What divides us

[redessence]

I've been out of the tournament Scrabble scene for almost 3 months now. I'm rarely on ISC and have purposely limited myself to Words With Friends and iPhone Scrabble games. Even took a break from those for 2 weeks in September. Now that I've been removed from the scene and observe it more as an enthusiast than a tournament player, I honestly think

Comments

[redessence]

I think it's a great idea. However, I think this idea has to assume an internationally unified word source (which in the Scrabble community will only ever be Collins), or else it becomes as accurate an international representation as The "World" Series is to baseball outside of North America (not representative).

It's not a complete analogy, but OWL/the NSC is somewhat like American football/the Super Bowl. Rugby is played everywhere else worldwide, and there's a small contingent of rugby players in North America. That being said, there is presently little incentive to get really good at rugby when American football is so popular in the North American public eye and isn't going anywhere any time soon.

Clearly it's not possible to nix American football. At present, North American culture is not supportive enough of rugby to help pave way for a world-class team to come from here in the near future. That's more or less accepted. I think Scrabble-wise we'll be looking at a similar scenario soon. If axing TWL is not considered possible, then we will have to accept that North American Scrabblers will become even less of a threat at future World Championships.