…with Gary Moss

Archive for November, 2010

“Anagrams faster than a speeding bullet.
More powerful than the rack ‘nastier’
Able to use the Q without a U

Look! There by the scrabble board!
It’s a savant. It’s a mavin. It’s Letter Man.

Yes, it’s Letter Man – strange competitor from another dimension
who lives in Orange County with powers and abilities developed
beyond those of most men and women. Letter Man – who can find
a legal word on most every rack, find playable bingos during most
every game, and who, disguised as Gary Moss, mild mannered
director of Scrabble Club #350, propagates the entries from the OWL2 in the interests of word competition, community and the American Way.”

Letter Man made his first appearance on Saturday on youtube. The word is that he will be providing scrabble hints and challenges in regularly scheduled weekly episodes, for your entertainment and to help you bolster your scrabble expertise.

Watch Letter Man on Youtube. CLICK HERE. Tell your friends.

(When asked to describe his greatest thrill about transforming himself into Letter Man, Moss never hesitated. Out all the words he knows, he was able to answer with a single word, “Flying!”)

Most home and local club players have no knowledge at all about the ugly war that is being fought between two organizations that play scrabble: NASPA (North American Scrabble Players Association) vs. WGPO (Word Game Players Association). In some ways this fight is ludicrous to me because NASPA is the entity, hand-picked by the Hasbro, to succeed the NSA (National Scrabble Association) with all the rights to use the trademark word ‘SCRABBLE’. (That is why the WGPO can’t even use the word ‘scrabble’ in their name or their promotional materials.)

I understand all that too well. That’s why my business name is JUST FOR THE SPELL OF IT. The ‘S’ word is not allowed, and therefore not included in my name. Its just the way it is.

The ‘un-civil’ war has been occurring for more than a year, primarily among the organizers and the ‘old guard’. Accusations have been made. Unkind words have spilled out of the mouths and pens of emotionally charged zealots on both sides of many issues. Feelings have been hurt. Old friends find themselves on opposite sides of the arguments. And all the while, it seems to me that, NASPA holds all the aces.

For players who just love to play the game of scrabble on a daily or weekly basis at home or at clubs there hasn’t been any apparent change. Players show up; people play the game; the rules and the word lists haven’t changed one iota.

For players who attend and compete in tournaments, some changes have already occurred, and more changes are very likely to follow. NASPA has opted not to recognized the results and scores that occur in scrabble competitions at WGPO events.

Players should be aware of these changes. But, most of the players I know want to avoid controversies. Meanwhile, they remain uneducated about how those changes will effect the routines that they had established over past years, regarding attending and playing in tournaments.

One NASPA member called me today and asked about an upcoming tournament in Reno, NV. I pointed out that the event is sponsored by WGPO and is not sanctioned by NASPA. He can still go and play, but his scores will not factor into his NASPA rating.

NASPA follows a business model (Fees are charged for membership and assessed for each tournament game played. The administrators have been hand-picked by NSA and Hasbro.) WGPO has no membership fees and is run by volunteer, member players.

The un-civil war is all about philosophy. How should a players’ organization operate; how or should money be collected and used in such organizations.

I do have a bias in this matter. I am in the NASPA camp. Even though I may not agree with every individual decision made by NASPA’s administrators, I believe that administrators/owners/leaders who have a revenue source, have the opportunity to provide goods and services. Payed leaders have an incentive to make a business as good as it can be. Consumers can always vote with their dollars, by joining or not joining.

In my opinion, volunteer organizations, without a sponsor with deep pockets, teeters on the brink of disaster. They are dependent solely upon the availability of good, selfless leaders.

A strong scrabble players’ association assures all scrabble lovers of a growing presence in the future. ~ Gary Moss

REMINDER: If you are a Charter Member of NASPA, your membership is up for renewal before the end of the year. CLICK HERE. A $5 discount is available for your renewal before December 1.

I don’t know which would be worse.

Being up a creek without a paddle
or
Playing scrabble without a vowel

Having fruit and sandwiches for six days
or
Living in a tent city in Haiti

Being on the Splendor without a scrabble set
or
Being a scrabble player among only race car fanatics

Not knowing phonies from ‘legal’ words
or
Being challenged off the board, losing a turn

Forgetting my personalized score sheets at home
or
Forgetting my glasses at home

The odors from rotten food and sewage
or
Sitting across from _______ playing scrabble

When I’ve tracked and cannot account for 3 of the 100 tiles
or
When I just played the third ‘C’

If I learn that I’d be stranded for the rest of the week
or
If I had to wait a whole week until the next scrabble club meeting

Losing the diamond from my wedding ring
or
Having my custom scrabble board stolen

When things go wrong for me, I normally take action. I play some scrabble and melt my cares away. It is always better when I can find some weaker player and whomp them by more than 100 points.

If one particular set of scrabble tiles seem to be at the core of my losing ways, I’ll give them to someone who irks me – or – I’ll sacrifice them on an altar, then buy a new set. (I wish I had stock in Protiles.)

Tell me what irks you. Email me at: Letter.Man.Moss@gmail.com

When was the last time when you were in a group that was new to you? How long did you sit there, listening to conversations of others, hearing them use English words, but missing the idea of whatever they were discussing?

I had such an experience last evening.

I perceive myself as a talented writer, and have been trying to obtain some work for hire in the writing field. I saw a workshop offered by SCORE related to writing Proposals. Perfect I thought. I’ll go to the workshop, network with those in the know, and someone will certainly chase me down and hire me to do their bidding.

That was being a bit too optimistic.

The first thing that I realized was that I had no clue what the speaker was talking about. It took me the first 15 minutes to understand what an ‘RFP’ was. The speaker assumed that we, in her audience, were all familiar with the abreviation ‘RFP’ (request for purchase). Once I understood ‘RFP’ the rest began to make more sense.

That led me to remember my experiences back when I was a newbie at competitive scrabble. You see, I had played scrabble for many years before I stumbled upon competitive scrabble clubs. And yet, when I came onto the competitive scrabble club scene everything was different: the way people played 1 to 1; the way players recorded their scores; the use of time clocks; and all those never before seen words.

The purpose of ‘jargon’ is to puff up a particular group of people, making them stand apart from the general population. Jargon also includes shortcuts, like saying ‘RFP’ instead of saying the entire phrase ‘request for purchase’. Some groups, like scrabble mavins, use the word ‘stem’ to refer to a family of letters which make up a part of a word. A biologist, attending a scrabble club for the first time, might be confused upon hearing the word ‘stem’. The biologist would most likely think about a plant when hearing the term ‘stem’.

So, I muddled through last evening and developed understandings where and when I could. The highlight of the evening for me was meeting the head-librarian, who provided the room for the function. I asked her if she had ever sponsored a scrabble tournament and suggest ways for the community to raise funds via scrabble, for their local projects. She anxiously took my business card for future consideration.

In order to become a good to great scrabble player, you’ll need to learn our jargon. You’ll have to know what we’re talking about when we speak of ‘hooks’ and ‘extensions’ and ‘tracking’. If you just grab you favorite dictionary and begin learning words, you might be wasting your time. When selecting your dictionary you’ll want to know the difference between an OWL2 and The Collins. Where will you affiliate? Do you know the differences between NSA and NASPA.

If you want to learn how to play the game of scrabble like a mavin, consider taking the online class, SCRABBLE 101. You’ll learn all the scrabble jargon in the process.

Things are always changing to some degree. But when one remains a single person as long as I had been single (28 years), one can develop habits and patterns that make a lot of life seem the same. That’s NOT A BAD THING; it just is. My recent marriage has shaken my world up a bit; that’s not a bad thing. It has certainly drawn my attention to differences of opinion and schedules and values and choices.

Last evening, for instance, was Monday night. In the past I would have eaten a frozen entree for dinner, nestled deep into my lazy boy chair in front of the TV, switched on Monday Night Football, and that would have been my evening. Monday nights are different for me now. Adrienne prepares great dinners so I eat at the table, not in my lazy boy chair; I know that my wife doesn’t live and die for watching football, so I click back and forth between channels to see pieces of the News, which might be of greater interest to her. And part of the evening I even abandon the comfort of my lazy boy and sit beside Adrienne on the sofa.

Last night while flipping channels at random I landed on the TURNER Channel with classic movies. Maybe you watched that too? It featured a documentary about silent films and then showed an entire silent movie. Now I’m no hayseed; I have always known that there were silent movies. But, the only silent movies that I’ve known were the ones with Charlie Chaplin or The Keystone Cops. I really learned a lot last night and I rather enjoyed it too.

How far back in time can you remember scrabble? I have a few more years on me than many of you, so I can remember further back than you. I remember the early 1950s when my family had a game night around the table in the dining room. I was only 10, my brother was 6 and my sister was 2 years old. My siblings and I obviously had different interests and abilities. I remember my mom playing scrabble with me. Scrabble came in a cardboard box and the board was made of cardboard too. (They still sell a similar version.) The tiles were made of wood. We use to place the tiles face down in the top of the box, instead of using a tile bag. We used whatever dictionary we had on hand as our official word list. (The scrabble dictionary had not yet been invented.) All the rules of the game were printed on the inside of the top of the box that packaged the game. (There were only a few rules back then. Today there are nearly 40 pages of rules for playing competitive scrabble.) We played with 2, 3, or 4 players around the board. We used common everyday words. There was no 2-Letter-Word list. A good final score would have been anything over 100.

Kids of today will have totally different memories of scrabble, when they are looking back at today, some fifty years from now. Competitive players will remember the OWL2 vs. Collins and NASPA vs WPGO. Facebook scrabble players may recall Scrabbulous. The players who used their cell phones to play scrabble will reminisce about the scrabble apps.

I wonder if anyone will remember WHIZ CARDS or The BOOKMARK SERIES or Club #350?

What will you remember?

What is the one experience that kids have that is absent from the majority of adults?

Discovery

Parents and grandparents love watching their young progeny encounter ahas and surprises. The awe on the tiny face that learns how to ‘roll over’, ‘stand up’, or ‘open a drawer’ is priceless.

Time and repetition has a way of dulling our excitement about discover. Maybe we just come to expect discovery and it is no longer such a big deal. When was the last time you consciously marveled at one of your own ahas?

Even when, we as adults, read a book or watch the discovery channel we settle for the joy of the entertainment without becoming too excited by the new things that we learn.

The truth is, the opportunity to experience and ignite our spirit is an everyday thing when our attitude about life allows it, especially in the ‘word world’ of scrabble.

The difference in the way people experience life’s goodies may best be described like this:
The weatherman on the 11PM news forecasts that tomorrow there is a 40% chance of rain.

Person A goes to the front hall closet and chooses an umbrella that coordinates with tomorrow’s attire and places it near the front door, and makes a comment under their breath, “Damn, rain again.”

Person B thinks, “I love the rain. We don’t get enough of it here in southern California.”

And if the rain does happen to fall, Person B is reported to have been seen jumping in puddles of standing water.

The same two people go to a scrabble club for their very first visits:

Person A enjoys meeting new people but feels awkward with fear of looking bad to these strangers by possibly misspelling a word in public. He/she appraises how much work might be involved to learn as many words as he/she imagines these people already know. The challenge is too overwhelming. So in spite of his/her love of the game, he/she never returns again.

Person B is excited to see that there are so many word on the boards that are unfamiliar to him/her. He/she keeps asking the players, “What does that word mean?” In the first few minutes, Person B has already learnt 3 new words: aalii; cineast; and qi. He/she wants to know all about the best way to go about learning all these new words. He/she plans to attend the club weekly.

WOW! What a difference an attitude can make. Choose the one that you want.

Be a kid again. Be aware of the ahas.

For a jump-start to becoming a better player faster, CLICK HERE

A reach into our letter bag recently brought out this interesting piece.

Dear Gurus:

I am a scrabble player and a member of a Scrabble Club. Our club meets once every week of every month. I have a really fun time playing with the great people who attend loyally every session. BUT, I wish I could win more often. I wish I knew more words, especially the bingos. I’d like to know about the tricks that better players use to find the bingos. Lastly, if I’m going to spend time studying the word list, I want to know where to begin and how to design an effective study regimen for myself.

Thank you,

Good but far from great.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Dear Good but far from great,

Playing at clubs is a fun activity, BUT you are only kidding yourself if you think that your game improves measurably, solely, by the things that you learn during club play. Playing at clubs provides the opportunity for you to use all the new words and skills that you learned while studying, during the previous week.

As far as your personal study regimen goes, there is no need for you to reinvent the wheel.

We recommend learning from the experts. One specific teacher, Club #350 Director, Gary Moss, will be conducting a Scrabble Workshop this coming Saturday, November 6th at 10:00 AM at Laguna Woods Village in Laguna Woods, CA. The fee is only $15 (that’s like getting something for nothing.) Call Gary to enroll: (949) 510-1673. Enroll by Friday and you’ll receive your own Workshop Folder. (Since it is a gated area, you MUST preregister in order to be admitted past the security guard.)

Happy scrabbling,

The Gurus

One of the reasons that I love competitive scrabble is its form.

By that I mean, you can count on the rules to define the game, unlike politics and politicians who make up the rules, day by day.

When playing competitive scrabble, I can count on the word list in the OWL2 to contain all the legal words; no billionaire or strong-handed lobbyists can pull strings and slip a phoney by as a legal word.

As difficult as some of the rules are to understand, they aren’t nearly as confusing as propositions that trick me into voting ‘NO’, when I place my vote in the ‘YES’ box.

I just hate all the name calling and character assassinations that have become a regular part of all recent elections. I detest how they force TV lovers to watch the repetitive commercial propaganda which attempts to brainwash us into voting for a certain candidate.

When playing competitive scrabble, players define themselves over time by the way that they play the game. There are the serious bunch who utilize every second on their clock; there are those who reach beyond their knowledge for words and stumble by using phonies; there are those who try to intimidate by posturing; there are others who you can count on to lose their concentration and open a triple/triple for you.

In scrabble we each own our own destiny; in scrabble we each can choose to become as good as we want to become, by putting in the study time.

Every time I attend a scrabble club or spend my precious time playing some unknown player online at ISC I am voting for scrabble.

I wish politics were that clear to me. I don’t think that I stand alone in feeling that politics are a form of slight-of-hand. I never seem to get what I thought I was voting for.

Vote for scrabble by playing at CLUB #350 and The 1st Sunday Tournament
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