Over the years, the hot seat for these advanced players has often been local Scrabble clubs. Meeting once a week, community members join together to share tips and throw down tiles. They play words made entirely of vowels, like eau (n. water), as well as words comprised only of consonants, like crwth (n. ancient stringed instrument).
In recent years the Internet has become the place for topnotch players to link up for matches. The Internet Scrabble Club (www.isc.ro), is a community where hundreds, sometimes thousands, of players can play one another in matches ranging anywhere between a lightening-quick three minutes up to an hour.
The real places to find competitive Scrabble though are tournaments organized by the National Scrabble Association. Held throughout the year around the country, these weekend gatherings attract hundreds who battle for cash prizes and respect.
The granddaddy of these competitions is the national tournament held every August in Reno, Nev. In 1998, at just 29 years of age, Brian Cappelletto took the national title, winning with it $25,000.
Cappelletto says that the first step to advancing your game toward the competitive level is learning English’s short, two-, three-, and four-letter words. These words allow you to branch off existing words already in play on the board. “They’re the building blocks of the game,” he says. Joel Sherman, the 2002 national champion and personal friend of Cappelletto, calls them “the glue” of the game.
Knowing two- and three-letter words sounds simple enough, but the list is more complex than just is and do. There are actually 96 two-letter words in the Scrabble dictionary.
If played correctly, these words like jo (n. sweetheart), hm (interj. used to express thought), and xi (n. Greek letter) can result in big-time points. The trick though is remembering that words like ut and et are valid, but ot isn’t.
Anagramming
After developing a grasp on the building blocks, up-and-coming players then implement the mental process of anagramming. An anagram is a word whose letters can be rearranged to form another word.
Stinger, for example, is an anagram of resting.
“I used to anagram every street sign I saw,” says Cappelletto. Exercises like this are common among competitive players who spend hours studying the dictionary, then matching those terms with other anagrams.
With a mental vocabulary this expansive, Scrabble enthusiasts are often thought to be scholarly linguists and writers that always know just the perfect word, but this is anything but true. Although recreational Scrabble can be beneficial to your vocabulary, competitive players aren’t improving their English skills. With their minds zoned in on memorizing dhow and kbar, players leave no room for meanings.
“I’ve probably forgotten more definitions that I knew before I started competing than I’ve learned since,” says Sherman. Known in the Scrabble world as “G.I. Joel,” Sherman is quick to point out that the game is really more of a mathematical one than a language-based one.
Playing the champion
When Cappelletto agrees to play me online at the Internet Scrabble Club, I’m both thrilled and intimidated. Competing against a world champion in their own game is a rare event, but due to the Internet, Scrabble is one of the few competitions where anyone, if they ask nicely, can take on the best of the best.
Playing Scrabble with Cappelletto makes for a belittling event. As I do my best to assemble basic words, he plays quoin (v. to secure with a wedge), heaume (n. medieval helmet), and fitchy (adj. having fitches) across the board.
In the bingo department, though, he and I tie at one apiece. The final score, however, was not as close. When it was all said and done the score board read an assertive 417 to 288.
Cappaletto got the victory ... this time. But he hasn’t seen the last of me. I’m going to start studying the dictionary every day. I’m going to memorize all of the two-, three-, and four-letter words. I’m going to anagram every word I see. I’m going to … I’m going to ... I’m just going to recognize greatness when I see it.