So yesterday was scrabble club night and its been a little while since I talked about the cool people there that keep my spirits up. Everyone in scrabble is crazy but my friends are the "good" crazy (and no I'm not biased at all). Let's see... Peggy and I have basically started our own nuclear arms race and are both obsessively studying at this point. We play each other outside of club at least one a week and sometimes have several sessions. This has been very good for our performance against others. We both have had big rating gains and we finished first and second in our last tournament (we split the two games we played and I got first due to the magic of spread). Before anybody asks, there were no little kids in the division, and the two games I had the biggest margins in, were against someone who was in the top three until the last few rounds and a low rated player who was around my mom's age (not my grandmother's). No phony bingos in either either ( Is that right? I want the sentence to end eeether eyether. Oh well) Anyways, since we play so much and are both investing a lot of time into getting better, the games are getting a little tense. Luckily, her last rating gain came after the deadline for putting people into divisions for the Scrabble National Championship (why this deadline exists I have no idea. No other tournament I know does this. It seems to encourage manipulation. When I was below the cutoff I thought about and was actually told by others to wait until a certain date to play anymore so I would be eligible for bottom division top prizes) So though we would be in the same division in almost any other tournament we will be separated at the big one. Since she is 5 and 1 against me in tournaments
(6 and 2 if you count the 4th of July unrated Freedom spectacular). I will be happy to dodge her even if it due to scrabble rule quirkiness.
Speaking of quirkiness and people who beat me a lot... Victor came by the club to get a game or two in before playing some softball. He had a close game with Louise. There may have been a way for her to win. I saw the board briefly and there was at least one phony on it (my first spelling of that was "phoney" by the way). He then played Peggy who lost despite successfully challenging at least one of his words off the board. It looked like he drew the bag on her when I was watching. (drawing the bag means to get all or most of the "good" tiles). It was an ugly evening outside with the rain alternating between a downpour and a humid trickle (that should be the name for a punk rock band. "Now at #7 on the charts with their new single You Smell Easy Tonite its... Humid Trickle!") So Vic assumed that his softball game would be canceled , but apparently it started without him, rain or no rain. So he left to get there while it was still going, but not before we talked about playing a game and renewed our long running argument about the appropriateness of resigning. Careful readers of this blog know that I am used to having the option to resign. I won't start a rant about it again, but the main idea is that it that is a frequently used option in the similar games of magic and chess and there is even a provision for it in the official scrabble tournament rules. Victor (and many others) feel that it is bad form to resign, whether at a tournament or playing a more casual game at the club. When Vic and I play the result is almost always one of two outcomes. Either I win by a small margin or he wins by a huge amount (oddly enough, he is also a big fan of spread). We have not played a lot lately, but in our most recent games I have won around 40%. So we had to "negotiate" before starting a game.
"Hey want to play a game?"
"Sure, you going to get upset if I resign?"
"Well that's my one condition."
"Well that's my one condition."
"You can't resign in scrabble."
"Well yes you can, but maybe we could work out a compromise."
"What's that?"
"I thought you were a lawyer or something? A compromise is an agreement between two or more parties..."
"What compromise are you offering?"
"I won't concede unless I get behind by 200 or more points."
"But you could still win."
"Exactly, I could resign that game and go win another..."
"You could come back and win that first one."
"Maybe if I came back with a bat and gave you a concussion so you couldn't score a single more point the whole rest of the game."
"Its possible to come back from that much down."
"Its possible to win the lottery. Its possible to survive being struck by lightning. Why don't you go buy some tickets and run around the parking lot with your aluminum bat" (Ok, maybe I just thought that last part really hard)
Unfortunately, he got a phone call from his teammates around then so we didn't get to finish the argument, let alone actually play any scrabble. I did however get to play two other pleasant people that evening: Cathy with a C (who claims she does not have enough time to read this blog even though she clearly has time to eat, sleep, and attend to personal grooming. Some people just have messed up priorities, I guess) and Regina (with a "G" I guess). Since Cathy does not read the blog, because she is is too busy stealing kittens from orphans and then selling them to support her expensive puffer fish addiction. (feel free to correct me in the response forum, busy lady bwahahahah) while Regina does, guess who gets their game lovingly described in detail? That's right, the once and future queen herself. Let me also take this opportunity to issue a correction. After some careful investigation (or at least trying to listen this time when it was described to me) it turns out that Regina is not a member of the oldest profession, but is instead some sort of go between for people at the university and other people who give them money called "grants or funding". Whatever, sounds like she is some sort of fancy pimp to me. So I bought her a stylish new hat with a huge feather on the side and hopefully once she receives this thoughtful gift we can put the earlier incident behind us. Anyways, we played a fun game with some neat words in it (well neat to scrabble geeks at least). More importantly, Regina is fun to play with for (at least) two reasons. She's my Shakespeare buddy so we have an informal agreement that if one of us plays a word like "wert" or "thous" we don't challenge it. Some of the Bard and his contemporaries lexicon has survived to make it into the scrabble "approved" word list and some has not. It is maddening to figure out the rhyme or reason of it so we both just let them go if we recognize them. She also is a really good sport about me chattering, not just about our game, but those on either side of us as well. My ideal game set up (since I know everyone is dying to know) is Regina playing across from me, with Louise on one side of me and Galen on the other. Louise because its fun to try and steal her tiles without her noticing and slapping my hand and Galen because she will try and hide her tiles from me so I can't comment or even make weird facial expressions about her plays. Speaking of weird facial expressions, I unfortunately have to go get some exercise before it gets too hot outside and I melt like the pasty container of vanilla ice cream that I am. Next time I will try to get back to that game with Regina (ambo?!?) and/or the creepiness of the I.S.C. and its "helpers".
Friday, July 11, 2008
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
I.S.C. stands for Insane Scrabble Colonoscopy...
Ok, a quick note before we start. Sorry I forgot about you Jason when I said it was about time someone I actually knew made a post. I know you posted a comment a long time ago. What I meant to say was someone I knew and actually liked.... I kid, I kid. You are the best dyslexic friend I have (take that Patty! You are #2 in my dyslexic friend list; also known as last place). Jason caring about my scrabble exploits even though some of his synapses were installed backwards or whatever is like me giving him feedback on his photography even though he doesn't know I am colorblind. Whoops... I mean, umm, differently sighted which allows me to offer a unique artistic perspective on what I am pretty sure are beautiful trees changing colors and sunrises and rainbows...
So the I.S.C.... As a wildly popular game (scrabble is in 1 out of 3 houses in the U.S.) backed by the financial might of Hasbro Industries, you would think there would be a easy and fun way to play online. You would be right. Its called scrabbulous, its on FaceBook and they are currently being sued by Hasbro http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/hasbro-seeking-to-shut-down-scrabulous
The legal issue at stake seems to be that someone actually made scrabble cool enough for people between the traditional demographics of under 16 and over 60. This is apparently not part of Hasbro's business plan... Or copyright infringement or something. Whatever the justification, instead of trying to work together with people who actually care about Scrabble, its owners have chosen once again one of their two tried and true (thats fun to say, try it) responses: ignoring them or taking them to court. Must...Get...Train...Back...On....Tracks...(wheres that conductor guy when you need him?)
Ok, we now return you to your regularly scheduled diatribe. I will come back to Hasbro and their (non)support of their game some time/post soon. So the "best" option out there for playing scrabble online that is not currently going to court is the I.S.C. or the Internet Scrabble Club. They are also unlicensed and oddly hard to find. Google searches for both ISC and I.S.C. do not turn up anything scrabble related on the first ten pages of links. Is the international shogi club really that much better than us? Ignatian Spirituality Conference? Even the Irvine Strikers Soccer Club beat us and they are I.S.S.C. and a youth soccer team! (they do have cooler uniforms than us though) So maybe that is the ISC's strategy: keep off the radar and appear as "ghetto" as possible. Check out their home page http://www.isc.ro/ Note the ro at the end of that address. Thats right, the program that everyone from world champions to scrubs like me use is made in Romania by people who speak Romanian instead of English. Fun facts about Romania courtesy of the the infallible Wikipedia:
1) Romanians make up 89.5 percent of those who live in Romania. (Did I miss something in Social Studies class or don't all the people who live in a country on a long term basis "belong" to that country?) Also why is it "those" instead of people? Are there non-people living in Romania also formerly known as Transylvania? Argh! My scrabble game is run by vampires! ( insert your own "sucks" joke here)
2) Romania has four different seasons. (What they don't get to experience the beauty of spinter the fifth and best season that the rest of the world enjoys?)
3) The oldest human remains were discovered in Romania in a place named "Cave with Bones" I kid you not. (Reports that there was a stake in the ribcage of these remains has not been confirmed though...)
4) The official logo used to encourage tourism (as in they designed it themselves to get people to come there) is the word Romania in blood red letters except for the "m" which appears to have been turned into two moss covered teeth, with the sun setting over the whole thing.
5) Famous son, Vlad the Impaler, is viewed by Romanians as an excellent ruler with a strong sense of justice who defended their religious and political beliefs from outsiders. (I could really use whoever is his publicist right about now)
So the ISC is owned and operated by a mysterious figure in Romania that no one has ever seen in person. There is no known way to contact him (her/it/them?!?). If you have a problem with the interface or your membership or keeping all your blood to yourself then you have to take it up with one of the "helpers". At some point in the distant past applications were accepted for the position of assisting players with whatever difficulties they had with the finest interface that 100 blood stained gold coins could buy. Its unclear how many helpers (or evil minions as I think of them) there are. There is no convenient list of who is and is not a helper. The best you can do is add them to your "friends list" (which has a limited capacity) whenever you discover one. There is a feature where you can talk directly to another person who is online at the time, but if you try this with a minion they will ignore you at best or more likely punish you in some way such as preventing you from talking with anyone else or deleting your account entirely. Instead you are advised to place your question into a queue with some ungodly amount of other backed up unanswered questions. A lovely feature of the program is that once you ask one question, you cannot ask another one until the first is answered officially. It does not matter if you have already found the answer, or if you log off and back on or if it has been thirty days, you are stuck waiting for one the minions to decide that "answering" your question would amuse them in some fashion. Indeed, they go out of their way to find questions that can serve as set ups. A real example : "Can someone tell me a good way to get better quickly please?"
"Get a brain transplant." That's hilarious if you are a 7 year old (or maybe an Igor lab assistant..)
but is in no way helpful which, theoretically, is what a "helper" should be. Players have their accounts terminated for very mild curse words used while talking with a helper (not at them necessarily, just while talking with them) but I have seen helpers curse on multiple occasions. If one player is vulgar to another or cyber stalks them or does anything to another player, the helpers don't care and just tell the victim to "noplay them" which makes it harder (though not impossible) for the offending party to continue their offensive actions. The double standard is simply ridiculous. All this anger has got me hungry so I will cut this post short so I can refuel and prepare myself for part two of this piece of investigative journalism.
So the I.S.C.... As a wildly popular game (scrabble is in 1 out of 3 houses in the U.S.) backed by the financial might of Hasbro Industries, you would think there would be a easy and fun way to play online. You would be right. Its called scrabbulous, its on FaceBook and they are currently being sued by Hasbro http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/hasbro-seeking-to-shut-down-scrabulous
The legal issue at stake seems to be that someone actually made scrabble cool enough for people between the traditional demographics of under 16 and over 60. This is apparently not part of Hasbro's business plan... Or copyright infringement or something. Whatever the justification, instead of trying to work together with people who actually care about Scrabble, its owners have chosen once again one of their two tried and true (thats fun to say, try it) responses: ignoring them or taking them to court. Must...Get...Train...Back...On....Tracks...(wheres that conductor guy when you need him?)
Ok, we now return you to your regularly scheduled diatribe. I will come back to Hasbro and their (non)support of their game some time/post soon. So the "best" option out there for playing scrabble online that is not currently going to court is the I.S.C. or the Internet Scrabble Club. They are also unlicensed and oddly hard to find. Google searches for both ISC and I.S.C. do not turn up anything scrabble related on the first ten pages of links. Is the international shogi club really that much better than us? Ignatian Spirituality Conference? Even the Irvine Strikers Soccer Club beat us and they are I.S.S.C. and a youth soccer team! (they do have cooler uniforms than us though) So maybe that is the ISC's strategy: keep off the radar and appear as "ghetto" as possible. Check out their home page http://www.isc.ro/ Note the ro at the end of that address. Thats right, the program that everyone from world champions to scrubs like me use is made in Romania by people who speak Romanian instead of English. Fun facts about Romania courtesy of the the infallible Wikipedia:
1) Romanians make up 89.5 percent of those who live in Romania. (Did I miss something in Social Studies class or don't all the people who live in a country on a long term basis "belong" to that country?) Also why is it "those" instead of people? Are there non-people living in Romania also formerly known as Transylvania? Argh! My scrabble game is run by vampires! ( insert your own "sucks" joke here)
2) Romania has four different seasons. (What they don't get to experience the beauty of spinter the fifth and best season that the rest of the world enjoys?)
3) The oldest human remains were discovered in Romania in a place named "Cave with Bones" I kid you not. (Reports that there was a stake in the ribcage of these remains has not been confirmed though...)
4) The official logo used to encourage tourism (as in they designed it themselves to get people to come there) is the word Romania in blood red letters except for the "m" which appears to have been turned into two moss covered teeth, with the sun setting over the whole thing.
5) Famous son, Vlad the Impaler, is viewed by Romanians as an excellent ruler with a strong sense of justice who defended their religious and political beliefs from outsiders. (I could really use whoever is his publicist right about now)
So the ISC is owned and operated by a mysterious figure in Romania that no one has ever seen in person. There is no known way to contact him (her/it/them?!?). If you have a problem with the interface or your membership or keeping all your blood to yourself then you have to take it up with one of the "helpers". At some point in the distant past applications were accepted for the position of assisting players with whatever difficulties they had with the finest interface that 100 blood stained gold coins could buy. Its unclear how many helpers (or evil minions as I think of them) there are. There is no convenient list of who is and is not a helper. The best you can do is add them to your "friends list" (which has a limited capacity) whenever you discover one. There is a feature where you can talk directly to another person who is online at the time, but if you try this with a minion they will ignore you at best or more likely punish you in some way such as preventing you from talking with anyone else or deleting your account entirely. Instead you are advised to place your question into a queue with some ungodly amount of other backed up unanswered questions. A lovely feature of the program is that once you ask one question, you cannot ask another one until the first is answered officially. It does not matter if you have already found the answer, or if you log off and back on or if it has been thirty days, you are stuck waiting for one the minions to decide that "answering" your question would amuse them in some fashion. Indeed, they go out of their way to find questions that can serve as set ups. A real example : "Can someone tell me a good way to get better quickly please?"
"Get a brain transplant." That's hilarious if you are a 7 year old (or maybe an Igor lab assistant..)
but is in no way helpful which, theoretically, is what a "helper" should be. Players have their accounts terminated for very mild curse words used while talking with a helper (not at them necessarily, just while talking with them) but I have seen helpers curse on multiple occasions. If one player is vulgar to another or cyber stalks them or does anything to another player, the helpers don't care and just tell the victim to "noplay them" which makes it harder (though not impossible) for the offending party to continue their offensive actions. The double standard is simply ridiculous. All this anger has got me hungry so I will cut this post short so I can refuel and prepare myself for part two of this piece of investigative journalism.
Sunday, July 6, 2008
Some Housekeeping and Love for the Pi(e)People
I have been informed that some odds and ends need tying up. I thought my first tournament was interesting for the people I met and the introduction it gave me to the S.A.P. 2000 and other scrabble oddities. This blog is not really about my "progress" per se. I like to think I am getting better, but the journey is more important (and amusing) to me than the destination of reaching a certain rating or winning a certain tournament or whatever. I am still a competitive person at heart and I do not like to lose. I just think there are enough traditional blogs already about scrabble wins, losses, and strategy points. But since a couple people asked, I finished a little below halfway down the pack in my first tournament. I beat a couple people who still have higher ratings than me, and lost to a couple people who now have ratings hundreds of points below mine. Yawn. I will give more detail for the tournaments where there is some drama near the end as to how I will finish. This decision has more to do with how pressure makes me and other scrabble players even crazier than normal, and less to do with pride though.
Speaking of lack of pride... Against my better judgment, I have decided to share with the pi(e) people some overheard comments from the recent 4th of July scrabble party/cookout/tournament I had the pleasure of attending. Thanks to the wonders of alcohol and scrabble these were really said by either myself, Cathy, Peggy, or the pi-favorite herself, Galen. Begin List of Comments Mom (or anyone who wants to respect themselves in the morning) should NOT read
Speaking of lack of pride... Against my better judgment, I have decided to share with the pi(e) people some overheard comments from the recent 4th of July scrabble party/cookout/tournament I had the pleasure of attending. Thanks to the wonders of alcohol and scrabble these were really said by either myself, Cathy, Peggy, or the pi-favorite herself, Galen. Begin List of Comments Mom (or anyone who wants to respect themselves in the morning) should NOT read
Again, in no particular order, but numbered because I feel like it.
1) After a bad loss "Ughh, I'm going to be walking funny for weeks now."
2) To someone who had not got into the pool yet "Don't make me come down there and get you wet!"
3) Who immediately responded " I'm fine with that."
4) After someone played a dubious word "You are more full of %@*# than I was after three hotdogs, two burgers and a delicious tart!"
5) During a complicated process involving a collapsible chair, a sack, and an umbrella " No, no the pointed end first."
6) "That just doesn't feel right."
7) "Well it wont be the first time..."
8) About another scrabble player who didn't make it to the party "She never comes."
9) and then "Exactly, she's dead to me."
10) And finally, this interchange after a relatively low scoring bingo
"This bingo sucks".
"Hey all bingos are equal in God's eyes."
"What the @%#$ are you talking about?"
"Its in the Bible, umm in Leviticus."
"Man, how did I miss that?"
And twenty minutes later...
"I've been thinking a lot about what you said earlier to me."
"Oh?"
"If that is how God feels about bingos, well then she's dead to me too"
"Umm, So I don't need to get you anything for Christmas?...."
End Disturbing and/or Blasphemous Comments
So, if I don't get struck by lightning (why do people say that when they are worried about the Judeo/Christian God? Wouldn't it make more sense to say something like "If I don't drown in a horrible flood that covers the earth" or "If I don't get slaughtered in the night along with the other first born sons in my town"? Struck by lightning is Thor from Norse mythology right? Maybe he does subcontracting...) then next time I will share the wacky world of Internet Scrabble as operated by some mysterious European no one has ever seen who goes by the name Kaizer NoPlay...
1) After a bad loss "Ughh, I'm going to be walking funny for weeks now."
2) To someone who had not got into the pool yet "Don't make me come down there and get you wet!"
3) Who immediately responded " I'm fine with that."
4) After someone played a dubious word "You are more full of %@*# than I was after three hotdogs, two burgers and a delicious tart!"
5) During a complicated process involving a collapsible chair, a sack, and an umbrella " No, no the pointed end first."
6) "That just doesn't feel right."
7) "Well it wont be the first time..."
8) About another scrabble player who didn't make it to the party "She never comes."
9) and then "Exactly, she's dead to me."
10) And finally, this interchange after a relatively low scoring bingo
"This bingo sucks".
"Hey all bingos are equal in God's eyes."
"What the @%#$ are you talking about?"
"Its in the Bible, umm in Leviticus."
"Man, how did I miss that?"
And twenty minutes later...
"I've been thinking a lot about what you said earlier to me."
"Oh?"
"If that is how God feels about bingos, well then she's dead to me too"
"Umm, So I don't need to get you anything for Christmas?...."
End Disturbing and/or Blasphemous Comments
So, if I don't get struck by lightning (why do people say that when they are worried about the Judeo/Christian God? Wouldn't it make more sense to say something like "If I don't drown in a horrible flood that covers the earth" or "If I don't get slaughtered in the night along with the other first born sons in my town"? Struck by lightning is Thor from Norse mythology right? Maybe he does subcontracting...) then next time I will share the wacky world of Internet Scrabble as operated by some mysterious European no one has ever seen who goes by the name Kaizer NoPlay...
Friday, July 4, 2008
Happy Time!
Okay, my last post was filled with a lot of vitriol (ahh vitriol, the bingo that cleans stains the six letter words just can't ). In the interest of balance (and not sounding like a whiny jerk) here is an unordered (yet mysteriously numbered) list of some of the unequivocally awesome things from my first tournament and beyond:
1) One of my opponents introduced himself as "the conductor". As in:
"Hello my name is John Smith. And you are?"
"I am...the conductor."
I guess I was supposed to know what that meant. He was dressed pretty nice, but I didn't recognize him as a celebrity (scrabble or otherwise). Maybe he is big in Japan...
2) The nicest guy I met was incongruously named Dick. My attempts to get him to change names and/or identities with a jerk I met named Cordial were sadly unsuccessful.
3) I was able to finish higher than the person who wanted to stick tiles in my nose from the first round.
4) I found a rule buried in the scrabble official handbook for resigning which basically allows you to give your opponent an additional fifty points with the win and walk away.
5) I had the pleasure of gleefully pointing out this rule to a S.A.P. 2000 minion at a later tournament when I was told again that I could not resign.
6) Getting to watch their head nearly explode when, in fact, I did get to walk away from the train wreck that particular game had become and successfully refocus myself before winning my next five in a row to earn some prize money.
7) One of my opponents at my first tournament was clearly high. Aside from the odor and the entire deluxe bag of chips they gleefully ate during our game, they laughed at every single thing I said.
"Hi, nice to meet you."
"Meet me? Hehehhehe."
"Umm, so who gets to go first?"
"We doesn't! Hehehehehe"
"Well looking at your sheets from the last couple rounds, it seems like you have gone second five rounds in a row..."
"Thats what she said! Hehehehe"
"Right.... So why don't you go first this time."
"Whatever tickles your pickle man....Hehehehehehe Pickles...Hehehehehe"
"Do you know you're at a scrabble tournament?"
"Your mom's a scrabble tournament! Hehehehehehe"
8) Losing to the guy who was ridiculously high by over 100 points. This is pretty funny now, but at the time...Actually at the time it was pretty funny too. I just can't stay mad at anyone who laughs at pickles...
9) Complaining during a round to my opponent about the guy I had lost to the round before and getting interrupted with "That guy is my wife!". Age is not kind to some people...
10) Overhearing this conversation on the other end of the spectrum, between one guy easily over 18 and another around 40.
"That girl leading the division is hot!"
"She is also only fourteen years old..."
"Exactly!"
"She is also my daughter..."
"Oh... So, umm...is she dating anyone?"
11) Least but not last: Being introduced to someone who proudly bragged,
"Hi, I'm the highest rated scrabble player in southern Wisconsin!" Of course we all know who is the highest rated player in northern Wisconsin. Perhaps you have heard of this mysterious man. They call him..."The Conductor".
1) One of my opponents introduced himself as "the conductor". As in:
"Hello my name is John Smith. And you are?"
"I am...the conductor."
I guess I was supposed to know what that meant. He was dressed pretty nice, but I didn't recognize him as a celebrity (scrabble or otherwise). Maybe he is big in Japan...
2) The nicest guy I met was incongruously named Dick. My attempts to get him to change names and/or identities with a jerk I met named Cordial were sadly unsuccessful.
3) I was able to finish higher than the person who wanted to stick tiles in my nose from the first round.
4) I found a rule buried in the scrabble official handbook for resigning which basically allows you to give your opponent an additional fifty points with the win and walk away.
5) I had the pleasure of gleefully pointing out this rule to a S.A.P. 2000 minion at a later tournament when I was told again that I could not resign.
6) Getting to watch their head nearly explode when, in fact, I did get to walk away from the train wreck that particular game had become and successfully refocus myself before winning my next five in a row to earn some prize money.
7) One of my opponents at my first tournament was clearly high. Aside from the odor and the entire deluxe bag of chips they gleefully ate during our game, they laughed at every single thing I said.
"Hi, nice to meet you."
"Meet me? Hehehhehe."
"Umm, so who gets to go first?"
"We doesn't! Hehehehehe"
"Well looking at your sheets from the last couple rounds, it seems like you have gone second five rounds in a row..."
"Thats what she said! Hehehehe"
"Right.... So why don't you go first this time."
"Whatever tickles your pickle man....Hehehehehehe Pickles...Hehehehehe"
"Do you know you're at a scrabble tournament?"
"Your mom's a scrabble tournament! Hehehehehehe"
8) Losing to the guy who was ridiculously high by over 100 points. This is pretty funny now, but at the time...Actually at the time it was pretty funny too. I just can't stay mad at anyone who laughs at pickles...
9) Complaining during a round to my opponent about the guy I had lost to the round before and getting interrupted with "That guy is my wife!". Age is not kind to some people...
10) Overhearing this conversation on the other end of the spectrum, between one guy easily over 18 and another around 40.
"That girl leading the division is hot!"
"She is also only fourteen years old..."
"Exactly!"
"She is also my daughter..."
"Oh... So, umm...is she dating anyone?"
11) Least but not last: Being introduced to someone who proudly bragged,
"Hi, I'm the highest rated scrabble player in southern Wisconsin!" Of course we all know who is the highest rated player in northern Wisconsin. Perhaps you have heard of this mysterious man. They call him..."The Conductor".
Thursday, July 3, 2008
Some "Bysshe" Raises an Excellent Question
In response to my last post where I related my meltdown against Peggy and how I was told I could not resign, a friend asked for some clarification:
during that same tournament, but if one players cumulative spread is one point better than the others then that is the deciding factor for who is "better". Oftentimes, the "winner" is not the one who won when the two people played. I am even aware of one tournament where two players were tied for second, player A had beaten player B twice but still got third because of an eleven point difference in spread. The arguments I have heard to support this bizarre fixation on spread are basically these:
1) It mitigates the amount of luck in the game.
2) It awards consistency.
3) It represents how much more knowledge and/or skill someone had over all their opponents.
Umm, there is luck in just about any game (even chess players have to deal with bad days, illness, etc). You can't "fix" how lucky or unlucky people are. Warning Math Mini Tangent There is an also an implied belief in "gambler's fallacy" here (events in the past have an influence on events in the future even in systems that "reset" such as believing you are "due" to be dealt an ace next time since you have not been dealt one in an hour. The deck is shuffled in between each hand, and does not "care" what happened before. The same is true for a roulette wheel or dice.) Just because a player was "lucky" and drew both blanks in one game does not mean they "should" draw one or zero in the next game. In each game, the number of tiles you draw can increase your chance of drawing a particular one, but what you drew a half hour ago before the bad was refilled and shaken simply has no relevance. Saying that spread matters implies that no one can be "lucky" over the course of several games and that things will even out by the end. They might but they might not. End Math Mini Tangent Spread also does not award consistency. Wins award consistency. The object of the game of scrabble is to score more points than your opponent. If you are consistent, you are able to find a way to achieve that goal on a regular basis. Spread tends to award outliers. If a player has the game of their life and wins by 400 points then this will "make up" for their foibles in several other games. Some players actively hunt for this kind of blowout and I have often heard people looking forward to playing someone who is not just worse than them but susceptible to intimidation and prone to mentally checking out in some form or another. This obsession with spread creates or at least a certain kind of behavior that I find morally repugnant (wow I am really up on my high horse, please forgive me while I gallop a bit farther). There are two sick scenarios that I have seen repeated multiple times. One is the sniffling kid shakedown: a young person, who is perhaps unprepared emotionally for the pressure of a tournament, has a tendency to become despondent when they are losing and since they have been told they have to be a big boy or girl and have to finish the game they will make very poor plays once they are a certain amount behind. This is like smelling blood in the water for some players who will then pile up a huge margin while their young opponent is desperately wishing they could be anywhere else. The other situation is the drifting dearie: an older person who honestly is there to have fun, and is easily intimidated. A good acting performance and a strong personality will keep her or him from challenging ridiculous "words" while fake sympathy and commiseration will keep their mind on grandkids or the good old days. Sigh... These situations tend to happen most often in the lower divisions, but those people paid their money too and in my opinion their games and overall experience count just as much. My overall point here is that "running up the score" and the subsequent spread differential has less to do with word knowledge and more to do with other "abilities". If spread does not matter or only matters if the players did not face each other then the focus is shifted to how people did against others at the top and away from how badly or "efficiently" they abused those at the bottom. A couple quick notes before I close this tangent filled terror of a post: there
is a way to resign and I promise to cover it next time. I am not an innocent paragon and I am aware I have done a little acting in my time. Some of the words I have gotten away with were the result of opponents who had become demoralized for whatever reason. I do maintain that I have tried very hard to be nice to younger players. Lastly, I would like to point out I am not just complaining because of personal results. If anything, the way scrabble decides who is "best" has improved my standings more often than it has hurt it. Next time I promise to focus on the positives for awhile. All is not doom and gloom and despite the considerable issues I have with scrabble tournament logistics, the game and the people who play it have brought me a lot of joy. Hang in there till next time when I will describe my triumphant ascendancy to meritocracy and get back to focusing on the great people I have met instead of whining about the mental institution we sometimes seem trapped inside.
during that same tournament, but if one players cumulative spread is one point better than the others then that is the deciding factor for who is "better". Oftentimes, the "winner" is not the one who won when the two people played. I am even aware of one tournament where two players were tied for second, player A had beaten player B twice but still got third because of an eleven point difference in spread. The arguments I have heard to support this bizarre fixation on spread are basically these:
1) It mitigates the amount of luck in the game.
2) It awards consistency.
3) It represents how much more knowledge and/or skill someone had over all their opponents.
Umm, there is luck in just about any game (even chess players have to deal with bad days, illness, etc). You can't "fix" how lucky or unlucky people are. Warning Math Mini Tangent There is an also an implied belief in "gambler's fallacy" here (events in the past have an influence on events in the future even in systems that "reset" such as believing you are "due" to be dealt an ace next time since you have not been dealt one in an hour. The deck is shuffled in between each hand, and does not "care" what happened before. The same is true for a roulette wheel or dice.) Just because a player was "lucky" and drew both blanks in one game does not mean they "should" draw one or zero in the next game. In each game, the number of tiles you draw can increase your chance of drawing a particular one, but what you drew a half hour ago before the bad was refilled and shaken simply has no relevance. Saying that spread matters implies that no one can be "lucky" over the course of several games and that things will even out by the end. They might but they might not. End Math Mini Tangent Spread also does not award consistency. Wins award consistency. The object of the game of scrabble is to score more points than your opponent. If you are consistent, you are able to find a way to achieve that goal on a regular basis. Spread tends to award outliers. If a player has the game of their life and wins by 400 points then this will "make up" for their foibles in several other games. Some players actively hunt for this kind of blowout and I have often heard people looking forward to playing someone who is not just worse than them but susceptible to intimidation and prone to mentally checking out in some form or another. This obsession with spread creates or at least a certain kind of behavior that I find morally repugnant (wow I am really up on my high horse, please forgive me while I gallop a bit farther). There are two sick scenarios that I have seen repeated multiple times. One is the sniffling kid shakedown: a young person, who is perhaps unprepared emotionally for the pressure of a tournament, has a tendency to become despondent when they are losing and since they have been told they have to be a big boy or girl and have to finish the game they will make very poor plays once they are a certain amount behind. This is like smelling blood in the water for some players who will then pile up a huge margin while their young opponent is desperately wishing they could be anywhere else. The other situation is the drifting dearie: an older person who honestly is there to have fun, and is easily intimidated. A good acting performance and a strong personality will keep her or him from challenging ridiculous "words" while fake sympathy and commiseration will keep their mind on grandkids or the good old days. Sigh... These situations tend to happen most often in the lower divisions, but those people paid their money too and in my opinion their games and overall experience count just as much. My overall point here is that "running up the score" and the subsequent spread differential has less to do with word knowledge and more to do with other "abilities". If spread does not matter or only matters if the players did not face each other then the focus is shifted to how people did against others at the top and away from how badly or "efficiently" they abused those at the bottom. A couple quick notes before I close this tangent filled terror of a post: there
is a way to resign and I promise to cover it next time. I am not an innocent paragon and I am aware I have done a little acting in my time. Some of the words I have gotten away with were the result of opponents who had become demoralized for whatever reason. I do maintain that I have tried very hard to be nice to younger players. Lastly, I would like to point out I am not just complaining because of personal results. If anything, the way scrabble decides who is "best" has improved my standings more often than it has hurt it. Next time I promise to focus on the positives for awhile. All is not doom and gloom and despite the considerable issues I have with scrabble tournament logistics, the game and the people who play it have brought me a lot of joy. Hang in there till next time when I will describe my triumphant ascendancy to meritocracy and get back to focusing on the great people I have met instead of whining about the mental institution we sometimes seem trapped inside.
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
Debacle and Diatribes
Ok, I have put this off long enough. The recent additional pie people shenanigans will have to wait. So its the second round of my first scrabble tournament. I get paired up with Peggy (gotta love driving for hours to play against people from your hometown). I ask her how her first round went and she tells me she won easily. I am... confused. If I lost and she won then how can we be paired with each other? In chess and magic (and every game/sport I know with tournaments from little league baseball to NCAA women's lacrosse) the fundamental rule of pairing is this: individuals/teams with the same record play each other. Sure there are tons of variations, but the basic concept remains the same. Warning Math-Like Mega Tangent The system I am most familiar with for relatively long tournaments is the swiss. This method is named after its place of origin and like the inhabitants of the land of chocolate, it is known for its fairness and neutrality. A simple example would be a group of eight players with preexisting ratings. Chess, magic and scrabble all use variants of the Elo system for ratings QuickyWiki ELO . Scrabble seems unfamiliar with the aphorism concerning ice cream and poop and has made some "improvements" to the system which I will cover in more detail another time. Suffice it to say that players are assigned numbers that correlate roughly to their ability and expected success rate. The higher the number, the better theoretically the player is and the more often they are expected to win. So if you have eight players with ratings ranging from 1800 to 1100 with convenient 100 point intervals between players a swiss system would dictate that you put the group in order from one through eight and then divide it in half between the fourth and fifth rated player. The top player in each half would then play each other and so on down the line (so 1800 vs 1400, 1700 vs 1300, 1600 vs 1200, and 1500 vs 1100). Ratings are useful tools for judging the strength of players and predicting future performance, but they are only tools. Oftentimes events have occurred since the last data point (tournament, match or whatever). A player may have been studying hard and has not yet had a chance to demonstrate this improvement. Or they may have been drinking hard and not yet had a chance to demonstrate their new strategy of less is more when it comes to braincells... The swiss system takes this into account and is aware that there has to be a balance between a body of data from the past and new information being generated right now. So for every subsequent round, there is a redivision separating the players into smaller and smaller subgroups based on their performance in the current tournament. Say in the example we are using that in the first round the 1700, 1600, and 1500 players beat their lower rated opponents, but the 1800 lost. The 1800 fell in love with the 1400 and lost to try and get one of those date things he keeps hearing about or the 1400 had quit her job and been practicing for the last month inside an abandoned bomb shelter renamed "Fortress of Scrabbltude", or both. Whatever the reason, these things happen: These for instance and thats why the games are actually played out. So the second round pairings would be 1700 vs 1500 and 1600 vs 1400 for the winners section and 1800 vs 1200 and 1300 vs 1100 in the losers section. In the third round the two players with two wins would play. The four players with one win and one loss would be paired with the top rated against the third and the second versus the fourth. The two players with no wins would play each other. The advantages are clear. The pairings are simple and intuitive enough that they can be done in your head. A person can also look forward each round after the first to playing someone who is having a similar experience to theirs at this particular tournament. This leads to close competitive games which are interesting to both players instead of blowouts which are interesting and/or fun to at most the winning player. End of Math-Like Mega Tangent So instead of "divide group of people with same record in half and have them play each other" scrabble uses a grab bag of methods that vary from site to site and director to director. Here is a typical example: High Level Nonsense Some of the highlights of this ode to obfuscation include "The system is also designed to create the right compromise between absolute perfection, and the need for it to be simple enough to implement manually." It is so simple that it takes 1000 words filled with jargon, two diagrams, and a committee of six people to explain (to other trained tournament directors!). I also especially like this line hidden halfway through: "there may be a last-minute change in its pairing procedure. We will announce any changes as soon as they become official." Basically they reserve the right to change their minds at the last minute and do the whole thing differently should something else strike their fancy. Sigh... So pairings are inscrutable and most directors say something along the lines of "I just put the results into the computer and it tells me what to do" when you ask them who you will be playing or how the scrabble system works. I will beat this rapidly dying horse more next time, but for now let's return to the pigeon hanger/tournament hall where the #$%^ was about to hit the fan (and the top of my head if I was not careful where I sat). The H.A.L. 9000's creepy little cousin S.A.P. 2000 (or Scrabble Arbitrary Pairings that will take 2000 days off your lifespan through stress related ailments and aneurysms) had decided in its infinite wisdom that I should play a big winner instead of a lowly loser like me. At the time, Peggy was definitely better than me, but I was not hopelessly outclassed. So we started to play and fortunately there were no Jekyll and Hyde transformations from my opponent this round. She just played high scoring word after high scoring word. I meanwhile had some strong looking letters, but the bingo (all seven letters used at once to receive a big point bonus) combinations I tried all got challenged off the board. When I got to be several hundred points behind and had taken roughly half as many turns as her I decided it was time to throw in the towel, take a walk and get some fresh non guano scented air. So I said I resign and got up to go. Unfortunately, this was not to be...
"You can't resign."
"I appreciate the encouragement and optimism, but I know when I'm beat. I need to get my head together for the next round."
"No, you don't understand. You are not allowed to resign."
"Right... Are the big bad scrabble police going to come get me?"
"Uh, pretty much. One of the tournament staff is coming over right now."
A "director"(I don't know what to call these people. They settle disputes and can rip dictionaries apart with their minds, umm...lets call them S.A.P 2000 minions since I don't think they are quite human) walks over with a stern expression on their face and I surreally feel like I am being pulled over for speeding after leaving home without my license.
"Is there a problem here?"
"No officer, um scrabble arbiter... guy. I just am getting crushed, so I am going to resign and take a break to get my act together. "
"I am afraid you can't do that."
"Yes, my opponent said that too. What exactly does that mean?"
"Just that. You have to keep playing until the game is over."
"Umm, its over now. I give up. She is infinite points ahead of me and I seem to have lost the ability to spell basic words."
"Its not fair to your opponent to just let them win."
"My...opponent...wants....to....win....That's kinda the whole point."
"She could win by more than she is winning now though."
"Why don't I just let my clock run until she has the score she wants."
"You really don't want to do that. There would be certain consequences..."
"Ok... Can we agree on a number and end this bizarre charade?"
"No, you have to play every turn until the game is over."
"Am I on some kind of scrabble nazi candid camera?"
"No and you need to watch your attitude if you want to keep playing in this tournament."
"But I don't want to keep playing! At least not this round anyways."
"Are you ready to be sensible and start the game again?"
"Sure I'll just pass the rest of the turns and she can score as high as she wants."
"That would be suspicious and unsportsmanlike."
"More suspicious and unsportsmanlike than simply resigning?"
"Exactly."
"Ok, thank you for clearing that up."
S.A.P. 2000 minion leaves...
"I think I have found a solution that will make everyone happy."
"Oh?"
"I'm going to get my last opponent to plug my airways with scrabble tiles until I lose consciousness and wake up in a world without scrabble..."
"Director!!!"
To quote the inventor of the electric guitar necktie: "I feel like everyone around me is taking crazy pills!" Join me next time when I'm accused of cheating for following the rules and I set out on a holy mission to crack the code that is the official scrabble rule book...
"You can't resign."
"I appreciate the encouragement and optimism, but I know when I'm beat. I need to get my head together for the next round."
"No, you don't understand. You are not allowed to resign."
"Right... Are the big bad scrabble police going to come get me?"
"Uh, pretty much. One of the tournament staff is coming over right now."
A "director"(I don't know what to call these people. They settle disputes and can rip dictionaries apart with their minds, umm...lets call them S.A.P 2000 minions since I don't think they are quite human) walks over with a stern expression on their face and I surreally feel like I am being pulled over for speeding after leaving home without my license.
"Is there a problem here?"
"No officer, um scrabble arbiter... guy. I just am getting crushed, so I am going to resign and take a break to get my act together. "
"I am afraid you can't do that."
"Yes, my opponent said that too. What exactly does that mean?"
"Just that. You have to keep playing until the game is over."
"Umm, its over now. I give up. She is infinite points ahead of me and I seem to have lost the ability to spell basic words."
"Its not fair to your opponent to just let them win."
"My...opponent...wants....to....win....That's kinda the whole point."
"She could win by more than she is winning now though."
"Why don't I just let my clock run until she has the score she wants."
"You really don't want to do that. There would be certain consequences..."
"Ok... Can we agree on a number and end this bizarre charade?"
"No, you have to play every turn until the game is over."
"Am I on some kind of scrabble nazi candid camera?"
"No and you need to watch your attitude if you want to keep playing in this tournament."
"But I don't want to keep playing! At least not this round anyways."
"Are you ready to be sensible and start the game again?"
"Sure I'll just pass the rest of the turns and she can score as high as she wants."
"That would be suspicious and unsportsmanlike."
"More suspicious and unsportsmanlike than simply resigning?"
"Exactly."
"Ok, thank you for clearing that up."
S.A.P. 2000 minion leaves...
"I think I have found a solution that will make everyone happy."
"Oh?"
"I'm going to get my last opponent to plug my airways with scrabble tiles until I lose consciousness and wake up in a world without scrabble..."
"Director!!!"
To quote the inventor of the electric guitar necktie: "I feel like everyone around me is taking crazy pills!" Join me next time when I'm accused of cheating for following the rules and I set out on a holy mission to crack the code that is the official scrabble rule book...
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
Hi Pi(e) Guy (or Gal)...A Brief Interlude
So the pi(e) person is back and had this to say if you didn't already see it in the comments of the last post:
PiLover said...
Couldnt figure out whos picurious huh?Some profesor!You still need more pictures but some of these scrabble ladies sound hot. Lets hear more about Galen and less about you getting your but kicked.
Wow. I am both fascinated and horrified here. Some initial observations. I am assuming this is the same person as PiCurious perhaps after having an account deleted. Or maybe their relationship with pastry and/or that special mathematical marvel has progressed from curiosity to love in the past couple days. A more ominous possibility looms, though. What if there is a whole family or community or shadowy clandestine organization comprised of Pi(e) people? They imply in their post that somehow I should have known who PiCurious was. That would seem to mean it is someone close to me and that my chilling "Aunt Gladys Theory" may have some merit. I have asked everyone I know whether they are the mysterious PiCurious though? No one was willing to fess up. So either someone is lying and keeping their special pi(e) peccadilloes in the closet, or the Pi(e) person/people is pretending (try saying that three times, fast or otherwise) to be one of my peeps (this means family or friends Gladys...) I also noticed that much of the punctuation is missing, as if the person writing was, umm, in a hurry. I also was cheated out of a 's' in my professor title and my butt lost a 't' in the hands of this maniac. I understand their overall point to be females="interesting" and my life="boring". Well that is probably true, but I don't know what I can do about it. I don't foresee a ladies of scrabble calendar in the near future. Maybe a stuffed animals of scrabble calendar, but I'm not comfortable objectifying anything or anyone that is not, well, an inanimate object. I remain hopeful that my blog may have some content for the Pi(e) people out there who apparently are my main audience (or at least the ones who actually comment). Maybe we can work out a compromise. I could relate what happens when Galen specifically kicks my butt. There are certainly enough times to choose from. In the meanwhile, I'm begging you dear readers, make your voices heard and don't let the Pi(e) special interest group hijack this innocent blog. Thank you specifically Peggy for making your voice of (relative) sanity heard. This has got to be a team effort though. Fight the P(i)ower!
PiLover said...Couldnt figure out whos picurious huh?Some profesor!You still need more pictures but some of these scrabble ladies sound hot. Lets hear more about Galen and less about you getting your but kicked.
Wow. I am both fascinated and horrified here. Some initial observations. I am assuming this is the same person as PiCurious perhaps after having an account deleted. Or maybe their relationship with pastry and/or that special mathematical marvel has progressed from curiosity to love in the past couple days. A more ominous possibility looms, though. What if there is a whole family or community or shadowy clandestine organization comprised of Pi(e) people? They imply in their post that somehow I should have known who PiCurious was. That would seem to mean it is someone close to me and that my chilling "Aunt Gladys Theory" may have some merit. I have asked everyone I know whether they are the mysterious PiCurious though? No one was willing to fess up. So either someone is lying and keeping their special pi(e) peccadilloes in the closet, or the Pi(e) person/people is pretending (try saying that three times, fast or otherwise) to be one of my peeps (this means family or friends Gladys...) I also noticed that much of the punctuation is missing, as if the person writing was, umm, in a hurry. I also was cheated out of a 's' in my professor title and my butt lost a 't' in the hands of this maniac. I understand their overall point to be females="interesting" and my life="boring". Well that is probably true, but I don't know what I can do about it. I don't foresee a ladies of scrabble calendar in the near future. Maybe a stuffed animals of scrabble calendar, but I'm not comfortable objectifying anything or anyone that is not, well, an inanimate object. I remain hopeful that my blog may have some content for the Pi(e) people out there who apparently are my main audience (or at least the ones who actually comment). Maybe we can work out a compromise. I could relate what happens when Galen specifically kicks my butt. There are certainly enough times to choose from. In the meanwhile, I'm begging you dear readers, make your voices heard and don't let the Pi(e) special interest group hijack this innocent blog. Thank you specifically Peggy for making your voice of (relative) sanity heard. This has got to be a team effort though. Fight the P(i)ower!
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Man, there is something truly absurd about that...do the scores actually count towards pairings or results? Otherwise that just doesn't make any sense at all.