No One Lost Ahead of You

This past December, I managed to finagle three days off of work. Now, that may not sound too impressive, but I work for USPS. Trust me, it's tougher than you might think.

The reason I needed the time off was to play in the California Open, the one multi-day Scrabble tournament held in San Francisco each year. Having not ( Read more... )

The GrindThe San Francisco Scrabble Club has had some interesting homes over the years. When I first attended, it was based in a Carl's Jr. near the Embarcadero, a location frequented by transients and generally not conducive to focus and concentration. My clearest memory of playing there was a game against Chris, our director. We're sitting there ( Read more... )

The classic trolley problem, in ethics, asks whether an action that causes harm is preferable to an inaction that causes more harm. While useful as a thought experiment, I have issues with it; namely, that the problem has almost no relevance to real life--or even to the artificial life we sometimes construct for ourselves ( Read more... )

Game TheorySeveral years ago, during a National Scrabble Championship, I became a minor celebrity ( Read more... )

Never Again

It's been three years since I last played Scrabble Nationals. That one was in Vegas, which is an awesome place to visit. This one is in Fort Wayne, Indiana, which...well, when Fort Wayne has to send their tourist board to the prior year's Nationals to try and sell people on coming, you're holding Nationals in the wrong city.Still, the ( Read more... )

Words, Words, Words

From the Official Tournament Rules of the North American Scrabble Players Association, Section I.D., "Distracting Speech or Behavior":

Inappropriate speaking, moaning, or other distractive or misleading behavior during a game is unethical. Each player has the right to ask any player to remain silent during a game....Any ( Read more... )

Decisions, Decisions

Pairings are up! The director quickly backs away from the wall to avoid the crush of players trying to figure out where to go ( Read more... )

"Nemesis"

Certain people have earned the right to be called by a single name. Babe. Kobe. Pele. Cher. Bono.

In the tournament Scrabble community, especially in the Pacific Northwest,
( you can add Dave to that list. )

( Or should that be Words With Frentz? )

( But non-Scrabblers are welcome to look too. )