…with Gary Moss

Archive for August, 2011

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On Sunday (8/28/2011) Chester Collins passed away at the VA Hospital in West Los Angeles of various ailments including cancer. I don’t have a lot of details or if there will be a memorial or funeral service.

Chester was a big part of Scrabble here in L.A. for many years having moved out here from NY. He is probably best known for his affinity for the color green. He was a pleasant person to play, not really caring if he won or lost. Chester rarely ever exchanged tiles.

Though I personally had’nt had contact with him for several years there was a time when we played sessions together and even a Thanksgiving dinner when he was a guest over at my house.

I’m sure a lot of us have a story or two about Chester. Heaven is a better place now that he’s there.

~ Alan Stern

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OH Sh-t !

We were once close (pre-1980 ) as older New Yorkers will remember (well,
maybe they won’t with a combination “older” and “remember” but hadn’t
been in touch for many years. I thought of him pretty recently, though,
when Danny Stiles passed away (the NPR old timy music guy) thinking
someone should let Chester know as his record collection
was often harvested for Stiles’s broadcasts. Basically Chester was
not interested in listening to any music composed later than about 1945.

I may have to make a special section on my website in the word freaks
area for the departed that I’ve photographed — too many of them recently.

Thanks for letting us know.

~ Ann Sanfedele

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I came to southern California in 1995. One of the first scrabble players who I took on regularly was Chester Collins. We played at Alan Stern’s club on Wednesday evenings at the JCC in the Fairfax district and then again on Saturdays at the Felecia Mayhood Senior Center. Chester played as fast or sometimes faster than I played. We would be finished with our game while others still had half their tiles remaining in their bag. I remember that Chester had great word power. He rarely played a phoney. I don’t think he studied systematically, using ‘stems’ or ‘mnemonics’. He has his own system and was a frequent winner. Chester was one of the players who liked to play with the board upside down; I don’t remember him ever turning the board to look at it straight on. He always showed up wearing a ‘green’ shirt and ‘green’ trousers. I remember that I once sold him a set of ‘green’ protiles. I never asked him about his affinity for the color ‘green’.

~ Gary Moss

If you play scrabble on a regular basis you will understand this observation. We players take turns being in the spotlight; some of us more than others. But on any given day, in any given game/s, any one of us may shine so much brighter than the rest in our midst.

Take it from me, when it happens it is delicious. When it happens it can be unexpected. When it happens to me I become very talkative and giddy.

On the other hand, utterly dismal defeat can occur too. When all I can draw are vowels and more vowels, it seems that my opponent gets every high pointed tile and the blanks as well. Sometimes I feel like grabbing the tile bag and board and heaving it across the room. (I actually saw one player melt down and do that at a tournament.) To date I have refrained from giving in to that urge.

Last evening there were an odd number of players at Club #350. Some of the time I will sit out when the games begin and hope that a straggler will appear and I will have a partner. Lynn Gunn arrived a little late, due to the traffic from work, and hurriedly set up her board so we could play game #1. Lynn quickly found ‘HERDER’ and dropped it onto the board. Those of you who know me well understand that I can’t spell worth a darn, so you recognize that I was the dolt who then played ‘AMONIA’. Lynn didn’t mind and chose not to challenge because she was sitting there poised with ‘THORN’ and I provided a great spot for her play.

This is the point when I got excited. When Lynn played ‘THORN’ I was sitting with ‘EENOPTX’. The word ‘EXPONENT’, through the ‘N’ in ‘THORN’ jumped out at me. Not that many points for a bingo, but a bingo just the same.

A couple of turns later I extended ‘EXPONENT’ with an ‘IAL’ to ‘EXPONENTIAL’, feeling very proud of myself. The ‘L’ sat directly above a TWS. I was certain in my mind that no letter could be added to the end of ‘EXPONENTIAL’.

Lynn jump on it like grease-lightning. She played ‘LURKS’ with the ‘S’ on the TWS under ‘EXPONENTIAL’.

I YELLED CHALLENGE!

Without a care in the world, I strolled up to the computer and typed in ‘EXPONENTIALS’, confident that it was a phoney. But, Word Judge indicated ‘word acceptable’. My jaw dropped. Lynn earned 93 points and I did all the hard work. But that’s how the game of scrabble goes some times.

I hate to lose, but this time I was so excited about Lynn’s great play that instead of moaning ‘poor me’, I felt the celebration in her spirit.

You can enjoy fun and learning experiences too. Support your local scrabble clubs. When in southern California plan to play with CLUB #350 and/or at The 1st Sunday Scrabble Tournament.

This is probably more than you want to know.

BUT, don’t allow this to happen to YOU.

Sitting and writing at Bagels & Brew in Aliso Viejo, CA.

Can’t go home right now.

The exterminator is there fumigating the place for Bed Bugs. Yuch!

We have to be out of the house for 3+ hours. I won’t go back until after my scrabble club tonight (7 hours from now). Adrienne went shopping and to a movie. After that she’ll come to my club and we’ll go home together. I had thought that after he fumigated the place all the bed bugs would be dead. Not so. They’ll be drunk-like and in a stupor before they die, if this works at all. We get a 30 Day guarantee. This has been going on since early in April.

It is not like we’ve been doing nothing.
• We bought some of those Bed-Bug-Bombs at Home Depot and Lowe’s.
• We’ve fumigated the place ourselves on three different occasions.
• We petitioned our home owners association to help. (The worst thing about being a part of a place as big as Laguna Woods Village (18,000 units) is that the bureaucracy is every bit as bad as the rest of government.
• I’ve called the Board Of Health.
• I’ve called upon the 21 neighbors in our building.
• We purchased and used a Beg Bug Sheet from Bed, Bath, & Beyond

I have enough stories to tell to write a book. These staunch, biting, critters have inflicted physical pain, unsightly blotches, and financial strain on our delicate budget.

Our condo association has not come to our aid. We’ve attended 3 lengthy meeting and have been frustrated by the ineptness of the board, filled will excuses and delays to address our dilemma head on. Bureaucratic mumbo-jumbo.

The Board of Health will only pursue ‘landlords’ . . . but we are owners. Duh.

There are 21 adjoining condos (7 on each of 3 floors ) and not all of our neighbors have the problem . . . . . YET. Some who don’t have the damn bugs do not see it as their problem and/or want to share in the expense to TENT and fumigate the entire complex.

Cross your fingers and toes in the hope that this works. All I want for my birthday is a full night’s sleep without creepy crawlers on me.

This problem devalues our condo in an already weak real estate.

All of this make scrabble clubs a very, very welcome place to be. So far there are no bed bug reported to be at ARBYs or DENNYs.

Here are some of the legal scrabble words and phrases that can be played, associated with bed bugs:

evidence, eggs, fecal stains, cast skins, suffering, bites, life cycle, images, just-fed adult, elongated, adult, feeding, nymphs, instar, reddish brown, booklice, sensitivity, dermestid beetles, carpet beetles, German Cockroaches, mattress, harboring, box spring, bed frame, headboard, blood stains, bed sheets, clothing, pinpricks, streaks, splotches, squished, feces, identify

The only one whom I’ve ever known to be ‘all knowing’ was The Great Karnak. Everyone else tends to miss seeing the essence of what is.

Even the best scrabble players (The EXPERTS) will admit that they miss opportunities in almost every game.

Lesser players do not necessarily admit to missing opportunities, not because they think that they are so good . . . but, they simply don’t know what they don’t know. If you don’t know the 3-Letter-Words and therefore don’t know ‘WUD’, you wouldn’t know that you missed playing in, and it could have played on the TWS for 40+ points.

The More You Know, The Luckier You Become.

An aside:
I was watching a seasoned player at a club last week. She had a rack with these letters: A-E-I-N-R-S-T. She played the word ‘STAIN’ for 28 points. I walked away in disgust. After the game had ended I returned to ask her what she was thinking. I asked her if she knew about the power of stems. She said yes. I pointed out that there had been 9 bingos on her rack. She wasn’t upset. She believed that she didn’t have the ability to learn a ‘stem’ and was quite willing to accept her self-imposed limitations. I don’t get it.

We each have so many untapped abilities just waiting for us to tap in.

I am more willing to miss some opportunities because I am using my time exclusively for some other pursuit. I am not a BRIDGE player; when it come to the ukelele I can only strum in the key of ‘C’; I am not a cross-country skier; I am not a mechanic. But I can give you one heck of a game of scrabble and/or teach you how to play scrabble.

It seems to me that the people who are at the top of their game in any endeavor have missed other opportunities, but more often than not, it was their choice. Armstrong, Tiger, Billy Jean, Albert, and Lincoln each were one dimensional and on a chosen path. They didn’t veer too far off the path to smell the roses. If they had, they may never have achieved their goals.

Where are you going to? CLICK HERE

DO YOU KNOW WHERE YOU’RE GOING TO ?
Theme from the film “Mahogany” (1975)
(Michael Masser / Gerry Goffin)

Diana Ross – 1975
Johnny Mathis – 1976
Ray Conniff – 1976

Do you know where you’re going to?
Do you like the things that life is showing you
Where are you going to?
Do you know?

Do you get
What you’re hoping for
When you look behind you
There’s no open door
What are you hoping for?
Do you know?

Once we were standing still in time
Chasing the fantasies
That filled our minds
You knew how I loved you
But my spirit was free
Laughin’ at the questions
That you once asked of me

Do you know where you’re going to?
Do you like the things that life is showing you
Where are you going to?
Do you know?

Now looking back at all we’ve planned
We let so many dreams
Just slip through our hands
Why must we wait so long
Before we’ll see
How sad the answers
To those questions can be

Do you know where you’re going to?
Do you like the things that life is showing you
Where are you going to?
Do you know?

Do you get
What you’re hoping for
When you look behind you
There’s no open door
What are you hoping for?
Do you know?

Change can be tough. It requires one to let go of ‘the way things were’ and establish some new norms.

‘The way things were’ can be nostalgic and wax romantically. ‘The Good Ole Days’, as recalled by many, were not necessarily as good they were just familiar.

There is something to be said for longevity: happy birthday, happy anniversary, are you still alive and still doing the same old things.

Change can be scary. Doing things the same way, over and over again, has a comfortable predictability built in to it. Change encompasses the unknown, be it joys or tragedies. (Imagine the fears of Columbus’ crew who thought that they might sail off the end of the Earth.)

I directed my very first scrabble tournament on August 18, 1990 in Southfield, Mi. I had become a member of NSA back in ’87, attending the tournaments of others, and believed that I could offer the scrabble community addition venues. Over the last 21 years I have gone on to direct more than 250 sanctioned scrabble events in several states and on the high seas. I even directed a school scrabble tournament at The Moss School in 1987 planting a seed for the now successful school scrabble program. I have met hundreds and even thousands of friends via my scrabble experiences.

I’ve watched the scrabble community change incrementally over time. Changes in some rules, changes in the official word list, the development of The Franklin ( and witnessing how it lifted the level of word knowledge among average players), the birth of LEXPERT and ZYZZYVA, and the bastardized versions of scrabble on computers and smart phones. There is no way to change or control progress, for good or for bad.

The level of play at the very top of the pile has heightened. The volume of players at the bottom of our ranks has diminished. The owners of the scrabble trademark and their designees have never mastered a sales approach that can draw the man on the street into competitive scrabble.

Meanwhile, games like BRIDGE and TEXAS HOLD EM, draw the participation of the masses.
One guess is that scrabble makes enough money on sales of games so that community clubs and tournaments are a low priority for Hasbro. Another guess is that scrabble players’ organizations have always been headed by elite players as opposed to common players (a difference in visions).

I personally am at a crossroads. The service that I provide as Producer and Director of The 1st Sunday Tournament no longer appeals to more than a few staunch regulars.

I want to do what is right. I’d like to keep on keeping on, if it makes sense to do so. I invite you to help. Here is what is needed.
• More Players – Enroll yourself and other to play at the 1st Sunday Tournaments.
• Pledge – The economy has kept some from playing. Fund a an entry for another.
• Sponsorship – Provide the funds to enhance a 1st Sunday Tournament.

As I watched the movie,’The Help’, in the dark, quiet comfort of my neighborhood theater last evening, old memories of events and attitude, better left forgotten, were stirred and resurfaced.

One line in the film really got to me. It came from a very bigoted woman who said in defense of her prejudicial behavior, “I’m not racist.” She was racist personified but couldn’t see it in herself. She was so typical of the self-righteous who believe that their way is the ‘true way’. She was orange in an orange world where orange is undistinguishable.

The family in which I grew up wasn’t racist either. You just had to ask my parents. My parents and their friends thought that there was nothing wrong using a wide brush to color the ‘goyim’ (non-Jews) and ‘shvartzes’ (Negros). Similar to the movie, albeit a little kinder, we had our ‘HELP’ too: Mary worked for my grandma; Rosie worked for my aunt; and Tempy worked for my family. They were all black women who did domestic chores.

I never had a black friend until I was an adult. Bill (Lesester) Allen was a businessman who owned preschools (1975). I own a preschool too. Were served on the same advisory committee that organized the private sector of preschool owners. For more than a year we shared rides and traveled the 96 Freeway on monthly trips between Detroit and Lansing, Michigan. As the weeks and months passed, our friendship grew and Bill’s blackness faded in my eyes. One day, in a very short time, when I looked at Bill all I saw was my friend. Due to our friendship, Bill provided me an eye-opening, very interesting experience. The Christmas season was around the corner when Bill invited me and my wife to a Christmas party at his home in Bloomfield Hills. I assumed that the people at the party would be the other preschool owners. On the appointed day of the party, we arrived at the appointed time. ‘The Help’ (a group of white chefs, servers, and bar tenders) were just arriving to set up. A little later the guests arrived. I didn’t know a single guest . . . and they were all African-Americans. I felt very comfortable. It took me a little while to figure out the ‘common denominator’. When Bill and I had talked over all those miles driving to and from Lansing I had shared that I was an active member of The West Bloomfield Optimist Club. All the other guests at the party were members of The Motor City Optimist Club and they happened to be black.

Other than being mistaken for one of ‘The Help’ a time or two during the evening, it was a great party and I made several new friends.

In the musical South Pacific there is a song about prejudice, ‘You’ve Got To Be Carefully Taught’. Give a listen.

Scrabble appeals greatly to me because it is an even playing field for all. It has been a door opener for me, introducing me to people young and older, all colors, all sizes, and all backgrounds. And yet, even within scrabble we cannot escape all forms of discrimination and suspicion: NASPA vs. WGPO; Mavin vs. Newbie; Competitive vs. Casual; OWL2 vs. Collins.

Some believe that we humans are civilized. Maybe we are really no more advanced than the ‘red ants’ and the ‘black ants’.

I enjoy both apples and oranges. But I do have a preference. If someone offered me a piece of fruit, I might want a bit more information before saying “Yes.” They might give me a tomato.

If asked, “Do you want to play a game of scrabble?”, I might want some additional information too. On the right you’ll see a scrabble board that might be the result of a family holiday game or the board after a game at some local ‘Casual Club’. Most people will know most all the words played on the board. The 2 red letters represent the two blanks and the letters they were designated to represent. I can tell by looking at how the blanks were used that the players were novice/casual players.

A competitive player would rarely use a blank for fewer that 50 points. The blanks are the key to creating a bingo (A bingo is a play when a player uses all 7 tiles from their rack on a single play and earns a 50 point bonus.)

There is absolutely nothing wrong with playing the kind of game seen here. But is does not capture the imagination or offer a challenge to me.

For me, a major part of the fun of the game is learning new words, playing bingos, stumping my opponent and drawing them into challenging my words.

It’s the difference between simply volleying a tennis ball back and forth over a net vs. playing tennis and trying to win the game with skill and agility; making the opponent miss.

Now take a look at a game played at Club #350 by Scott Hawkins and David Poder. Notice the bingos on the board: ‘etoiles’; ‘refusing’; ‘outread’; ‘comitia’ (phoney with the ‘S’); and a triple/triple ‘overlaid’.

Right about now you may be saying, “I don’t know those words”. Well truthfully, I don’t know the meaning of every word that I play. I have the opportunity to learn words at almost every session, even after having been playing for 20+ years.

Scrabble is a game that never has to get boring; there is always something new to learn; there is always something old to review. Every game and every opponent provides a unique challenge.

Can you list 5 words that you learned this week? Try these on for size: crwth; aalii; qintar; ngultrum; and brrr.

Get into the game. Play at a sanctioned scrabble club this week. CLICK HERE

At some time or other almost every consumer has had the unfortunate and upsetting experience of being duped by some ‘pitch and switch’ scheming salesperson. How often do you choose to go to a specific restaurant after seeing some delicious looking meal displayed in some add in the newspaper or on TV? When you order it and it finally comes there is some resemblance, but it is not the same. My ex-father-in-law owned an independent furniture store and told me this story: After people came through and ordered carpeting, if he ran out of that particular pattern, he’d deliver something similar, and rarely did any customer ever notice or protest.

I hate being a victim of ‘pitch & switch’. As a result I pride myself on being ‘brutally honest’. Sometimes the extent of my honesty scares away prospective new scrabble players.

You see, I describe the kind of scrabble that we aim to play in competitive clubs. If you’ve ever played at a sanctioned club then you already understand the level of knowledge and competition enjoyed by the membership.

Of course, I tell my scrabble stories with a lilt of fun and enthusiasm so that the scrabble scene will appeal to the prospects. But the real truth is, a raw newbie will only enjoy themselves if they enjoy learning and enjoy a challenge. There is no value for me to trick you into coming to play scrabble if you are no more than a Bingo player. (We do play bingos when we play scrabble, but those bingos are words that use up all 7 tiles from our racks and earn us a bonus of 50 additional points.)

If you want the ‘emmass’ (the true story), call me at 949.510.1673. Or better yet, enroll in my online class, Scrabble 101, and allow me to take you from where you are at the next level of scrabble play.

Stand around the water cooler and listen to the moaning and the hard luck stories and it could make you CRY. But every now and then there is a shift in the conversation. Janey has found ‘truelove’ and is engaged to be married. Bob’s son has received a full scholarship to Harvard to study the positive effects of bed bugs bites on enhancing the human immune system.

Attend any scrabble playing event and listen to the moaning and hard luck stories and it could make you CRY. But if you listen closely and look at the boards covered with words you may see some incredible plays.

If you played at CLUB #350, in Lake Forest, California last evening you would have heard some ‘poor me’ talk. J.D. was plagued by having too many vowels on his rack for most of the session. I had good tiles all evening but my opponents kept playings in places that blocked me from playing my bingos. What a ‘shanda’!

And then there were a lot of broad smiles on the faces of others.

You’ll never feel the ‘thrill of victory’ if you never risk encountering the ‘agony of defeat’. And when you feel the thrill (and you will) it makes everything else worth it.

Come play at CLUB #350 when in southern California. – OR – Seek out a club near your home. – OR – Play online. If you need help finding a game, write me at LETTER.MAN.MOSS@gmail.com

You have to look no further than the financial markets on 8/8/11 to see how the powers of ‘fear’ and ‘doubt’ can steal away achievement and hope.

Whether or not there is any actual weakness, emotions can be so powerful that they move people into action, when they might otherwise have ‘looked harder before they leapt’.

Fear and Doubt have the exact same power at the scrabble table, if you allow it and if you give in to it.

What is the basis for ‘fear’ and ‘doubt’ when playing scrabble?
• The New Player. Uncertainty. Whenever people are new to any behavior there is a period which includes awkwardness,learning and getting up to speed. Few to none of us have inborn skills permitting us to become instant ‘experts’. New players are usually self-concious about how the look to their competitors (Competitors are usually focused on their own game and rarely sit in judgement of their novice opponents.)

• The Casual Player. Embarrassment. Casual players rarely study word lists. They play at clubs and with friends primarily for the social experience. Most do not make the effort to even learn the basic 2-Letter Word List (101 words). I know many casual players who have been playing scrabble for 10+ years and still haven’t put basic words into their memory bank.

• The Novice Player. Uncertainty. The novice player is one who has a small understanding of how much he/she does not know. This player may or may not have a study regimen in place to enhance their play. When they play against accomplished opponents they are often self-conscious, thinking that they are being critiqued by their opponent, and that’s when fear and doubt do their own destructive jobs.

• The Competitive Player. Pride. The best of the best in every discipline have coaches and handlers. In my opinion, the most important job of the coach is to build up the players attitude and confidence. Even with all the skills and strategies that a Mavin acquires, winning is rarely possible without a belief in self and an I CAN attitude.

Things To Do To Overcome Fear & Doubt
• Be Prepared
• Decide Than You Can
• Never Quit
• Acquire A Good Coach