Does anybody know where I can find out the formulae (fumarole) behind the qualification calculations/quotients ? I'm interested in finding out what qualification system would be the fairest, most merit based and would have both the short and long term interests of the game in hand. I find it strange that the UK sends so many players, but then again why not if a high % of them are top players so they should. Basically, I'm wondering if the current system could possibly lock out any top players who would be worthy of inclusion - that would seem unfair, and limiting Canada or the USA to a certain number of players could do that. Also, why just not let anyone play at the worlds should their ranking be good enough?

these questions have probably been raised/answered somewhere else - was hoping someone could point me in the direction where i could read about them. just to satisfy my curiosity.

It's not kenji vs quackle, but still, I've been trying to do one proper serious quackle game per night (as opposed to ones where i get all the choices for every move and run sims to try and work out why the best move is so). I've done 12 so far and here are the results:

Nigel played Dave W in round 24 with the winner getting a place in the final 2 (Pakorn won his game to be the other player in the top 2). This was their game, and it's a cracker.

What a performance by Dave W, in such a high quality field.

Pakorn has just won games 17 and 18. I've been following the online games. This victory of Pakorn's over Nigel was fun:



Nigel's fish of putting the I front hook to URE# was interesting. I used to play SOWPODS before I got serious about scrabble. I still can't work out which word source I prefer.

Is anybody else watching the WSC ? It's terrifically close -

1 12.0 4.0 +965 Pakorn Nemitrmansuk THA
2 12.0 4.0 +957 Dave Wiegand USA
3 12.0 4.0 +841 David Boys CAN
4 11.0 5.0 +1077 Nigel Richards Wsc
5 11.0 5.0 +846 Naween Fernando AUS
6 11.0 5.0 +770 Komol Panyasophonlert THA
7 11.0 5.0 +751 Nathan Benedict USA
8 11.0 5.0 +668 Geoff Thevenot USA
9 11.0 5.0 +585 Michael Gongolo KEN
10 11.0 5.0 +503 Panupol Sujjayakorn THA
11 11.0 5.0 +315 Jason Katz-Brown USA


A great showing so far by the North Americans.

Also, check out this barn-buster of a game between Vannitha Balasingam and Phillip Edwin-Mugisha in round 14.

Went 3-1 at club in the expert division.

Game 1 vs Paul Avrin W 428-386 - Paul went up early with a blank bingo and a high Z play, but I managed to get to parity by setting up a large X play with DUNAM followed by COX. I then got EELNORTV which Paul challenged. The momentum then swang my way and I got AEELRSY two turns later. The board got shut down and the other blank ended up on my rack near the end but it wasn't needed.


Game 2 vs Sue Gable W 428-376 - I played OK in this game but lost a fair bit of equity. I missed the B front hook to UNION which meant I didn't get as many points from my Z. After balancing racks I got down AEOVRTU and then two turns later missed the bingo in EEIOSX? and the one thru an R on the same turn. Sue bingoed with HOAGIES to even it up, but I had the only bingo in ?EILOSY to go up by a bingo again. I managed to eke out about a 90 point lead which held in the endgame.


Game 3 vs Larry Sherman L 312-427 - The first 6 moves of this game I scored 25-37 points with COZ, ENOW, FA, AX, LEY and TOY. My leaves were getting worse and worse but I was still scoring - Quackle agrees that I should be taking the points. Unfortunately, in the meantime Larry got down 2 blank bingos and I was about a bingo behind when I finally stopped scoring and had to lay down TORII followed by EH and VISIT. Larry got another bingo (STRIPERS) to get a 100 point lead which I couldnt catch. Quackle agrees with my moves, but it was just one of those game where I didn't really have too many options.


Game 4 vs Bob Kerr W 477-321 - Both Bob and I bingo once in our first 5 turns, him with DOSSIEr and me with the common one out of DEINNRS. Then follows 5 moves where I keep as my leave Q? plus random other tiles. At all times I was scoring quite well and the board was getting more clogged - I just didn't get the chance to shed the Q, but whilst I was scoring well enough it wasn't a problem. Bob was having rack problems and by the end of the game he was down a bingo and had to open up whilst not scoring highly - I managed to get down EEINNRV. Then with 2 in the bag and up by 100, I have AEGGIOR and I play off the O trying to block one lane - I pull a U and don't pay much attention to my rack before suddenly realising I have AEGGIRU to an S for the outplay.



Bingo list:

OVERLENT
SEALERY
OUTRAVE
DOYLIES
DINNERS
NERVINE
GARIGUES


Missed bingos list:

EPOXIES
EXORCISE

I hope the graph below is big enough to view.

I study the 7s and 8s by probability - but not all together. I am up around the 7000 mark for 7s with one anagram, but only 5000 for those with 2 anagram and only 3000 or so for those with 3 etc. So, I was wondering as you get to the more unlikely (less probable) bingos, do a greater % of them only have one anagram.

This figure shows the proportion of 7s that have one anagram (red), two (green), three (blue), four (yellow) or five or more (cyan). The x-axis labels got a bit screwed up, but they are basically in units of 200 each. The two numbers on the x therefore refer to hundreds. e.g. 62 = 6000-6200 probability. The y axis is obviously the number of words in each category.

As you can see, when you get after about probability 4000 then most words only have 1 or 2 anagrams. There are trifectas after 4000 but they get fewer and fewer. Before 4000 prob and especially before 2000 prob there are many words with 3 or more anagrams.

Makes me think I need to get my 3 or more anagram studying up to the 4000 mark at least...

i've set myself the task of playing at least one proper game vs quackle champ player each night. whilst word study is good, i don't want my board vision etc to go stale. I'm also hoping to see some sort of improvement over time - i should see my win% going up over the long term. I'd estimate i'm about 25% currently, but this better notekeeping will tell me for sure.

Today was game 1. I won't post all the results/games because many won't be instructional or even interesting, but i might post the odd game that i think raises some issues. this one isn't pretty or anything, and i make mistakes - but seen as it's game 1 i'll post it.

game 1. L. 399-405, JSSZ

nb. YOYO*

this is an English version of a bunch of scrabble videos made to promote Scrabble in French. I also quite like "Le Blues du Scrabbleur"




Missed fives - none yesterday. today, I didn't know / can't remember seeing - SYSOP & COMAL and didn't find in time ACMIC, FELID, MYOID, IDOLS/SOLDI, DOEST plus MOUND, DECAY, LARGE !!!! I think I was concentrating on getting the others that I didn't pick off the easy ones.

I was up in a game by a bingo yesterday after challenging off my opponent's phony of AVAILERS*. With her rack of AAEILVS I could see the bingos through the R or D so naturally went to block with a play from under BE. So I was considering TOLU or LOUT from my rack of LNOORTU. One of them is quackle's top choice - the other is about 40% worse in win %. Can you see why? Guess which i chose (thankfully I wasn't whacked for it).




I went 3-1 at club with 3 easy wins and 1 narrow defeat. The defeat can be stripped down to allowing my opponent to put his blank bingo down hooking PREDIAL (as Joel pointed out it's only LIPREADS, PARSLIED, SPIRALED) - i held for a long-time but as it was move 1, i thought even if it isn't good (and i didn't think it would be) I could still outrun him. Then I didn't know ADEESTUX to win on the penultimate move - the singular version is just outside my prob range.

Some missed 5s from this week's aerolith: REDON, MOHUR, LESBO, ADUST, NONET, STOAS, ORLOP, SORAS/SAROS, ARTEL/RATEL, DEBAR/ARDEB, NEIST, MOTET, DIENE.

There is a lot of 5 work still to do!

 I've analyzed my games from Bayside and it was quite a humbling experience.  I missed quite a few bingos, though only one that's within my study range and that was because I missed the four tile overlap and not because I didn't anagram it.  There were a couple that I saw but wasn't 100% sure on and a couple that I should have anagrammed even though they're not words I come across a lot.  There are also a few that were just new to me.

 Went 7-1 +582 today in division 2 of the Bayside one-day tournament. 

Just looked at my rating on x-tables: It's 1161. My ranking - 1161.  Quite weird.

http://cross-tables.com/results.php?p=18827&tsel=c


My computer overheated and I lost my list of missed 5s for today. I think I missed SYREN which was the most interesting.  Went 1-3 at club in the expert division.  I made too many mistakes. I beat Jack Eichenbaum in game 1 even though he double blanked me before losing to Debbie Stegman even though I double blanked her!   My possible chance to win was when it was close and I didn't go with fUNGOUS which I saw but didn't like (it's good). I should've seen and played OUtGUNS regardless. Then I play poorly against Errol Wilson but it probably didn't matter anyway as it was something of a blowout.  Then I'm over 100 up against Paul Avrin and rather than playing a safe blocking play (which leaves me with KII), I play a more aggressive lane opening play (leaving DIN, and getting greedy for bingos). He comes back with back to back blank bingos and I'm done for.

Hopefully lessons will be learned.

Came across this word today and it reminded me of former NY Ranger Paul Mara, here shown in a fight with a player from the Colorado Nordiques.

MARABOUT - also TAMBOURA.  Truncated/alternative versions of each word: MARABOU, TAMBOUR, TAMBURA, TAMBUR.


Onto the missed fives:

ATTAR / TATAR - word fails, can't remember seeing them before.
FEMUR, OMERS, GALEA - anagramming fails.

 Can you find the four letter words that take the same front and back hook.  Don't worry, this doesn't include the 221 words that take an S front and back hook.  To make it easier, I'll tell you how many there are for each letter:

A - 3
C - 1
D - 9
E - 5
H - 1
L - 2
M - 1
O - 1
T - 2

Good luck with that.  The ones that take a D front and back are not that interesting, but some of the others produce some cool not that common 5s.  See how many out of the total of 25 you can find.


Onto my missed 5s. I knew it would be a hard day when conradisawesome didnt get 100% and even wanderer15  only had 150s left on his clock after finishing them all !

HURST - the answer to every British multiple guess quiz is D. "Geoff Hurst in the 1966 world cup final".

MESON - not you son but me son.  programming note: MESONIC = INCOMES

SIPED - just missed it

ACNED - just another swing and a miss. a frustrating 5s day for me.

KYTES - this is why i'm redoing this stuff because i forget easy ones like this.

BEERY - again, know it, failed to anagram it (I got BARYE stuck in my head)

NARKS - thought i'd entered (blaming my miniPC here)

LEAFS & FALSE - ran out of time trying to work out HURST that i didn't get to finish this set of 4.

 i think it'll get boring if i have nothing to post other than my missed 5s, so in future if i have nothing really to post i think i'll save up my daily missed 5s and post them in batches of 2-3 days.




anyway today's effort, i missed:


REDLY - the good news is I now realise that every single color can take -LY on the end. 

POIND - i tried entering it on the buzzer but aerolith says i didn't make it in time

PENIS - lots of anagrams, but i've never heard of this word. stupid stick esses

PATLY - i remember learning the 4 words in this on a LIRR train to JFK. I also remember that this is the one i kept forgetting.

 Just read this article about UK scrabble player Mikki Nicholson who's going to the World's.  (It's in a local Northern England newspaper, near to where i'm from).   In it he talks about playing EUONYMUS - a word he knows from studying the 8s with 4 vowels + Y. There are 200 such words in Collins apparently - I just looked it up - there are 148 in ours.  The most common is ALEATORY (for cryptic crossword fans, my clue for this would be: Lucky East-End Conservative MP) - the least common is UBIQUITY (excluding SUKIYAKI).  Well, one day when  i actually nail the 5 vowel 8s, i'll move onto these more exotic lists.

today's missed 5s:

DOYEN
BRIAR (BRIARD & BRIARY are cool)
GESTE
ROUST & TORUS (stupid sticky s)
NOSEY

i'm setting a low benchmark so it'll look like i've massively improved by the end of the month.

 I've spent the last couple of months expanding my 7s and 8s quite well.  But it has been at the detriment of retaining the short words - this has led to some embarrassing challenges and missed challenges at club. (I have to also admit here that as well as learning short words, i often have to inhibit them - i did learn a lot of sowpods 3s and 4s when i was a casual player back in England. They need to be inhibited - e.g. i often want to play OYE, and then go 'oh yeah, no'.)

I've been through all the 4s and 5s at least 2-3 times, but for some words it just takes me up to 7 or 8 bites before i retain them.   Like many, I don't find zyzzyva as being the best for acquiring the shorties - so i'm going back to doing the aerolith thing, which i like and when i did it for every day a month last Summer it really helped me.

Might do a missed list too, a la satireblank ,   I didn't record all my misses today because I've only just decided to (i think it'll make me try harder to avoid looking silly), though I remember I missed RUCHE (which i swear i've never seen despite my z cardbox saying i'm 1/3 on this word) and the two non plural anagrams BIRSE & RIBES (got BRIES and BIERS).  I then didnt finish a few words as I got jumped on by two over-excited kittens that we just got today!      I got all the fours - though a bit slowly (in part to not being able to reduce the aerolith window size to fit my miniPC screen so i can actually see what i'm typing!).

let's see how this learning the 5s goes.

 I know this is ridiculous and I should have realised it sooner -  but, I make far more mistakes in the 2nd half of games than the 1st half.  I've been playing Mr T. S. Champ-Player a lot recently, and have just got into the habit of analyzing my games backwards.  Starting with the endgame and going back in time.  I find often that I'm making iffy decisions in the pre-endgame and endgame, but as I go back to moves 1-4 I'm more often than not right on the money. 

It's an obvious point - but the more opportunities there are on the board to play - the more opportunities it gives me to play bad.

 Went 4-0 in the intermediate division with a spread of around +630 and average score of 470.   Thankfully i'm going to get to play up again next week in the expert division.  I'll be shooting for 2-2 then.

i got 10 bingos - they're a bit pedestrian i'm afraid.

UNGRAD(E)D
DE(L)ATION
TABORIN
DIAZOlE
SAL(I)ENCE
ATTEnDS
RIPOSTE
UNaGILE
EnCAGES
EVINcES


The more important missed bingo list:

AINORTU - I saw the bingo on my rack instantly but failed to see where it would fit on the board.  A four tile overlap over FOHN.

ADILORS - from an open K.  An annoying miss as I didn't look at the K for long enough - the word (in its singular form) is within my probability range so I should have found it if I'd bothered to look more.