Friday, November 25, 2005

Missing WSC Players

After looking at the results for the WSC 2005 I was wondering were certain players were that should have been there. So as I like writing lists, (strangely enough!) I wrote another one. I wrote this because I am wondering what happened to make these players miss it. Except I know why Edward missed it.

Absent WSC 2005 players who should have been there:

Brian Cappelletto (USA) - 1st WSC 2001
Dave Gibson (USA) - 3rd WSC 1993
Jim Geary (USA) - 12th WSC 2003
Komol Panyasophonlert (Thailand)- 6th WSC 2003
Edward Okulicz (Australia) - 23rd WSC 2001
Jack Dymond (New Zealand) - 6th WSC 1997

Monday, November 21, 2005

Mistakes at the WSC

After following the online games the the World Scrabble Championship I noticed a few mistakes and people told me about some. These are listed here. Our Australian team did very well and I congratulate them on their effort. The games annotated are those on the top table so obviously they are making less mistakes than everyone else. Feel free to comment and let me know of other interesting games/missed words.

Game 1

David plays NATTERS instead of TRANECTS. He also plays HOED instead of OHED. He also misses TROPARIA and plays PARVO.


Game 6

Naween plays JAG letting Adam go out on his next turn with REFINE.


Game 7

Gerald plays ARISEN opening a closed board and making a spot for Adam’s bingo.


Game 8

Paul plays SEG, allowing Adam to later play VASA on the triple.


Game 10

Andrew plays QAID instead of QADI, giving his opponent the Q in the triple lane, although he bingos on the triple on his next move.

Adam misses EUTECTIC.


Game 11

Paul plays ECU, although this isn’t that badder move he could have played CUTIE to go for tile turnover and block the triple lane. If his opponent bingos it would then be in a more open spot making it easier for him to come back.


Game 12

Andrew plays HYP instead of TRYP although HYP scored more. Andrew also plays DOU* instead of DUO.


Game 13

Ganesh plays the phony theorism*. Jerry plays FLEW setting up for FLEWS.


Game 14a

Adam misses ENDOSTEA!


Game 16
Peter plays the phony DANE and Asirvatham doesn’t challenge!!!


Game 17

Tim plays MILO for 20 and leaves the S in the triple lane for Adam to bingo. Maven suggests playing MOR for 24 which would block the triple lane, or MORICHES threw CHE to score 30.

Tim also plays the very open move of FINS, when he could have played FOSSIL for 26 and had more chance at picking up the remaining blank.


Game 18

Phil Appleby plays DELE which sets Adam up for WIPE.


Game 19

John misses QIS and plays QI, then Adam bingos in a spot that could have been blocked.


Game 22

In a very interesting game Adam has both blanks and Naween has two spots to block and blocks the wrong one. It was difficult to know which one to block.

Instead of playing ALURE, Naween could have played LUD to make the spot unplayable.

Game 23

Pakorn plays CLIT and Naween doesn’t challenge! What were they thinking about! :)

Game 24

Gareth misses AUGURIES and changes UU!



Finals Game 1

Pakorn plays VOGUE and doesn’t block the S in the dangerous triple lane. He then blocks the M instead of the S!

Well played generally I think by Parkorn and Adam.

Sunday, November 06, 2005

Words of the Week

IRACUND - No hooks and no eights!

UVEITIC - no hooks or eights!

METOPAE - only eight is COPEMATE

EPAULET - S hook and PECULATE

NEBULAE - BANLIEUE, TUNEABLE

IRIDIAN - VIRIDIAN

COPULAE - SCOPULAE

Wednesday, November 02, 2005

Internet Scrabble Club Vs Literati

Main advantages of Literati

More Blanks – This is the best feature of Literati. More blanks means more bingos and both opponents usually start with a blank each which makes the game fairer.

More people – You can almost guarantee that you’ll be able to find someone of a similar rating to play with at any time of day.

Multiplayer games – You can play games with 2 – 5 players.

Coloured Tiles – When I first started playing on ISC I found it annoying that the tiles were all the same colour, but I got used to it of course. I guess real scrabble has tiles all the same colours possibly so you can’t easily distinguish what tiles your opponent has.

Faster games – I learnt to play blitz scrabble on Literati and one minute games sure are heart pumping! Games with increments of seconds are possible eg. 3 mins 2 second increment.

Different Board Structure – In literati the double-double squares are easier to bridge. The triple letter 4 squares away from the triple-word square also makes it easy to get big scores from four letter words.

Both players must click start before a game begins – this is a good feature so that games don’t get started when people are not in the room.



Main Disadvantages of Literati


Random tile distribution – I think this is one of the main problems although it does make the games interesting and more random. Three Z’s or Q’s can make things either very difficult or very easy.

Simplistic Rating System – When you start playing literati your rating begins at 1500. On ISC your rating is determined after your first game. This makes more sense as there is less work to get a high rating if you already have great skill.

Screen can’t be maximised to fullscreen
– this would be helpful to make the board more visible and it would be easy to implement.

Tiles must be placed on the board one at a time – this is one of the most annoying things after playing on ISC.

More Novices
– The ISC seems to have attracted a much more serious group of scrabbles including tournament players.

Slow login process – Password and ID must be entered every time you log on

Different Dictionary – Only one dictionary – American wordlist with additions of VON, KEV, and DA.
Clicky Web Analytics