Strongest Scrabble Nations

Following the Trans Tasman tournament in New Zealand in which the best players from Australia and New Zealand battled it out I have decided to comment on the international ratings and my thoughts on the best Scrabble Nations in the world, (mainly for SOWPODS).

I have noticed that in the top 10 players there are only four countries with more than one player: Canada, Thailand, Malaysia and Australia. Some players have migrated from their countries to other countries which could vary the results but I will just take the ratings as they are, for the purpose of this analysis.



Malaysia and Thailand appear to be the powerhouses of the Scrabble World based on the top ten ratings. Most of us would consider Thailand one of the strongest scrabble nations in the world. As I dug deeper into the scrabble ratings I found some interesting results. Nigeria came out on top, looking at the top 50 players. I summarized the countries in order of the number of players they have. Amazingly Thailand came in at 5th with only four players in the top 50. When I looked at the top 200 they came out on top however.



The result here is very interesting. Nigeria tops the list with 11 players, followed by the US, whom use a different lexicon. I find this result very interesting. The US has the largest population of the countries listed, but I found Nigeria a big surprise to top the list.

I also looked at the top 100 and top 200 players and the entire rating list.





Continents with most players in top 50

In the following table I have examined the continents with the most scrabble players in the top 50. Africa came out on top, helped mainly by the high number of Nigerian players. This is again interesting considering that Africa is still made of many largely developing countries. So Africa is the strongest Scrabble continent in the world! (depending on how you look at it.)



Summary

Looking at the top nations from the top 50, 100 and 200 and taking the proportion of players as a percentage I came up with the following.



So the strongest scrabble nation is based on numbers of players, is Nigeria. Interestingly Thailand comes in at number five, which is lower than I would have expected.

Some words from the Nationals 2006

ABUSION – Evil or corrupt usage; abuse; wrong; reproach; deception; cheat.

BENZOATE - noun: any salt or ester of benzoic acid

BOTHRIA – Plural of Bothrium

BOTHRIUM – One of the slitlike sucking grooves found on the scolex of pseudophyllidean tapeworms, such as the broad fish tapeworm of man, Diphyllobothrium latum.

CELOMATA – same as COELOM

COELOM – a cavity in the mesoderm of an embryo that gives rise in humans to the pleural cavity and pericardial cavity and peritoneal cavity

CRUNKLED – To cry like a crane.

EUPHROE - A block or long slat of wood, perforated for the passage of the crowfoot, or cords by which an awning is held up.

FILAGREE - noun: delicate and intricate ornamentation (usually in gold or silver or other fine twisted wire)

GUNDOG/S – a dog trained to work with hunters by locating and retrieving game

GAUCIEST – see GAUCY

GAUCY – fat and comely (a compliment and insult rolled into one; see fussock)

GRECQUE - (n.) An ornament supposed to be of Greek origin, esp. a fret or meander.

GRISEOUS - (a.) Of a light color, or white, mottled with black or brown; grizzled or grizzly.

MOULINET - (n.) A machine formerly used for bending a crossbow by winding it up.
(n.) In sword and saber exercises, a circular swing of the weapon.
(n.) The drum upon which the rope is wound in a capstan, crane, or the like.


NAUTILI - noun: a submarine that is propelled by nuclear power
noun: cephalopod mollusk of warm seas whose females have delicate papery spiral shells
noun: cephalopod of the Indian and Pacific oceans having a spiral shell with pale pearly partitions

OLIGURIA - noun: production of an abnormally small amount of urine
noun: abnormally small production of urine; can be a symptom of kidney disease or obstruction of the urinary tract or edema or an imbalance of fluids and electrolytes in the body

RHODANATE - (n.) A salt of rhodanic acid; a sulphocyanate.

SARDONIC – disdainfully or ironically humorous; scornful and mocking

SEXTARII - see SEXTARY*

SEXTARY* - (n.) A sacristy.
(n.) An ancient Roman liquid and dry measure, about equal to an English pint.

SINEWING – To strengthen with or as if with sinews. Ie. Strengthen tendons.

STURNUS - type genus of the Sturnidae: common starlings.

THIONYL/S – The bivalent group SO - sulfinyl.

TREDDLE - (n.) A prostitute; a strumpet.
(n.) See Treadle.
(n.) The dung of sheep or hares.

TREDDLED - To TREADLE ?

TROCHI - (pl. ) of Trochus

TROCHUS - (n.) Any one of numerous species of marine univalve shells belonging to Trochus and many allied genera of the family Trochidae. Some of the species are called also topshells.

UNTRUSS - (n.) Alt. of Untrusser
(v. t.) To loose from a truss, or as from a truss; to untie or unfasten; to let out; to undress.

WEIGELIA – A hardy garden shrub (Diervilla Japonica) belonging to the Honeysuckle family, with white or red flowers. It was introduced from China

YULETIDE – period extending from Dec. 24 to Jan. 6

ZOETROPE - An optical toy, in which figures made to revolve on the inside of a cylinder, and viewed through slits in its circumference, appear like a single figure passing through a series of natural motions as if animated or mechanically moved.

ZOOTROPE - Same as ZOETROPE ?

Opening Rack Simulation

Opening Rack Scenario
_____________________

Tonight I had this opening rack in my game: AEJNSTQ

I immediately thought of JANES, and played it, although JEANS, or JEATS would have been better positionally.

I then simulated this rack in maven and was surprised that QAT was the top preference by quite a few points. The next option was a surprise too of CHANGE JQ. Of course this would make it easier to get bingos.

I think JEANS or JEATS is best because if scores 40 points whereas QAT only scores 24. But it's interesting to see what Maven thinks.

I then simulated in Quackle and QAT come out best again! QAT had the highest win percentage followed by JEANS.

Words of the Week

OXYGENIC
ISOGENIC
ZOOGENIC


BOOR
BOORD
BOORDE

BOORTREE

BORD
BORDE
BORDEL
BORDELLO

UINTAITE

DICH
DICHT
DICHTED

DICHORD

CAJAPUT
CAJEPUT
CAJUPUT

USUCAPT

COOL HOOK OF THE WEEK:

JIN + RICKSHAW = JINRICKSHAW

Also: JIN + RICKSHA = JINRICKSHA

Quackle Release

The new Maven type program Quackle was released recently. It's pretty good so far but will likely undergo lots of upgrades I suspect.

Possible upgrades:

* Allow users to click on the board and setup games.

* Better endgame

* A way to import games from ISC

* A better name than Quackle! Joke...

* A way for the computer to play itself (or can it do this already?)

* Different Levels of difficulty

Word of the day

Paradisiac: adj. Relating to or befitting paradise.

Word of the Day

STUDFISH

(n.) Any one of several species of small American minnows of the genus Fundulus, as F. catenatus.


>For word learning techniques click here!

Simpsons Scrabble Review

I received Simpsons Scrabble recently for Christmas so I decided to review it.

My first impressions are good. It has a double sided board with a regular board a new one with different word squares including a quadruple word score and quintuple letter scores.

The game also comes with cards to make the game more interesting and random. You can make you opponent miss turns and stuff just for fun.

The red racks look cool and the yellow tiles. New words are also included. Many of these are a bit hard to play like AYCARUMBA or TOMACCO. But they are quite funny.

Overall it is quite good even if it is a little expensive.

New board with quadruple word and letter scores and quintuple letter scores. 

Regular Simpsons board. 

New yellow letters and red racks. 

Cards make the game a bit different. 

New Simpsons words