LJ Idol Season 10, Week 1: "I Need the Struggle to Feel Alive"

[copyright1983]

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

Comments

[rayaso]

I will never, ever, EVER play scrabble with you. I don't even want to play Scrabble if I'm ever in the same state as you. I am #4 out of four in my family. It's a great game which I play rarely, and this was a wonderful entry. I can't imagine the stress of playing Scrabble at your level!

[murielle]

We can play. I think you might just wipe the floor with me. (Big grin)

[rayaso]

Very doubtful. It might be a race to the bottom, but there would be no floor-wiping on this end.

[copyright1983]

I get that a lot. :) Thanks for reading!

[murielle]

I didn't know there was a Scrabble National, so this was super exciting for me. Sorry you didn't win, but congratulations on a great telling of the tale.

[copyright1983]

Thanks for reading!

[halfshellvenus]

43 games of Scrabble in a single DAY? I would definitely feel all worded-out and vague after a certain point (probably 3-5 games, at most).

Are there time limits per turn? And now I'm curious about what's off-limits. Slang and foreign words, unless they're in an approved dictionary? Proper nouns (often the case)?

Time spent filling up your word bank with more and more words... that's what it takes to do what you do. I always think a few must fall out of the "cache" when you add more in, but it's a risk that must be taken.

[copyright1983]

Seven games per day for the first four days, then three more on day 5. So 31 games in 4.5 days. It's still burnout-inducing.

Each player gets 25 minutes for all of their moves (timed similarly to chess), with a 10-point penalty for each minute you go over.

As for what words are allowed...how long do you have? :) Suffice to say that the "rules" you mention are, um, malleable. To the point that any attempt at finding logic in the dictionary is a fool's errand.

Thanks for reading!

[my_name_is_jenn]

Scrabble has always been my favorite game. I love the surprising amount of strategy that's involved.

Though I don't know if I'd be able to handle a national tournament. That sounds too intense. :)

[copyright1983]

Start small. Where are you located? I could probably point you towards a local 1-day tournament, if you're interested.

Thanks for reading!

[penpusher]

After all that, you probably could use some Tile-lynol!

Bingo.

[copyright1983]

OW. :)

Thanks for reading!