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.
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Crosswords
A crossword puzzle I constructed was recently published in the New York Times. If the blogosphere is any indication, it was a smashing success. The day it ran I carefully read every comment on my favorite NY Times crossword puzzle blog (www.rexwordpuzzle.blogspot.com), and I was blown away by the overwhelming positivity of the feedback. I would post a few quotes from the blog comments, but I do not want to toot my own horn too much.
The truth of the matter concerning puzzle constructing is that I do not really have all that much to toot about these days. The aforementioned puzzle was the only one accepted by the NY Times out of about eight recent submissions. Now, I know the NY Times is the most popular puzzle, and Will Shortz (the NY Times crossword puzzle editor) gets umpteen submissions every day, and in order to have a steady-state system, on average only one of these umpteen puzzles can be accepted, so I have pretty thick skin about being rejected. (I have pretty thick skin, in general.) Nevertheless, it does sting a little to get the rejection email. It starts, “I must send my regrets…” and finishes, “… I did enjoy seeing this, though.” But, by the time I get to the last line, my heart – to paraphrase Biz Markie – has already gone down south.
It is interesting how your expectations for something change once you start having a little bit of success with it. I started seriously making puzzles and trying to publish them about five years ago. At that time I had a single goal: get a single puzzle published anywhere. If I were to accomplish this goal, I figured I would consider my foray into constructing a complete success forever. But now, if it is not the case that every puzzle I submit is accepted by a top-notch publisher, then I have prolonged stretches where I feel like a patzer.
The rejections, however, are worth it when a puzzle of mine is actually published. It is a big thrill, especially when it runs in a major publication like the NY Times. Hundreds of thousands, millions maybe, of people do this puzzle. The daily crossword puzzle is something with which a huge percentage of the population can identify. Publishing a puzzle is something I can brag to my friends about, and something my parents can brag to their friends about. It is a universal impresser.
I had a very surreal moment a few months ago when I went to visit my grandmother a few days before she died. She could barely move, barely talk, and her short-term memory was shot. She was not senile, but physically I do not think she could have been any closer to death without being in a coma. When I came in, the first thing she said to me, was not “hello,” it was, “you’re… the… one… who… did… that… crossword… puzzle.” (She was referring to a Sunday puzzle published in the NY Times Magazine a few years back.)
“Yeah grandma, that was me.”
“I… showed… that… to… my… entire… bridge… club… they… were… so…. impressed.”
I stayed with my grandma, with a few other family members, for about a half hour that visit, and every five minutes she would bring up my crossword puzzle again, forgetting that we had just talked about it. It started to make me feel uncomfortable. I got embarrassed. I knew this was almost certainly the last time I, and the other family members I came with, would see my grandma, and it made me feel weird that our last conversation was largely about my crossword puzzle – as if a last conversation should be about a more worthy topic. In retrospect though, I suppose a crossword puzzle is just as worthy as any other topic, if you think about it. Plus, it was a pretty good puzzle.
Friday, March 7, 2008
The ultimate out-draw
I went 2-2 at club on Tuesday. It's the third time in four weeks I've finished with that record, and the other time I only played three games (2-1). In one of my recent losses (a supreme slaughter) my opponent drew all four esses, both blanks, the Z, Q, X, J and the K -- all the power tiles. I can't remember that ever happening to me before, neither on a board nor on-line. At the end of the game I made a play to empty the bag with a blank and an S unseen to me. I was hoping not to draw either of them, at that point, just so that the clean sweep of power tiles would be complete, and I would have the ultimate justification for complaining and feeling sorry for myself.
On the way home from club I figured out the probability of my opponent getting all 11 power tiles. It's pretty simple if you assume each player has a 50% chance of drawing any given tile, and draws are independent (both of which seem reasonable). The probability would be (1/2)^11 = 1/2048. This is not incredibly low, meaning that although I don't remember this ever happening to me before, it almost certainly has. I've played about 4100 games of Scrabble on-line and several hundred more in tournaments and at club. The probability that a clean sweep of the power tiles has never happened against me is only around 11%. So it probably has happened before, but it still sucked on Tuesday.
On the way home from club I figured out the probability of my opponent getting all 11 power tiles. It's pretty simple if you assume each player has a 50% chance of drawing any given tile, and draws are independent (both of which seem reasonable). The probability would be (1/2)^11 = 1/2048. This is not incredibly low, meaning that although I don't remember this ever happening to me before, it almost certainly has. I've played about 4100 games of Scrabble on-line and several hundred more in tournaments and at club. The probability that a clean sweep of the power tiles has never happened against me is only around 11%. So it probably has happened before, but it still sucked on Tuesday.
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
What do you call a typo when its on the board?
Playing on-line typos occur fairly frequently. When I'm playing Eric we usually challenge (assuming the play is invalid) and pass when obvious typos occur under the rationale that that doesn't happen on a board, but, as I found out at club last night, sometimes it does.
It began in my first game of evening when I tried to play UNUA to dump some vowels and block a triple word line. I realized immediately after announcing my score (so immediately after it was too late) that I had transposed the second U and the A. In that same game my opponent, Rebecca Lambert, played the invalid bingo RUSLTERS. Again, I didn't notice the mistake until just after it was too late. Then in my last game of the evening I played AEROLE (instead of AREOLE), but my opponent didn't challenge. In fact, I didn't even notice it until long after the game was over. I was at home thinking about the game and realized from how the game ended that I must have made an invalid play. Sloppy, sloppy.
Overall, however, it was a decent night. I went 2-1 with a spread close to +200. My only loss was to Rebecca, but aside from my typo and missing her typo, I played pretty well. I was double blanked and had to fight through some ridiculous vowel-heavy racks, but still managed 402 points. I would've won if at the end I had a place go out with BANDS on my rack, but I didn't and ended up losing by 8. At one point, I had five vowels on my rack and I played the aforementioned UNUA, which resulted in me retaining the same crap rack and scoring nothing. I exchanged 5 on my next play and drew 4 vowels, so I played a vowel dump on my next turn for nominal points, and then proceeded to draw all vowels which required me to exchange again my next turn. I had netted about 10 points in 4 turns. Not surprisingly I was down big, but I tried not to get frustrated, and just focus on making strong plays. To a large extent it worked as I came back with two bingos, ENTERAL and ORGEATS, the latter of which was quite nice because the only place to bingo required a front hook of both WO and OY with the last two letters of the bingo, so it pretty much had to be TS.
The other two games I won fairly handily, although one of them could have been very close if my opponent had challenged AEROLE, or if he had not played AFRO, which I challenged off the board (I guess he never saw "Word Wars") and instead played FORA for way more points. He played GNAWINGS on me, which I challenged, but much to my surprise, it's valid. The only other noteworthy thing that happened on the night is that I bingoed with three Ns in my rack, and that's barely noteworthy since it was the rather boring TANNING and I had both blanks.
I am slightly put-off by the club format. I wish that the last three games included a one-and-done tournament between the top 8 people at club that night. I think it would be fun to have a conclusive "winner" for that week and it would be a much better way to pair opponents, in my opinion, than having the director do it almost at random. It would require slightly more organization by the director however, which might be a problem considering that there seems to be a new one each week. I can't complain too much though. The directors are just volunteering, and it's not like I'm offering to do it.
It began in my first game of evening when I tried to play UNUA to dump some vowels and block a triple word line. I realized immediately after announcing my score (so immediately after it was too late) that I had transposed the second U and the A. In that same game my opponent, Rebecca Lambert, played the invalid bingo RUSLTERS. Again, I didn't notice the mistake until just after it was too late. Then in my last game of the evening I played AEROLE (instead of AREOLE), but my opponent didn't challenge. In fact, I didn't even notice it until long after the game was over. I was at home thinking about the game and realized from how the game ended that I must have made an invalid play. Sloppy, sloppy.
Overall, however, it was a decent night. I went 2-1 with a spread close to +200. My only loss was to Rebecca, but aside from my typo and missing her typo, I played pretty well. I was double blanked and had to fight through some ridiculous vowel-heavy racks, but still managed 402 points. I would've won if at the end I had a place go out with BANDS on my rack, but I didn't and ended up losing by 8. At one point, I had five vowels on my rack and I played the aforementioned UNUA, which resulted in me retaining the same crap rack and scoring nothing. I exchanged 5 on my next play and drew 4 vowels, so I played a vowel dump on my next turn for nominal points, and then proceeded to draw all vowels which required me to exchange again my next turn. I had netted about 10 points in 4 turns. Not surprisingly I was down big, but I tried not to get frustrated, and just focus on making strong plays. To a large extent it worked as I came back with two bingos, ENTERAL and ORGEATS, the latter of which was quite nice because the only place to bingo required a front hook of both WO and OY with the last two letters of the bingo, so it pretty much had to be TS.
The other two games I won fairly handily, although one of them could have been very close if my opponent had challenged AEROLE, or if he had not played AFRO, which I challenged off the board (I guess he never saw "Word Wars") and instead played FORA for way more points. He played GNAWINGS on me, which I challenged, but much to my surprise, it's valid. The only other noteworthy thing that happened on the night is that I bingoed with three Ns in my rack, and that's barely noteworthy since it was the rather boring TANNING and I had both blanks.
I am slightly put-off by the club format. I wish that the last three games included a one-and-done tournament between the top 8 people at club that night. I think it would be fun to have a conclusive "winner" for that week and it would be a much better way to pair opponents, in my opinion, than having the director do it almost at random. It would require slightly more organization by the director however, which might be a problem considering that there seems to be a new one each week. I can't complain too much though. The directors are just volunteering, and it's not like I'm offering to do it.
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
You can find me at the club
I've been back at club the past two weeks. In 8 games I'm 4-4 with a spread right around 0 -- almost the definition of average, but I do generally play the better players. Yesterday I had a strange game against Brian Bailey in which there were 5 challenges. I'm going first and on my rack is ANPSTU?. I know that there are bingos in this rack, but I'm having trouble finding one. (The easiest one is PEANUTS, but also I should've seen UNSTRAP and DUSTPAN). I see both STANDUP and UPSTAND, but I don't know if they are valid (they are), as well as UNTAPES (invalid). After minutes of dithering I become slightly flustered and decided to play a safe word and save the blank and S, so I lay done UNTAP. The problem being that UNTAP is not a safe word at all. It's invalid. I didn't even think twice about it. I must have confused it with UNCAP, or something, I'm not sure. It's challenged off the board, and then Brian exchanges some tiles.
With the board still empty I'm going through the same process as before. This time I put down UNTAPES, the one invalid play out of the three I'm considering, and again it comes off the board. On his play Brian bingos ENTERON. Now, I'm ready to try STANDUP, but I notice a play I missed before, OUTSPAN(S). I try this one, because it's more points, off the O in ENTERON. For the third straight time the play is challenged (the director is getting a work out), but thankfully this time the play is valid. Five turns and we have two words on the board, both bingos. (By the way, PULSANT is the only other valid play not mentioned above in my opening rack).
A few turns later I draw DDEIST? and bingo TEDDIES (not challenged) then subsequently draw EEINSST. On the next play I hit SENSTINES for a 2x2. Unsure of this variation, Brian challenges, number four, but it stays. I was 99% sure it was valid (ENTIES = RAVI'S SLY MINX CHILD). Now, I'm up big when a few turns later Brain hits the 2x2 REAVAILS for 91 points. Convinced this is a desperation move, it sounds completely phony to me, I challenge, but shockingly, it's valid (REAVAIL and LEVARIA). Luckily, on the subsequent draw Brian gets a bunch of garbage, and continues to do so for the rest of the game, which is pretty uneventful. I win fairly handily. Overall, this was a very fun game, probably more fun for me since I won, but I complete outdrew my opponent, he did a good job just to keep it somewhat close.
With the board still empty I'm going through the same process as before. This time I put down UNTAPES, the one invalid play out of the three I'm considering, and again it comes off the board. On his play Brian bingos ENTERON. Now, I'm ready to try STANDUP, but I notice a play I missed before, OUTSPAN(S). I try this one, because it's more points, off the O in ENTERON. For the third straight time the play is challenged (the director is getting a work out), but thankfully this time the play is valid. Five turns and we have two words on the board, both bingos. (By the way, PULSANT is the only other valid play not mentioned above in my opening rack).
A few turns later I draw DDEIST? and bingo TEDDIES (not challenged) then subsequently draw EEINSST. On the next play I hit SENSTINES for a 2x2. Unsure of this variation, Brian challenges, number four, but it stays. I was 99% sure it was valid (ENTIES = RAVI'S SLY MINX CHILD). Now, I'm up big when a few turns later Brain hits the 2x2 REAVAILS for 91 points. Convinced this is a desperation move, it sounds completely phony to me, I challenge, but shockingly, it's valid (REAVAIL and LEVARIA). Luckily, on the subsequent draw Brian gets a bunch of garbage, and continues to do so for the rest of the game, which is pretty uneventful. I win fairly handily. Overall, this was a very fun game, probably more fun for me since I won, but I complete outdrew my opponent, he did a good job just to keep it somewhat close.
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