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On the insanity of being a Scrabble enthusiast

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Re: On the insanity of being a Scrabble enthusiast

#21

Post by jrumbut »

groggo wrote: post #3

It would be interesting to have a "simple english" Scrabble dictionary, without QI and similar words. One reason Wordle is awesome is because they manually filtered down the possible 5 letter words.

I wonder about going the other way, adding more short words that make the game flow better (how about VI? Or just allow any two letter combination?).

My experience having briefly gotten into competitive scrabble 15 years ago is that memorizing the short words is the price of admission for a more fun game. Knowing the short words makes it possible to fit the long words on the board.

Re: On the insanity of being a Scrabble enthusiast

#23

Post by AeroNotix »

nathell wrote: post #15
paulpauper wrote: post #2

I thought I was good at scrabble but then I realized that playing against my parents does not count. Experts just memorize dictionaries. Just anther example of a game that has been optimized. Would not surprise me if we see a cheating scandal similar to professional chess.

I play Polish Scrabble competitively, and IME there’s much more to the game than just memorizing the dictionary. A program that has full knowledge of the dictionary and always plays the highest-scoring word will easily yield to a human. There’s virtually no strategy, but tactics is of paramount importance. Things like keeping your rack balanced; which one of several similarly-scoring words to play, based on your know…

My wife is Polish and we tried playing the Polish Scrabble. Allowing for English or Polish words. Took me a few games of getting trounced to realise the letter set is completely different in the Polish version.

Re: On the insanity of being a Scrabble enthusiast

#24

Post by dbish »

Symbiote wrote: post #22
janitor61 wrote: post #20

I think a 3D version of scrabble would be fun, where you build the words using cubes in 3 dimensions instead of two. You could probably even do it non-digitally if you had magnetic cubes

See the board game "Upwords".

Love scrabble and tried upwords but the constraints aren’t right and it’s not as fun

Re: On the insanity of being a Scrabble enthusiast

#25

Post by quickthrower2 »

charcircuit wrote: post #18
groggo wrote: post #3

It would be interesting to have a "simple english" Scrabble dictionary, without QI and similar words. One reason Wordle is awesome is because they manually filtered down the possible 5 letter words.

Qi is a common word and being 2 characters definitely makes it simple.

Not really. I am yet to hear someone use it in an everyday sentence. It is also a romanisation.

Re: On the insanity of being a Scrabble enthusiast

#26

Post by patrickdavey »

jrumbut wrote: post #19
bee_rider wrote: post #9

I wonder if dominos on a scrabble board, or something like that, could be fun. Anything to replace the spelling. The game described in the article: > There is something magical, however, about realizing how to play Scrabble even one step above beginner: using the bonus spaces, creating overlapping words, hitting your first bingo. You also learn how to play defense. > The first time you realize that your opponent is s…

The two letter words and the common q-without-u words are enough to unlock a much more entertaining version of the game than the one you can play with a normal vocabulary. Since you already know most of them you're only memorizing a few dozen very short words. Then a few vowel dumps wouldn't hurt, short V/X/K words...

Also, consider just printing out the legal two letter words and leaving them there for anyone to check ... Saves on the "win by memory" and allows more tactical play by all.

I've been playing like that with my parents (in their 80s) and it makes for a much more fun game!

Re: On the insanity of being a Scrabble enthusiast

#27

Post by dmurray »

bee_rider wrote: post #9

I wonder if dominos on a scrabble board, or something like that, could be fun. Anything to replace the spelling. The game described in the article: > There is something magical, however, about realizing how to play Scrabble even one step above beginner: using the bonus spaces, creating overlapping words, hitting your first bingo. You also learn how to play defense. > The first time you realize that your opponent is s…

"Scrabble isn't a word game. It's an area-control game with 150,000 rules to define legal placement for your resources."

I've heard it expressed like this a couple of times now, but the earliest citation I can find with a quick Google is...here [0] on HN in 2018.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18685447

Re: On the insanity of being a Scrabble enthusiast

#28

Post by iopq »

jrumbut wrote: post #19
bee_rider wrote: post #9

I wonder if dominos on a scrabble board, or something like that, could be fun. Anything to replace the spelling. The game described in the article: > There is something magical, however, about realizing how to play Scrabble even one step above beginner: using the bonus spaces, creating overlapping words, hitting your first bingo. You also learn how to play defense. > The first time you realize that your opponent is s…

The two letter words and the common q-without-u words are enough to unlock a much more entertaining version of the game than the one you can play with a normal vocabulary. Since you already know most of them you're only memorizing a few dozen very short words. Then a few vowel dumps wouldn't hurt, short V/X/K words...

Ah yes, real words like ae, al, de, ka, oe, xu, za

Re: On the insanity of being a Scrabble enthusiast

#29

Post by powersnail »

I had a brief interest in scrabble, but when I played against online players and computers, I lost the interest all together.

The problem was that Scrabble dictionary is too inclusive, and the Scrabble game rewards making multiple words. So, instead of learning fun and obscure words, it’s more important to spot how to make viable grids that gives you five words with one move, while involving some high-scored letters. Hence, tons of cheesy 2-or-3-letter words, “qi” as mentioned in the article, “mm”, “hm”, currency units, etc.

Once in a blue moon, there comes a moment of absolute brilliancy when you piece together a long word that pokes into the corner, earning a devastating 80+ points. That feels glorious.

But most of the game I played, it’s mainly short scuffles that dominates the mid and late game.

I wish that Scrabble would reward long words more, and get rid of the cheesy words. No more units, or non-sensical onomatopoeia.

Re: On the insanity of being a Scrabble enthusiast

#30

Post by iopq »

hackcasual wrote: post #4
groggo wrote: post #3

It would be interesting to have a "simple english" Scrabble dictionary, without QI and similar words. One reason Wordle is awesome is because they manually filtered down the possible 5 letter words.

There have been a few that aren't exactly vernacular. I'm still angry about "parer"

That's a very logical word if you know what a paring knife is
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