Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

On the insanity of being a Scrabble enthusiast

lithub.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 92 posts

Re: On the insanity of being a Scrabble enthusiast

#31

Post by iopq »

jrumbut wrote: post #21
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.

If you're going to go that way, the obvious word to add would be ov, a more "cult" spelling of the word "of"

instead of "za" I would suggest "ze" as a pronoun for a non-binary person

Re: On the insanity of being a Scrabble enthusiast

#32

Post by dagw »

quickthrower2 wrote: post #25
charcircuit wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You obviously don't hang out with people into pseudo-eastern 'philosophy'. I know several people who use it regularly.

Of all the 'weird' two letter words mentioned, I'd consider qi probably the most reasonable and common, and certainly one that I actually hear used

Re: On the insanity of being a Scrabble enthusiast

#33

Post by iopq »

quickthrower2 wrote: post #25
charcircuit wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The word "gi" is also a romanization. So is "tsunami" and "matryoshka". Going further, the word "alphabet" is a romanization of ἀλφάβητος in Latin

so any borrowed word from a non-Latin alphabet is a romanization, that's not a sane criterion (κριτήριον)

Re: On the insanity of being a Scrabble enthusiast

#35

Post by dmurray »

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…

Computers are better than humans at Scrabble [0], so the possibility exists for cheating even if their advantage doesn't stem only from mastery of the dictionary.

[0] I don't know how much better - but Maven was considered better than the best humans in 2002, and in most such pursuits, machines have improved faster than humans since then https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S000437020...

Re: On the insanity of being a Scrabble enthusiast

#36

Post by gillesjacobs »

Been casually trying to increase my ELO on Wordfeud. When you know the dictionary by heart (Wordfeud has rather restricted dictionaries) and have the basics of bonus hunting and hooking down, Scrabble becomes a pure game of imperfect knowledge and strategy. The known information is the prior letter distribution, the played letters on the board and in your rack. The unknown information is your opponent's rack. However, you can compute exact letter probabilities for his rack and strategize accordingly.

Then the game comes down to managing your rack and your opponent's. Here's are some common techniques/strats:

- Q-pinning: blocking bonus squares or hooks by using difficult letters so your opponent can't lay down a high scoring turn.

- Q-burning: the inverse, taking a hit on current turn score just to get rid of difficult letters.

- E-burning: sometimes having all-low score letters in your rack is worse than having Q-letters as this will hamper your ability to get high scores on good board positions. A well-balanced rank is key to winning.

- Q-swapping: late-game strategy, maintain a difficult letter in your rack to swap in one of the last turns so your opponent draws the impossible letters forcibly. Remember unused rack letters will be deducted from final score. This dirty trick has won me many close games.

Re: On the insanity of being a Scrabble enthusiast

#37

Post by jodrellblank »

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"

https://scrabblewordfinder.org/dictionary/parer

Someone who reads is a reader, viewer, writer, dancer, God loves a tryer, and someone who pares should be a parer.

Although I often try that pattern and have it denied, if you can shelve a project it suggests shelver which is in, if you can table a motion it suggests tabler which isn’t.

Re: On the insanity of being a Scrabble enthusiast

#38

Post by adammarples »

powersnail wrote: post #29

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.…

Scrabble rewards you using all your letters with a 50 point bingo. Pretty hard to get a bigger bonus, and using all 7 letters as often as possible is a critical strategy to winning.

Re: On the insanity of being a Scrabble enthusiast

#40

Post by Tams80 »

dagw wrote: post #32
quickthrower2 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

You obviously don't hang out with people into pseudo-eastern 'philosophy'. I know several people who use it regularly. Of all the 'weird' two letter words mentioned, I'd consider qi probably the most reasonable and common, and certainly one that I actually hear used

Especially with it being the name of the defacto standard of wireless charging.

A brand name, yes, but from an actual word.

Post reply on HN