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Word Up

Posted by michael on from the causes-couple-competitiveness dept.

theodp writes "Depending on your perspective, the National Scrabble Championship is a major sporting event, an unrivalled intellectual competition, or the world's biggest dork-fest. So says Slate's Dan Wachtell, who turned to an anagram-drilling Unix program to gain an edge on the 850+ competitors. While hardly mainstream, competitive Scrabble is getting newfound attention thanks to the publication of Word Freak and release of Word Wars."

7 of 208 comments (clear)

  1. ... and the CSI episode by inio · · Score: 3, Informative
    competitive Scrabble is getting newfound attention thanks to the publication of Word Freak and release of Word Wars.

    ... And the CSI episode Bad Words

  2. Play now! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    The fellow @ www.themaninblue.com has an excellent javascript/dhtml version available online.

    see here

    I just stumbled upon it the other day, looking for ways to practice to beat my mother-in-law ;)

  3. Big point scrabble words... by cr0sh · · Score: 3, Informative
    While not the biggest, a great "power word" is "fajita" - placed right (and make sure it is in your "agreed upon" dictionary) - this sucker can get you big points in one wallop.

    There are much better words out there, though - /.'ers, what are your suggestions?

    --
    Reason is the Path to God - Anon
  4. Best Online Scrabble by john.mull · · Score: 5, Informative

    The best online scrabble can be found at Internet Scrabble Club. Usually several hundred or more players online at any given time from around the world. Multiple dictionaries from several languages and even a UK British dictionary. Very fun, playable from Linux and MacOSX via a Java applet (in the browser?), elsewise a quick download of a java applet for Windows. Many very highly rated national and international players are playing right now.

    From the website:

    The ISC is the best place on the Internet to play Scrabble in a relaxed friendly environment. You can compete at your own level in English, French, Romanian, Italian, or Dutch while meeting new people and making friends from around the world.

    Right now there are 2138 players logged into the ISC and 792 games in progress.

    --
    Isaiah 43:19 (NCV)
    Look at the new thing I am going to do. It is already happening. Don't you see it?
  5. Re:Word To You, Bro by svyyn · · Score: 5, Informative
    Unless the UNIX computer was his brain, the article makes no mention of his use an anagram finder...

    At the top of the article is a small menu with days of the week. Click on 'Mon' or http://slate.com/id/2105210/entry/2105211/. Took me a bit to find it too.

  6. Re:Word To You, Bro by DumbWhiteGuy777 · · Score: 3, Informative

    In response to RE and LA being words, that's because they're on the music scale or something like that. DO, RE, ME, FA, SO, LA, and TI are all also words. And if you use or someone else uses them, you can pretty easily add onto them(E.G. RE one turn, then add QUIRE onto it, and that's two turns) and then you can rack up some big points.

    /Me is a closet Scrabble nerd

  7. Re:Unix Program For Scrabble? by nessus42 · · Score: 3, Informative
    There used to be a software version of Scrabble which allowed you to play against other players by E-mail.
    There still is:

    http://www.thepixiepit.co.uk/scrabble/index.htm
    Scrabble assistant programs are somewhat useful.
    You mean like

    http://www.a2zwordfinder.com/main.html

    ?

    |>oug