The Finch Formerly Known As Gold

28 October 2006

A rack and a hard place

I've never played tournament Scrabble, and I'm starting to think that it's a good thing that I haven't: here's a chap who scored 830 points in a single game, including a single play for 365. What's more, his opponent scored a not-even-slightly-shabby 490. And by the reckoning of tournament experts, these guys really aren't that good.

For the record, my high game is 515, in which I had a 203-point play. I'm sure at least some of you can beat that.

(Via Vincent Ferrari, who probably can.)

Posted at 5:17 PM to Entirely Too Cool


While that story involved a Massachusetts carpenter, I've read before that large, especially international tournaments, are dominated by Asians who, though less than fluent in English, have dominated by memorizing all the allowed two, three, even four letter word combinations. Personally, without a spellchecker I'd be both unemployed and generally thought of as the village idiot.

Posted by: Don at 6:51 PM on 28 October 2006

Have you read WordFreak? It's a tour of the Scrabble tournament culture. Very entertaining.

However, I look down my nose at people who memorize silly "q" without "u" words and don't even know the definition. Pshaw, I say unto them. (13 points, verily)

Posted by: Dan at 12:27 AM on 29 October 2006

I would also reccomend "Word Wars", a great documentary about Scrabble.
I'm okay at Scrabble, but recently I just got hooked on Cleopatra and the Society of Architects. (Yes, It's a game. No, It's not what you think it is)

Posted by: Dwayne "the canoe guy" at 8:45 AM on 30 October 2006