On Jujitsu and Scrabble Culture

[redessence]

Last Tuesday I went with Jordan, my friend in Simi Valley in California, to watch him at jujitsu. He is training in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and various MMA (mixed martial arts) for a tournament in Las Vegas occurring in mid-March. The experience got me thinking about some important differences between this culture and Scrabble culture.

There are several

Comments

[sr_orangepants]

Club culture depends on the club. The clubs I regularly attend meet at a diner and a Panera. It's pretty hard to shush people at other tables or the machines at the Panera bakery, and there are rarely any calls for quiet. Things can be a little bit chatty, and I have had discussions about games, words, and moves with people who want to talk about them. I agree with what Joey says about loudness and quietness. I shush mostly when the noise starts to give me a headache.

I would like to see more annotation with commentary and analysis of candidate moves. I seem to recall that the Scrabble News would have a featured game in each issue. Maybe this is something that should end up in each issue of the Last Word or something published separately. If a player can explain his or her thought process, it might be edifying for other players. Listing Quackle's options are a bit insufficient, and certain annotated games that I see (I don't look that often and am probably missing better ones) seem to lack that element of explanation. (One exception: I love cesarsalad's annotations and feel that they deserve to be collected and published for all of their entertainment value. None of this would have happened without ROADEOS.)