Scrabble Update

Although I have not played a tournament in a while, I have been trying to keep my skills sharp by playing a little bit on-line and reviewing word lists while on the machine at the gym. I now play the bots (the computer players) whenever they are available. I used to hate playing the bots, but I have come around on them. As a friend of mine once put it, “they play fast, they don’t complain about tiles, and they don’t accuse you of cheating.”

In my last ten games, all against bots, I am 4-6. Not too shabby considering the bots are pretty damn good. (If you are wondering, the best computer programs will beat the best human players roughly half the time.) According to the on-line program I use, my average is up to 23 which is very good for me. I briefly had it at 24 which I think is my high. What this is an average of, I am not exactly sure. I am pretty sure it is supposed to be average points per play for the last ten games, but it consistently underscores it. I once went through my last ten games and calculated my actually average points per play, and it was about 5 points larger than my stated average. My friend did this for his games as well, and his stated average was also too low. I tried to ask the on-line helpers about this, but all they did was give me sarcastic comments. It made me think of The Comic Book Guy from “The Simpsons”.

I had some nice plays in my games against the bots. In one game I was down 98 points, but turned it around to win by a whopping 171. It helped that I bingoed out ASEPTIC and stuck him with the Q. I had ACEIPS? in my rack and the first bingo I saw was CAPSIZE, but it didn’t play which is a shame because it is a nice word. In another game I had EEHMOP? and played PHONEME – pretty sweet.

I would like to play in the DC tournament in November, but I am not quite sure if I will be able to yet.