Scrabble is not like riding a bike

“Maybe, it’s a French word, I’m thinking of...I don’t know...I guess I’ll try it...I mean, you might challenge it, but whatever, I’ve got nothing else,” KJ said as he caressed two tiles between his fingers. He then put down an s and an h forming qats and ash on the double word square for 38 points.
I went to write down his total and he stood up “you’re not going to challenge that??!”
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Not. My. First. Rodeo. Buddy.
Challenging qats! He clearly has no idea who he’s dealing with.
KJ is actually a very good strategic player, with an admirable competitive spirit to boot. It was my first live game of Scrabble since I visited Fisch out in California last month, so when KJ jumped out to a 37 point lead with some impressive plays, the one above and a triple word score that hurt me, I definitely started to worry...especially since I might have started the game with some version of “if you win, I’ll give you a thousand dollars.”
But I drew a blank and managed to bingo with “reality” to take a small lead and then he played hu and I managed to draw the second blank after challenging his play and playing off some of my crap letters, I then bingoed with bassist.
As the game went on, the word knowledge gap devoured KJ.
“Man, I have to study my two letter words,” KJ said after I challenged “Da” off the board and then he challanged “vum.”
I won the game handily, but I found myself unsure of certain three letter words that at the height of my Scrabble game, I knew cold.
Time to hit the books...don’t want a repeat of the Queens tournament when I go out to Reno in the Winter.