Wednesday, July 4, 2007

Plan? Plane. Airplane!

“I haven’t held an e all game,” Polo said sighing, “I bet that open r won’t be there when it’s my turn,” he said hinting to his wife.
I laughed because I was handily ahead of both of them, but it made me wonder how on earth I ever used to play against them. The importance of the e or open lines never even entered my consciousness until a few months ago. No wonder they used to kick my ass. Even now, Lola totally set herself up to bingo and, as she said later mocking me, I “never saw it coming.”
Damn hidden word hooks.
I finally played Chugarte tonight and he also had similar talents. He played flak, which, if I’d had my trusty Scrabble dictionary with me, I would have challenged (Seriously, I don’t trust any other dictionary, I played Polo and Lola the next day and Polo insisted that we play with the America Heritage dictionary, and it totally screwed with my ability to securely play my “Scrabble words.”) A turn later he hooked on with an e to make flake and video.
IMG_1518
Alceste keeps teasing me about writing about Scrabble strategy, but honestly, I don’t do very much of that kind of word setup. On the upside, I’m getting almost insanely amazing with my bingoing ability. I’ve learned like eight stems and am just generally super facile with making up words. Chugarte was personally offended when I bingoed on him with boonest.
What? I had to try.
I did get him to challenge zoon when I needed to get rid of a cumbersome nf and f in order to complete my bingo tiles (tangles was the resulting play). He tried to "pull a Dawn" by playing tare instead of tear, I was about to challenge when Mary saved me. And then Chugarte hit her. And I laughed. I've really got to stop assuming that people have misspelled words...just because Fisch couldn't spell, doesn't mean everyone suffers that affliction.
I did bingo twice with real words…although I wasn’t sure about dottier (it’s good.)
I’ve been banned from playing at Jamie’s, so most of my Scrabble is going to have to be at the NYC club and tournaments, which means unless I want to keep crying in my soup, I’m going to have to start paying greater attention to strategy as well as word knowledge.
Good thing I’m going on a poker hiatus.

10 comments:

madbrooklyn said...

Big mouth strikes again...

I can't help it, it's the English major in me that makes me blurt out the meaning of words. Now if I can just ensure that the Engineering minor side of me is watching instead.

Or better yet, next game I watch I'll put tape over my mouth.

Sorry Charles!

Mary

Ugarles said...

That was a fun game. It would have been more fun if (dontblametiles dontblametiles dontblametiles dontblametiles) I had won.

I'd have tricked you into challenges twice if it weren't for those meddling kids. [/Scooby Doo villain] That would have been sweet. [/Dude where's my car]

Seriously, though, I only play real words. Put me in the box.

Dawn Summers said...

I only play real words. Put me in the box.


hahahahahahha. What was my other almost challenge? flak? Actually, I think both would have been bad challneges just because I was so far ahead...Mary just made me play good Scrabble startegy.

Alceste said...

Poker hiatus? (Haven't you played two tourneys in two days?)

And I read that the U.S. is apparently one of the the only countries in which using fake words is encouraged. The rest of the English-speaking world does not penalize for failed challenges. Who knew Scrabble could be contentious?

Ugarles said...

I challenge startegy.

Ugarles said...

I also like the American version. The downside is encouraging phonies; the upside is requiring word knowledge to detect them. Any idiot can not know a word.

Dawn Summers said...

You challenge startegy, but not challneges? Let's play for money! :)

I also like the american way. stupid foreigners.

Unknown said...

Wow. I read all this...and smile. Look what I've created. Egads! A scrabble community.

Dawn Summers said...

heeey, I created the scrabble community! you, you, you tried to kill it with your "i have a future now and i'm moving to berkeley."

Ugarles said...

At 10 letters, you'll never get to lay down 'challneges'.