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Phil Willis Online |
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Mar 24th, 2003After reading "Word Freak" by Stefan Fatsis (twice), last weekend I went in my first Scrabble tournament.(By the way - if you haven't read the book yet, then hurry up! It's a great book and you're only hurting yourself by not reading it.) |
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It was time for me to see what the dark heart of America's Scrabble underground looked like first hand. I won't pretend I wasn't prepared for it. I had spent the last three months learning all 96 acceptable 2-letter words, most of the thousand or so 3-letter words, plus all the 3, 4 and 5-letter J, Q, X and Z words. As well as some frequently drawn 7 letter bingos that help clear your rack and give you 50 bonus points. I was ready. I was ready to win. I was ready to stand on a podium at the end of the tournament blinded by flashbulbs holding a beach-towel-sized winner's cheque for $500 with my name on it (probably spelt out in Scrabble tiles). Being unrated, I would compete in the easiest of the five divisions. Picture a bright, motivated 28 year old pitted against the dottery blue-haired old ladies probably just weeks from their deathbeds. Surely I was a shoo in!! All the positive thinking in the world didn't stop me getting an absolute shellacking in the first game. I was so nervous. The tiles were rattling in my rack because my hands were shaking so badly. After all my study of words like TAENIAS, OESTRIN, ISATINE and ENTASIS (which I freely admit I do not have the slightest idea of their meanings) I thought I would be okay. And what do I play as the very first word on my very first tournament board? "SO" Four massive points (the first play is a double-word-score). Way to go champ! I wasted one of the four precious S tiles on a lousy four point play!! To make matters worse, I probably spent 4 of my allocated 25 minute time limit to find it!!! Suffice to say I got thrashed 387 to 218, despite playing all these cool new Scrabble words I'd learnt: ASEA, QUAY, PHAT, VUG, EH, YEN, ETESIAN. The last one didn't even count as a bingo since I played it through an existing E, but I was playing for my dignity at that point. When I looked at the board after round 1, I was coming last. Irrefutably, mathematically last. (For those that read my marathon story, you might recognize a pattern occurring.) A couple more defeats came my way and I started getting desperate. I played the phony word: SWANNIER* across a triple-word-score in the hopes of fighting back, but it was summarily challenged off the board. If someone catches you playing something other than one of the 120,000 words in the Official Scrabble Player's Dictionary you have to remove the word and lose your turn. On the other hand, if the word exists then your challenger loses their turn. What came next was a shock. I actually won a game! I even managed my first bingo of the day with the tiles EILONR?. The blank on my rack meant I could have played LONELIER or LOONIER (both would have adequately described how I was feeling), but I decided on LOONIER. But even after a 68 point play it was still a close game. Truth be told, the only reason I won that match was by hoarding the last remaining U late in the game when I noticed the Q hadn't surfaced. My opponent ate the Q and I won by a mere 13 points. At the lunch break I had a win-loss record of 1-3 and a pathetic -322 point spread. But at least I was no longer coming last. After the break I sat down and tried to regroup over deep fried chicken and biscuits. I desperately needed to regain some self-respect. (I told myself to stop thinking about anagrams of regain: EARING, INGEAR, REAGIN, REGINA) Then finally it happened. I was relaxed. I was in control. I was playing the type of Scrabble I knew I was capable of. I was slapping down simple high scoring words like FIXED, QAT, GRAZE, LAVA, JAG, WIMP, COZ, BYE, VET, RAJ, QUITS, YO, ZING and ZITI (a type of pasta). I was challenging phonies with confidence and laying down a couple of my own bingos for a change: READING and SAFETIES. A 373 to 161 victory over a high school girl left me feeling a little guilty, but not for long. Yes, that's right, there were some young people there. I was expecting everyone to be 70+ years old, but surprisingly the crowd was fairly mixed. No one I'd consider dating, but hey - what do you want from a group of people that spend their weekends playing a board game for prizes like t-shirts that say: "Is anal retentive hyphenated?". At the end of the day I finished with a 3-4 win-loss record and a -111 spread. I was pretty happy with the result all things considered. The lessons I learnt: don't try too much fancy stuff. Stick to simple high scoring words, don't be afraid to trade your crappy tiles and remember it's only a game. I guess now I've got some time to learn those lessons and think about what to do differently next time. Oh yes. There will be a next time. |
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