…with Gary Moss

When women do it, it is often referred to as ‘women’s intuition.‘ When men do it, it is often seen as ‘male logic.’

Sometimes things work out, sometimes they don’t. When things work out, he/she who takes the action is praised for their insight. When things flop there are a lot of ‘I told you so’ comments.

Maybe the impulse factor is an inborn gene.
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Maybe we are wired just like my eyes are brown.
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To what extend is behavior learned?
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Here are just a few of my impulsive actions over time.

Age 4: Washing a dirty car with the rags in a bucket (that turned out to be Mrs. Sonny’s curtains) BAD!
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Age 8: Playing with Jimmy Robert’s jackknife and slicing my finger; four stitches. BAD!
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Age 10: Helping dad with deliveries on his milk truck. Breakfast at the Lyndon Diner. PRICELESS!
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Age 13: Earning the Ner Tamid merit badge as a boy scout with Rabbi Irwin Groner. ZEHR GUT!
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Age 16-21: Doing poorly in school. BAD!
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Age 25: Owning a frozen pizza business in inner city Detroit (burned up in the 1968 riots) DUMB! DUMB!
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Age 26: Founding Bloomfield Nursery School AT MY BEST!
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Age 40: Divorced; lost my school business; lost myself. WHAT WAS, WAS.
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Age 46: Discovering competitive scrabble and many new friends. A BLESSING.
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Age 53: Moving to California (decision to move + moving in 30 days). GREAT CHOICE.
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Age 54-57: Lived in and traveled in a 32 foot RV. HIGHS AND LOWS.
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Age 57-67: Living at Laguna Woods Village. COMFORTABLE & CONVENIENT.
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July 1, 2010: Not blocking the bingo line against David Pearl. TOTALLY STUPID.
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Age 67 – : A new marriage; a new life. FEELS VERY RIGHT.

How often have you had a rack of letters, considered a certain combination as a word, but held back from playing it because you lacked total certainty? I have done that many times. Usually when I take the time to make notes and look it up after the game I find that I would have been correct.

What’s the worse that could happen? I’d be wrong. Maybe get challenged off the board and lose a turn. But the experience would plant that word deeper into my memory for future use.

How many opportunities in life have passed you by, because you didn’t go for it? Do you have a stack of ‘what ifs’ that you are lugging around?

As you may know, I live in southern California, a transplant form southern Michigan. Whenever I go back to visit, landmarks ignite memories. Last week, during a visit, when driving through the intersection of Inkster and 14 Mile Road, a lazy residential community, I gazed at the large 10 acre property on northeast corner and remembered when.

It was sometime in the late 1970s. I was headmaster of a growing private school and looking to expand. I already had purchased and converted two residential properties into preschools during a 10 year period. The corner of 14 Mile & Inkster would be an ideal location. The realtor picked me up, and we drove up the driveway to a rather small home to the rear of the 10 acre parcel. A deep ravine was at the North end of the property, falling to the Franklin River. Large, lush trees dotted the acreage. As we entered the home, my interest dampened. I was very familiar with the requirements for school use, which required 45 sq. Ft. per child, and I eyeballed this building as being way too small. The realtor sensed my concerned and said, “You’ve got to see this.” He opened a door at the end of a hallway, took two small steps down and we stood in an 8 car garage ( 80 Ft. x 20 Ft ). I quickly recalculated the area in my head. I hadn’t even finished when the realtor said, “And look here.” He opened another door in the garage and took two more steps down into a subterranean basement with a side ground-level exposure, with an area of 60 Ft. x 90 Ft. All I could think was ‘what a find’.

I came prepared to spend about $125K for a property. The asking price was $420K. I hesitated. I really wanted this but the gap was far too big. If I would have simply walked away I would have always wondered.

I stretched myself to my limit and offered $148K. And would you believe me when I tell you that my offer was accepted? It was. But I knew that this was only the first hurdle to putting a school on that location. My offer was contingent upon the approval of the zoning board. Although schools are a permitted use on such properties, politics play an important part in such decisions. My appeal to the zoning board was a whole other story with some of the attorneys of some of the wealthiest people in that community quashing my dream.

I have no regrets. I played it out to the end. I did my best.

And that’s how I play scrabble too.

To help you ‘Go For It’ in your scrabble game, I have created The Bookmark Series. These word lists, on Bookmarks include the hi-probability bingos that every competitive play needs to know. CLICK HERE

I am thrilled and excited to announce my engagement to Adrienne Evie Victor Sheinwald of Southfield, Michigan. She says that she’s had a crush on me since she was 16 and I was her 22 year old Youth Director at Congregation Beth Shalom USY. We next crossed paths some 24 years later, each having gone through divorces. I was facilitating the personal growth seminar Adventures In Attitudes, while Adrienne was an attendee. We dated for about a year but drifted apart as people do when the timing is not right. I still had a lot of life lessons to learn, a lot of growing to do. I latched onto scrabble in the late 1980s. Scrabble has been my constant mistress for some 20+ years. I was fortunate to find wonderful special friends on my life journey. It’s not easy being green.

I had stopped believing the fortune tellers who like to say, “When you least expect it, Love will show up.” For a time I began to practice behaviors that I imagined to resemble ‘when-you-least-expect-it’. I tried to let the universe know that I was ready. But I guess that I wasn’t truly ready, until NOW.

And then, WHAM! BAM! ALIKAZAM! (and she doesn’t even play scrabble . . . . yet.) We plan to marry sometime this summer and reside in southern California.

Scrabble will now be #2 in my life;
let all persons know that there is a new #1.

I get emails; I get phone calls. People call me and they tell me that they love the game of scrabble. They tell me that they play with friends and family all the time.

They tell me that they’d like to come play at Club #350 or at a 1st Sunday Tournament.

Then they ask some question of me. I normally become very animated in my voice, excited to find potential additions for our club and community. After a question or three they become quieter, if not completely silent. As I explain the differences in the ways that people usually play at home, compared to competitive scrabble, I can hear their enthusiasm wane, I can imagine them wilting in their chairs at the other end on the phones.

At times, callers will ask me if they can just come to club to watch. I never say “No”. But then I suggest that they stop talking about it and simply ‘jump in’ by ‘taking the plunge’.

Have you ever been at a lake where there was a gentle slope from the beach into the water? Where you might have to wade out 100 feet from shore before the water hit your waste? When the water felt cold against your skin and colder yet as it inched up your body? (For me that experience was always painful. Sometime, before the time that the water hit my knees, I chickened out and returned to shore to avoid the coldness reaching my stomach and shoulders.)

Remember the time when you dove into the water off of a dock or the edge of a swimming pool? Recall the initial shock of the temperature of the water to your body? Remember how, within seconds, your body adjusted itself to the water temperature and there was no escape; so you swam and had a great time?

Scrabble observers will visit a club, focus on all those strange words that they do not know, think to themselves, “This too difficult” or “All these folks here are geniuses”, then disappear, never to be heard from again. Only about 6 % of first time players come with a willingness to play, giving the game their best shot. Wise players understand that they will grow their knowledge, that the first several club visits will be a learning experience. The 6-perccenters are willing to ‘take the plunge’ and return many times, becoming better and more competent players session by session.

Play at SCRABBLE CLUB #350 and/or The 1st Sunday Tournament. CLICK HERE

We each have the experience of countless new beginnings in our lives. In some respects, that’s one of the same ways scrabble mimics life, each game is a new beginning with a blank board and an endless possibility of 2-to-7-Letter-Words, waiting to be picked, from the scrabble tile bag.

In life, new opportunities surround us, some passively awaiting our discovery while others blare loudly on repeated commercials, “Choose me, choose me.” In scrabble, players find some words that magically form instantly, being drawn randomly, yet appearing tile by tile in the correct order to form common, conversational words. Many others words sit on our racks, among the random tiles, hiding in plain sight, because out brains and eyes haven’t unscrambled them yet; and many other words that are possible to play are out of our reach because we just don’t know them.

We don’t know what we don’t know.

A very small 6% of people continue pursuing knowledge, on purpose, their whole lives; the other 94% are generally content with what they know and kick-back and get comfortable.

Our past-knowledge can be very valuable whenever we encounter a new beginning. If we draw upon that past knowledge we can frequently avoid the pitfalls and the bumps in the roads. In the game of scrabble we frequently build our word knowledge by learning the words played against us by our opponents. If we are observant, we learn strategies from others and can go on to use those same ploys for ourselves, in future competitions.
Some people find new beginnings very scary. In life, some of those people are the ones who remain in bad jobs and bad relationships for fear of the unknown that lives in ‘change’. Those people know how bad it is where their feet are currently planted, and just keep on accepting it. In scrabble, some people tell themselves that they ‘are not capable of learning ‘MORE’; those people take the fun that they find, but rarely experience the ‘thrill of victory’ in the rarefied air of the Champions Circle.

A Flashback To 6/26/09
What direction has your rating taken in the lat 52 weeks?
If you had learned just 10 words per week in that time you’d have 520+ more words in your arsenal, than back then.

If you have an immune deficiency disorder, you are susceptible to catching the scrabble bug. Even if you do not have IDD you could be overtaken by ‘scrabble mania’. It usually preys upon people who love word games and puzzles. It can worm its way into your being, stealing your focus and attention. It is not fattening, but other than your fingers, you eyes and gears of your brain, nothing else moves very much. Studying your stem lists on a tread mill is a good supplement to make up for your lack of exercise.

Scrabble players need to be cognizant about hand washing. More hands have been in most scrabble tile bags than have touch Cockeyed Jenny. And when it is cold season, it is not a bad idea to wear a mask.

An aside about contagiousness:
It was in the early 1970s. The Viet Nam War was in full swing and many young men across America were being called up to serve their country. One of the first stops for the prospective soldiers during induction was showing up for a physical.
My father-in-law at the time, Carl, owned and operated a furniture store on Finkell near Telegraph, in Detroit, Michigan. It was a small store that he operated with one other salesman and Jim, a big burly young man who moved things about in the store and delivered large chairs, tables, and sofas.
Jim was prime for being selected by the draft. One day his notice came. Carl was very concerned for Jim’s well being and for the fact that it would be difficult to find and train someone to replace a good worker. A week later Jim headed down to the draft board and spent all day going from line to line, having this test and that test.
The next day when Jim reported to work he appeared to be very sad and forlorn. Carl ask Jim what had happened. Jim was the big, quiet type. He never gave more than one-word answers. This time he responded with 4 words, “They didn’t want me.”
Carl was both happy and concerned. There must have been some good reason that Jim was not drafted. Carl’s curiosity had the best of him. He had to know why Jim was not drafted. “Why were you rejected?” he asked Jim. Jim answered briefly as expected, saying something like “medical dysentery.” A worried look swept across Carl’s face. Within minutes, Carl had put the Out-To-Lunch sign on the door, locked his store, and headed down the block to his friend, the Pharmacist, at the corner of the block. He inquired about Jim’s condition, ‘medical dysentery’, wanting to know if it was contagious. Did he or his customers have anything to worry about.
The pharmacist was stumped. He didn’t know what this could be. Next they called and checked with a doctor/friend. He could not shed any light on the question. Finally in desperation, Carl called directly to Jim’s draft board.
Like all governmental agencies, Carl got the run around. His call was transferred from one department to another. He spent the better part of 2 hours on hold. Finally, the examiner who had met with Jim was on the phone with Carl. The examiner told Carl that the information was confidential and could not be shared. Carl was furious, having had waited so long, and fearful for the well-being of himself and others. Carl pleaded with the examiner.
Finally the examiner asked, “Just what is it that you want to know?”
Carl asked, “What is this condition that Jim has, ‘medical dysentery’?”
The examiner was heard on the other end, roaring with laughter. After a minute or five he calmed himself down and said, “Jim’s condition is ‘mental deficiency’”.

Many scrabble games are similar in that many of the same key words appear game after game after game. Four years ago on March 1, 2006, when the OWL2 was published, the newly added two letter words were FE, OI, KI, QI, and ZA. QI and ZA have change the game dramatically. The addition of QI virtually eliminate the dreaded ‘Q stick’ (a player being left with an unplayed Q on their rack at the end of the game).

For the last two years I have been tracking every bingo played in games at Club #350. The results show that certain bingos have been played multiple numbers of times. Those bingo, unsurprisingly, are the high probability bingos, found on the top 10 Stem Lists. For instance, ‘atonies’ has been played 17 times in 2009.

One observation that I’m made, as a frequent player, is that some words seem to cycle. I might learn a word like ‘ngwee’ and play it. It makes a noted impression on my opponent. He/she then keeps an eye on his rack with the intent of playing that same word in some other game. Over the course of a few weeks ‘ngwee’ is played 6 times at 6 different clubs. Words stick in memory better after you play the word (it becomes more familiar to you).

In the early 1990s I lived and played scrabble in south eastern Michigan and south western Ontario, Canada. Even though all the clubs in these areas used the NSA Official Word List, certain words played by Canadians were marked different from those played by the Michiganders. Ay. Who’d-a-thunk-it?

In the world of competitive scrabble, the most successful players, in my opinion, are the ones who are always playing the unfamiliar words. Click Here to see the bingos played at Club #350 in 2010. You can most likely guess which were played by the ‘experts’ (alastor, inutile, paletots, usufruct).

Studying words lists, especially high-probability sets, will help you experience de ja vue when playing scrabble. You’ll be sitting there, drawing your tiles, and recalling the words that you learned with that specific set of letters (or not). It is also valuable to recognize that you do not have a bingo on your rack. Novices have been known to waste 4, 5, 6 minutes or more trying to find the bingo in SATIRE+O (there isn’t any). I can here you screaming, “But Gary, it’s a SATIRE rack”. Yes, the following letter + SATIRE do no have bingos: J; K; O; Q; U; Y and Z.
Every other letter + SATIRE will form 1 or more bingos. Remember that.

To experience de ja vue on a regular basis you need to have and learn the Top 10 Stems. Here is a special offer you can’t pass up. CLICK NOW!

About two years ago, for some reason I decided that I needed to do some activity that did not include letters.

If you’ve noticed, one of the fad things that is happening is SUDOKU. It may very well turn into becoming a staple. The puzzles appear daily along side of the crossword puzzles in most newspapers.

One day I opened my Orange County Register to the Sudoku puzzle and gave it a try. It was a Monday morning. The Register offers a daily puzzle; they become progressively more difficult each day of the week, then the puzzles revert to easy on the following Monday.

I was not successful on that first attempt on that Monday. I almost gave up on the idea, right there and then. Unable to do the Monday puzzle, I was feeling stupid and like a loser. I began telling myself thing like I don’t have an aptitude for math. I started dredging up bad memories of Advanced Algebra at the hands of Mennetti Bremen, at Mumford High School, in Detroit, Michigan. I could only manage earning a D in her class, and that was by the skin of my teeth.

The I sat down to write my daily blog that Monday, in which I was getting down on my readers for complaining about the chores ahead of them in learning the Stem Lists. My writing came to a screeching halt! How could I demand something from others when I was thinking about throwing in the towel on Sudoku? I made a very important decision at that point. I completed my blog and headed right back to Sudoku. I drove to a local bookstore and purchased an Intermediate Level book of puzzles. That was the wrong thing to do for my first step. I tried 2 or 3 puzzles and failed miserably. I went back to the bookstore and purchase a set of EASY Sudoku Puzzles. (Better Idea)

The first puzzle was a bear. It took me hours. The next one was easier. The first successes provided the energy that I needed to feel good and know that I DID have the ability to figure out the answers. And after that, it became a matter of doing challenge after challenge and building awareness of patterns. Becoming literate with Sudoku helped me develop deeper insight into the ways that people are able to learn in general. After that, I redesigned some of my lessons for my online class, SCRABBLE 101, using ideas that I had learned from my experience with Sudoku.

Now, two years later I can do the Sudoku puzzles successfully, Monday thru Friday. I went back to that intermediate book that I had purchased and completed every page. Yes, there are still some puzzles that stump me. But those are usually the ones that I attempt when I am not fully focused (something like missing an obvious bingo.)

We all have the abilities to do almost anything. It all begins with attitude and banishing all negative thinking.

Challenge yourself to learn a STEM LIST today.

If you like puzzles, if you like words, if you like ‘where’s Elmo’ searches, if you like home decor (moving furniture around), if you like ‘fung shway’, if you like obscure words that you’d be hard presses to use in a sentence . . . . . . you’ll love competitive scrabble.

Sometimes when I’m sitting alone late at night, after Craig Furgeson has signed off, after I’ve finally turned off the TV, which has given way to infomercials, I wonder about the genius of Alfred Mosher Butts. I wonder what inspired him to create Criss-Cross-Words (now known as SCRABBLE). I try to envision him sitting there in Jackson Heights, Queens, New York, in 1938. How long did it take him to conceive the idea for the game? Did it come in an instant vision? Was it a long difficult birth with a lot of pushing and strain? What in the world was he thinking when he put 9 i’s into the tile bag (way too many).

When I became hooked on the game in 1987, I always meant to make a trip to Poughkeepsie, N.Y., where Al was living at the time. I intended to shake his hand, give him a bear hug, and a kiss on each cheek. But we all put things off. It was always going to be next month or some other time. There was no urgency in my plans. There should have been. Alfred was born, April 13, 1899. And then on April 4, 1993, it was too late; Sir Butts had passed. I was sad that he was gone. I was sad that I never made the pilgrimage to his tent. And I am so thankful that he came this way and left his scrabble legacy for all of us to enjoy.

Depending on where you stand, depending on your personal perspective, scrabble is many, many, different things. It is a game; it brings people together; it encourages study; it builds memory skills; it develops the thinking process; it is now a reason for people to learn how to use the computer; it exposes players to others they might never come to know.

Scrabble has inspired me to create, among other things, a set of word puzzles that stimulate people to learn words that they can then use to their advantage in later scrabble games. CLICK HERE