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As a tournament Scrabble player, high-level Scrabble is actually an extremely good game, one of the best ever made. There is a huge amount of depth to it. I can

As a tournament Scrabble player, high-level Scrabble is actually an extremely good game, one of the best ever made. There is a huge amount of depth to it. I can expound upon it some more, but don't know how interested people would be. I am currently in Boston for a tournament - the Can-Am (Canada vs USA championship).

ejstronge 8y ago
Ah, is this open to the public? Where is it being held?
- cdelsolar 8y ago
  In Cambridge, MA at a community center. It is not quite open to the public. You have to be a member of the North American Scrabble Players Association (www.scrabbleplayers.org - $30/year) and have amassed a high enough ELO to qualify for this tournament. There are many tournaments held all over the country that are open to any NASPA members though. I'm excited for it! I represented the US in 2013 in Vancouver and we won that one.
baddox 8y ago
I don’t doubt that high level Scrabble is intriguing, but I think the problem (if you even want to call it a problem) is that it’s effectively a completely different game than the casual game of Scrabble. Casual Scrabble is all about coming up with fairly well-known words. Serious Scrabble, I presume, is about controlling board position armed with a vast knowledge of legal words. As soon as someone in a casual game plays a questionable esoteric word that, if challenged, turns out to be a legal word, the casual game becomes a lot less fun for everyone involved.
- cdelsolar 8y ago
  Your presumption about serious Scrabble is actually very accurate. The actual words themselves don’t even matter that much. I practice anagramming during a lot of my free time, to the point where seeing letters like EOHISTRE immediately (within less than half a second) brings up theories, theorise, isothere in my head. The game is largely about controlling the board, rough probability calculations, inferencing of your opponent’s tiles from their previous moves, etc etc. There’s a lot to it. It hasn’t even been seriously solved by a computer (the best AI does not beat the best player more than 50% of the time).
freddie_mercury 8y ago
Don't the high level players of every game think their game is one of the best ever made? Presumably they wouldn't devote that much energy to something if they didn't regard it as such. They also probably aren't high level players in enough other games to give a credible comparison among all the possible contenders, simply due to the time required to become high level in multiple games.

ejstronge 8y ago

Ah, is this open to the public? Where is it being held?

cdelsolar 8y ago
In Cambridge, MA at a community center. It is not quite open to the public. You have to be a member of the North American Scrabble Players Association (www.scrabbleplayers.org - $30/year) and have amassed a high enough ELO to qualify for this tournament. There are many tournaments held all over the country that are open to any NASPA members though. I'm excited for it! I represented the US in 2013 in Vancouver and we won that one.

baddox 8y ago

I don’t doubt that high level Scrabble is intriguing, but I think the problem (if you even want to call it a problem) is that it’s effectively a completely different game than the casual game of Scrabble. Casual Scrabble is all about coming up with fairly well-known words. Serious Scrabble, I presume, is about controlling board position armed with a vast knowledge of legal words. As soon as someone in a casual game plays a questionable esoteric word that, if challenged, turns out to be a legal word, the casual game becomes a lot less fun for everyone involved.

cdelsolar 8y ago
Your presumption about serious Scrabble is actually very accurate. The actual words themselves don’t even matter that much. I practice anagramming during a lot of my free time, to the point where seeing letters like EOHISTRE immediately (within less than half a second) brings up theories, theorise, isothere in my head. The game is largely about controlling the board, rough probability calculations, inferencing of your opponent’s tiles from their previous moves, etc etc. There’s a lot to it. It hasn’t even been seriously solved by a computer (the best AI does not beat the best player more than 50% of the time).

freddie_mercury 8y ago

Don't the high level players of every game think their game is one of the best ever made? Presumably they wouldn't devote that much energy to something if they didn't regard it as such. They also probably aren't high level players in enough other games to give a credible comparison among all the possible contenders, simply due to the time required to become high level in multiple games.