…with Gary Moss

Archive for December, 2011

Are you all ears?

What do you hear when you walk into your local scrabble club? There are certainly an array of sounds. My experience is that most players with scrabble ratings under 1600 are very gregarious and friendly. (The upper crust usually seek out other upper crust and share stories about yesterday’s scrabble wars or the words that end with ‘eau’.)

Being the holiday season right now, the air is filled with loud renditions of Christmas Carols and other traditional holiday tunes. Scrabblers who play at venues that stream music must develop a way to tune it out or Rudolph and The Little Drummer Boy will play havoc with their scrabble performance.

When scrabblers are at play there is barely a sound beyond that of the rattling of tiles, muffled by the bags that enclose them. Years ago when I hosted scrabble gathering at my lakefront home, neighbors voted me as hosting the quietest parties ever held on the lake.

All that silence during the game stuffs the unaired sounds somewhere within. It builds up like hot air trapped in a balloon. The moment the game is over, all that sound becomes unleashed and silence is transformed into a cacophony of ‘chatty cathy’s’. Players still playing become annoyed and yell “QUIET”. Sometimes they spray others sitting close by with “Shhhhhhh”. Players who finished first are asked to leave the playing room and talk elsewhere. But they are so wrapped up in their own thoughts that they cannot hear the requests. This scene repeats itself wherever scrabblers compete.

Oh when will they ever learn?

The epitome of silence is that which occurs with regard to most losers when the game is over. There is nothing quieter than a loser. (Sometimes I sulk my way into the next game, which is usually deadly, leading to another loss.)

Oh when will I ever learn?

What’s the big deal about playing scrabble? All one has to do is move tiles around until a group of tiles from a word. Right?

Well, sort of.

You still have to find a spot where the word will fit onto the board. One of the most frustrating events during a game is when you find a 7 letter word using all your letters and it can’t be played on the board. That makes me go nuts.

The thing that makes me even crazier is when, after the game, some expert, who had been peering over my shoulder, comes and tells me that I could have played the bingo by hooking the ‘a’ in the word to the front of ‘cold’, making ‘acold’. But who knew that ‘acold’ was a word? (KNOWING HOOKS WILL OFTEN ALLOW YOU TO PLAY YOUR BINGOS.)

My LOTEM SYSTEM is a pathway to learning HOOKS. We should talk: (949) 510-1673.

Oh yeah, just putting your word down anywhere on the board doesn’t insure winning either. Some spots on the board are more valuable than other spots.

To begin with, the best scrabble players are open to seeing the game and the board differently. The average player sees ‘RED’. The better player sees ‘MAGENTA”.

It is that SIMPLE, but that isn’t always so EASY.

To get from here to there one must have the desire and a commitment. Then one must find a pathway. Some stumble along and work diligently at reinventing the wheel. Others call upon coaches like me and apply tools like The LOTEM SYSTEM.

You can always send me an email: letter.man.moss@gmail.com

Some people are dreaming about large screen TVs, others yearn for the feel of corinthian leather seats in a new Lexus, still others desire sparkling baubles in a 2 carat plus range.

As for me, I want something much less extravagant yet equally illusive.

Oh, to once again experience the thrill of victory against the ‘big guys’.

The truth is, it can happen to any of us at any given scrabble competition. And it even happened to me a few times during the past 20+ years. I can tell you that it feels ooooh so sweet. The delicious feelings stayed with me for a period of time. But like everything else, time erodes the heightened edge of the ‘thrill of victory’.

My first high was at the 1987 Nationals in New York City when I was just starting out. I played in Division 2 and had a rating of 1294. When the games began I was at the bottom of the pack. I played at championship level. Even though I finished 25th in the division, I gained 123 rating points and had the best finish for all players rated under 1400, and earned a prize of $350. (Local papers back home interviewed me and I became a local celebrity.)

To date I have played more than 283 sanctioned scrabble tournament tournaments. I have finish 1st in my divisions 19 times.

A few wins that are forged into my memory include the first time I ever beat Chuck Armstrong in a club game (1993), the day I beat Joel Wapnick at the Montreal tournament (1994), and the LA Club Championship (1997) when I beat Rita Norr in the final game to become club champion.

Another ‘thrill of victory’ would be oh so lovely. It doesn’t have to be anything as miraculous as winning a National. I could be very happy with an occasional triple/triple against Maddy Kamen, winning a challenge agains Rachel Knapp would be delightful, or having two consecutive wins against Tom Singleton could start a trend. What grand cosmic plan would be upset if this year I had all balanced racks and many fewer I’s?

What is on your wish list this year?

If you are in southern California on Sunday, December 18, come play scrabble with us at the Winter Holiday Scrabble Classic (a non-rated event). Just check out the link and RSVP.

We each have something that we choose to declare as ‘my world’. It is our passion; it is our most favorite place to be, doing what we love best.

Scrabble wasn’t always ‘my world’. There were other activities in my life that captured my every thought at different times in my life. I was an avid bowler in my 20s; from ages 26 to 46 I was so immersed in my roll as headmaster of The Bloomfield Nursery School and The Moss School that many people called me Mr. Bloomfield. In my 30s I took up racquetball and for almost 10 years I played countless hours every week, until I collided with a wall and shattered my right elbow. More recently, about 1987, I discovered the world of competitive scrabble and I’ve been hooked ever since.

Besides scrabble, two of my other passions are teaching and writing. I’ve been able to combine my favorite things by teaching and coaching scrabble in workshops and via my online class. More recently I have packaged a system that I call LOTEM. It is a process that will take you and others from wherever you are at (in you scrabble expertise) to other higher levels within the ranks. (For information call 949.510.1673)

Tomorrow is the 1st Sunday of December 2011. I will be directing The 1st Sunday Scrabble Tournament and I will be in my element. I founded the 1st Sunday Tournament more than 240 months ago; I’ve rarely missed a single month. Hundreds of different people have been in and out of my world over the years. That has afforded me to make many friends from near and far.

If you are reading this blog and live in some cold, snowy, northern clime consider visiting southern California during your winter months. I will share my world with you and introduce you to the scrabble players in clubs and tournaments from Los Angeles to San Diego. It is a place where you can play in a scheduled club most every day of the week.

This is My World