we can try.

What will you do? Whatever you do, begin doing it TODAY.

I almost missed my opportunity to post my blog on this unique day of 10s. I’ve allowed myself to become preoccupied with other matters like ‘honey-dos’ and dealing with new and different patterns which accommodate living my life fully.

If you spent any of your time, while growing up, as frivolously as I did, then maybe at age 8 or 9 or ten you devoted some measure of thought to the future. (It was most likely at a time when I was developing my skills in arithmetic.) I would sit there, staring into the distance and think to myself, “Today I’m 9 and Joel is 5 and Karen is 1 and Mom is 31 and Dad is 34. When I’m 20, Joel will be 16, Karen will be 12, Mom will be 53 and Dad will be 56.”

Other times I would pick a year and a date, like New Years Day of 2000. Then I’d compute that I’d be 47, Joel would be 43, Karen would be 39, Mom would be 79 and Dad would be 82. All the while the vision of my family members at those future times always remained the same as I might view them on that very day. I had no real understanding about aging and time and changes.

Oh yeah, I never forgot to compute a scenario without including how old Auntie Annie would be, in my equation.

I always gave particular attention to days with patterns like 10-10-10. Do you know where you were or what you were doing on 09-09-09 or 08-08-08 or 03-04-05?

About a week before the day that I turned 55 (August 20, 1997) I was leaving Michigan after a 3 month visit. That summer two of my daughters got married, Stacy in June and Sue in August. I had traveled from California to Michigan in my 32′ RV and stayed at Kensington Metro Park in a campground. The girls were married, family helped me celebrate my birthday a week early, and I headed off to play a scrabble tournament in Cincinnati, Ohio (August 14-17) and then I continued West, heading to a scrabble tournament in Portland, OR. on my way back to the Newport Beach RV Resort in California. I was planning to drive West on Interstate 70. But first I made my way to Highway 55 and on my 55th birthday I drove about 100 miles on 55 to connect to the 70 in St. Louis.

So today is 10-10-10. Make a memory for yourself as a benchmark to look back upon. Do something big or something small.

Scrabble players could create a list of 10 words to learn, or study the 10th Stem (EASTER). Make of list of all the legal words that begin with the letters T-E-N (10): TENABILITIES; TENABILITY; TENABLE; TENABLENESS; TENABLENESSES; TENABLY; TENACE; TENACES; TENACIOUS; etc. You decide.

Then begin planning ahead for 11-11-11

Most of the time we scrabble players will play ‘Just For The Spell Of It‘.

Other times we use our favorite game as a tool to raise funds for some worthy charity or cause.

Over the past 20 years, the 1st SUNDAY TOURNAMENT has raised thousands of dollars for: Firefighters; Susan B. Komen / Breast Cancer; Katrina Victims; SIDS (Sudden Infant Death); and others.

On November 7, 2010, for the third consecutive year, the 1st Sunday Tournament will be raising funds and awareness for The Braille Institute. I’d like your help to make this effort a huge success.

The Story Behind This Mission
I had been friends with a scrabble player, Cecile Betts, for several years. Cecile was an amazing lady. In the 1950s when our last pioneers were settling our last frontier, Cecile follow her husband to the Alaska wilderness, before statehood, to live in a log cabin and raise her two children. (Read The Reluctant Pioneer.) I didn’t meet Cecile until sometime in the 1990s at scrabble tournaments. Already in her 70s and losing her eyesight, Cecile played at a side table with a bright light shining down on her scrabble board and tiles. Cecile was a determined lady; never giving up. Her diminished vision led her, in the 1990s, to use the services of The Braille Institute. Even there, while being assisted, Cecile had to find a way to give back. She found other people with diminished sight and created a scrabble class which she taught regularly. She encouraged some of her students to play at local clubs too.

In December of 2007, at a scrabble club in Laguna Woods, California, Cecile pulled me aside. She had just learned that she had lung cancer (having never been a smoker). She asked me to honor her by conducting a ‘memorial’ fund raising event to benefit The Braille Institute each year on her birthday, November 4th. I was shocked. Even facing death, Cecile was planning a way to help others.

I promised Cecile to host a tournament the next November in her ‘honor’ not her ‘memory’. That and other factors encouraged Cecile to fight the cancer. Cecile attended the tournament in her honor in 2007 when she turned 90 years old, and again in 2008. Last year Cecile died on October 10, 2009.

And so I carry on in her spirit to make a difference for The Braille Institute.

You don’t have to play scrabble in order to help. We help with our donations, large and small. There are NO ADMINISTRATIVE FEES that diminish your donation. 100% of all donations go directly to The Braille Institute. In fact, we encourage donors to make their checks to The Braille Institute and take the charitable deduction for themselves.

Here’s How It All Works
I will be playing during the November 7th, 1st SUNDAY SCRABBLE TOURNAMENT. It is a 7 game event. I average 4-5 WINS in a 7 game tournament. I will score an average of 2,700 points in a tournament. You can pledge $ X per Win -or- $ X per point based on my performance. Or you can just pledge a given amount. I will send you an email with my results on the evening of November 7.
All checks should be made payable to The Braille Institute and mailed to me within the week. I will present the total proceeds to The Braille Institute on or about November 17, 2010.

A penny a point will equal a pledge of about $27. A nickel a point will cost you a donation of about $135. You decide.

Some donors choose to raise pledges based upon their own score and play in the tournament too. Please note: There are fees to play in the tournament and all players MUST be members of NASPA (North American Scrabble Players Association).

Send me an email: jftsoi.moss@gmail.com – or – call me today. Let me know how you will help.
Make the thermometer Go Up Up Up.

Some people stand in awe of the experts. They stand watching the expert players, with mouths agape; wondering, how did they know that was a word?

Lets say that you want to obtain a particular job or profession. There are places to go and things to learn about achieving your goal. The people who really want it will generally have less of a problem finding the answers and establishing a game plan to get to their goal. There are always a lot of people who choose something, just because they have to choose something. These people are less motivated so they may meet diversions along the way and change their goal. And then there are still others who are doing things to please others (parents, spouses, some image portrayed by the media). This group may have the most difficult path to the goal.

Some people want to be ‘expert’ in their field. Some people choose to be ‘generalist’, knowing something about a lot of different things. Some people use all of their time and energy just getting through the day with simple pleasures and rarely apply themselves to building an expertise at anything at all.

I will not discount the thing referred to as ‘aptitude’. Some people do achieve things easier, with less study, in fewer hours. But there are so many others among us who have achieved great things with sheer determination and time invested, that I am a believer in the premise: If You See It And Believe It, You Can Achieve It.

The experts just go further than ‘ordinary people’.

There is nothing wrong with being one of the ‘ordinary people’. I don’t know if the world could function if everyone was an expert. Experts require Ordinary People for admiration and as customers. But my truth says that any Ordinary Person has the ability to become Extraordinary by their own choice and hard work.

SECRET: Experts can only remain experts by continuing their focus and regimen, FOREVER. If an expert relaxes too long, goes on vacation from their expertise, does not constantly review and learn their subject . . . their expertise diminishes and they collapse like a balloon without air.

Rachel Knapp is a friend of mine who plays at Club #350 in Orange County, California. Rachel is currently ranked 173rd among all NASPA rated players with a rating of 1721. Rachel has only been playing tournament scrabble since 2003 and moved up in the ranks quickly. Rachel has made a choice to include competitive scrabble as one of her primary activities. She reports that she uses the program ‘Zyzzyva’ as one of her favorite study tools. She uses its electronic flashcards to review sets of words, in order to maintain her sharp competitive edge. Rachel is the current, 2010 Club #350 Champion. If you want a chance to compete against her, come to the Wednesday evening session and/or The 1st Sunday Tournament.