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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."

4 of 208 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Word To You, Bro by urlgrey · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I for one am quite glad to see the geeky, simpler games getting a bit of attention. Growing up I played this game with my parents at our kitchen table.

    I'm sure Scrabble ended up being a significant confidence booster for me, particularly when I started winning a few games.

    Whatever the case, it was a cool feeling for a kid to be able to get a feeling of being "just as smart" as his parents. (Hey, they may have thrown the game in my favor, but who's to say? I don't suspect they did, but nevertheless, it was a cool feeling.)

    Oh yeah, and three cheers for wooden tiles! :-D

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    Running 'Nix is like owning a Lightsaber. It's "a more elegant weapon for a more civilized time."
  2. Re:Word To You, Bro by vslashg · · Score: 3, Insightful
    Unless the UNIX computer was his brain, the article makes no mention of his use an anagram finder...

    From the article:
    So, in the weeks leading up to the competition, I crammed. Nightly, you could find me awake at 2 a.m. typing strings of letters into a Unix-based program that would quiz me on their anagrams. I took these quizzes until the wee hours of the morning, while my girlfriend slept soundly next to me.
  3. Not a sport, but... by lukewarmfusion · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Scrabble isn't a sport, but ESPN (Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) had coverage of a Scrabble tournament once. They can make anything interesting. There seemed to be so much drama... the guy had his letters (which we could see), and there were only so many words he could make with them. It was really exciting.

    It's the same reason that ESPN's hit such a nerve with World Series of Poker. What normally isn't that great to watch can be made a lot more fun when you're 1) in the know and 2) have overly excited and knowledgeable commentators guiding you through it.

    I can only imagine what else they'd try to cover.

  4. Why by cubicledrone · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Why is anything that involves knowledge or thinking beyond "which reality show is on tonight?" described by name-calling?

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    Business isn't willing to pay for products, innovation and careers, so we get brands, mortgage commercials and layoffs.