October 27, 2006

The Highest Scrabble Scores Ever Doubters and haters say: good players wouldn't have given Michael Cresta the chance to make quixotry for 365 points, and good players wouldn't have shot the moon for it. Scrabble fans say 830 points by one player? Hot damn!
  • Amazing. And all the result of bad play. While there have been plenty of games where I've drawn Q, U and X, and known what I could make of them, I know I'd be saving them for a good spot for so long that in the end there'd be nowhere for them to go. So I suck.
  • Fatsis's book, Word Freak, is a fascinating look at the world of competitive scrabble.
  • I confess to using the National Scrabble Association's Official Long Words List in our games of M.O.N.K.E.Y.
  • If 830 happens, whether the result of bonehead play or not, it counts. I like this game!
  • Was once denied 'Quincier' on a double word score and have never forgivemn my opponent ...
  • Ted used to mince; his stride's grown mincier. This jar says quince; that one tastes quincier. Perfectly legit, and also perfectly intelligible. Unfortunate many dictionaries don't list all comparative usages in the language. I'm not familiar with this Scrabble dictionary, but it seems somewhat eek-centric. Za, indeed!
  • Very good! Tut-tut, za za, and all that.
  • I would have understood quincier as something like CSI. Usage: "There were a lot of crime dramas out, but they really needed something Quincier so they made CSI."
  • Aren't capitalized words still verboten in the Scrabble? Chimp, wot's CSI? Googling doesn't seem to help.
  • In our house, the rules allow any word in any dictionary within fifteen meters of the board, providing the person placing the word can come up with a plausibly correct definition. With English, French, Italian, German, Dutch, isiZulu, Setswana, Greek and Turkish all in play, you have to be a very brave Monkey indeed to challenge a word. In fact, mostly we drink.
  • Chimp, wot's CSI? It's a tv show about forensic investigators, it stands for Crime Scene Investigators - the modern tv-phile's Quincy, M.E. (a tv show about an M.E. [just in case]) There, now the thread's Quincier.
  • Thanks - I hadn't a KLUgman.
  • Yeah, our house rule is that if you can't define it, you can't play it. No fishing for bizarre letter combinations just because it might be a word. But we do use the Unabridged Oxford English Dictionary for challenges . . . .
  • Thanks chaps, unfortunately this thread's about 20 years too late (showing the depth of my grudge ... )
  • Goodness, I looked at the sidebar and got all excited (took the 365 points as 365 comments)! Myself, I always lost at Scrabble for my tendancy to holdout for letters needed for that "grand" word... Nonetheless, an intersting read!
  • I confess to using the National Scrabble Association's Official Long Words List in our games of M.O.N.K.E.Y. Ahhh HA! license and registration, please.
  • My dad found out some guys at work played on their lunch hour, so one day he joined them. He came home a humbled man.