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The French Scrabble Champ Does Not Speak French
HughPickens.com writes: On July 20, Nigel Richards won the French-language world Scrabble championship. Richards does not speak a word of French. "He doesn't speak French at all, he just learnt the words," says Liz Fagerlund. "He won't know what they mean, wouldn't be able to carry out a conversation in French I wouldn't think." Richards reportedly memorized an entire French dictionary in the two months leading up to the competition. For living-room players, Scrabble is a test of vocabularies but for world-class players, it's about cold memorization and mathematical probabilities which is why top player are often computer programmers or mathematicians, not poets or novelists. Think of the dictionary as a giant rulebook of valid text strings not as a compendium of the beauty and complexity of the English language. A good competitive player will have memorized a sizeable chunk of the 83,667 words that are two letters to eight letters long. Great players will know a lot of the 29,150 nine-letter words as well.
To the uninitiated, a scrabble game played by top players looks like they had played in Martian. Here's a taste: In a single game in last year's Nationals, Richards played the following words: zarf (a metal holder for a coffee cup), waddy (to strike with a thick club), hulloed (to hallo, to shout), sajous (a capuchin, a monkey), qi (the vital force in Chinese thought), flyboats (a small, fast boat), trigo (wheat) and threaper (one that threaps, disputes). Richards has a photographic memory and is known for his uncanny gift for constructing impossible words by stringing his letters through tiles already on the board. "He is probably the best Scrabble player in the world at this point," says John D. Williams, Jr.. "He's got the entire dictionary memorized. He's pretty much a Scrabble machine, if such a thing exists." So, really, how does he do it? As Richards said in an interview posted on YouTube, "I'm not sure there is a secret. It's just a matter of learning the words." All 178,691 of them.
To the uninitiated, a scrabble game played by top players looks like they had played in Martian. Here's a taste: In a single game in last year's Nationals, Richards played the following words: zarf (a metal holder for a coffee cup), waddy (to strike with a thick club), hulloed (to hallo, to shout), sajous (a capuchin, a monkey), qi (the vital force in Chinese thought), flyboats (a small, fast boat), trigo (wheat) and threaper (one that threaps, disputes). Richards has a photographic memory and is known for his uncanny gift for constructing impossible words by stringing his letters through tiles already on the board. "He is probably the best Scrabble player in the world at this point," says John D. Williams, Jr.. "He's got the entire dictionary memorized. He's pretty much a Scrabble machine, if such a thing exists." So, really, how does he do it? As Richards said in an interview posted on YouTube, "I'm not sure there is a secret. It's just a matter of learning the words." All 178,691 of them.
Scrabble is only a game about words at fairly low levels of play. If you have two otherwise unprepared people stuck in a room with nothing but scrabble for amusement, yes, the one with the better vocabulary likely has better options. Outside of the amateurs, though, memorization of the approved dictionary(starting with words chosen for good point values, the ability to dispose of letters that are usually tricky to get rid of, and other helpful features; but ideally progressing to all of them) supplants knowledge of the language and the remaining challenge is board control and optimizing the conversion of tiles into points over the course of the game.
There would certainly be additional prep time, even for the unusual characters who are really good at this; but the skills that the game demands for high level play should be transferable to any language(or even a nonsense dictionary) that works reasonably well with representation by a relatively small alphabet.
Does it hurt to have the definitions there? If not then stfu. And it helps by saving time used to look up them, so again, stfu.
It's not just his uncanny command of the dictionary (or dictionaries!) that makes Nigel a champion. He has an incredibly calm demeanor across the board. He is unflappable, regardless of tile draws or opponent's plays. The ability to focus on the next play and the strategic situation, without distraction, is critical to winning in a long tournament.
Lose = not win
...and the result was a pretty good edumacation.
First, there has never been any evidence of photographic memory. Self reporting photographic memory is akin to him self reporting having a 24" penis.
Second, Qi is a commonly played word even in novice games, as it is one of the few Q words that can be played without a U.
while(1) attack(People.Sandy);
An article for non-techies will usually explain briefly what an OS is and what Linux is.
I am Estonian; I play English scrabble; many words I use have no meaning to me but I know they exist within the context of the game.
Every (semi-decent) player knows all two-letter combinations that are essential for putting longer words in parallel.
Give them a look: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki...
How many of those would you consider as a "word"?
Yeah, we've got a programmer in our group that we played with one night. After his second questionable 2 letter word we added a rule (democratically voted on and adopted) that you must be able to define your word and use it properly in a sentence if anyone asks.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
What's french for "I have never touched a woman"?
This sentence would make no sense in french.
This is a good case in hobby sports vs professional sports.
As a hobby, playing games helps you to have fun and improve yourself.
As a profession, it just loads you with useless things. Like those french words the champ is unable to use.
Some of the top English-language players in the world are Thai and speak very little English.
France passes emergency cultural laws?
1. Require all scrabble players to speak Fluent French!
2. Drug testing all scrabble players for ketchup and other banned un-french substances.
3. Require all scrabble players to carry a baguette in their pocket at all times.
when game is plaid by professionals (pro gamers), this activity becomes useless waste of time and a circle jerk.
The whole idea of a game is fucked up by pro's.
And I spell F-R-E-N-C-H-T-O-A-S-T that's 45 points with a double word score for 90 points.
Does this make Nigel Richards a Strong AI? John Searle's Chinese Room and all.
Artificial intelligence is the study of how to make real computers act like the ones in the movies.
There was an episode of the Flintstones where Fred was playing Scrabble. He used "zarf" as a fake word.
Shut the fuck up.
Actually, qi is just the generic Chinese/Japanese word for energy. Electricity is den-ki, or "lightning energy."
An article for slashdotters will usually explain what fucking is.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
The same could be said for every game ever invented.
True. When somebody stops playing the game for fun, they have ceased playing. At that point they are worthy of our pity. We enter a moral gray area if we spectate and reinforce their abberant behavior.
...not as a compendium of the beauty and complexity of the English language.
This rings particularly true, when we talk about French, of course.
"Je n'ai jamais touché une femme." (I have not ever touched a woman)
It does work.
Know that Book by heart to the letter and don't have the foggiest idea what it's supposed to tell them...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Though it has broader meanings in Chinese and Japanese, the English loanword qi specifically means the energy sustaining one's life, the same thing that the Bible means when it says "spirit" (Greek pneuma; Hebrew ruach).
Which raises another question: How would Scrabble work in Chinese? Do they make Pinyin Scrabble or something?
Why invent new rules just because someone happens to know more words than you? Not everyone may be able to explain what "solipsism" means, but some may have come across the word and use it.
Everybody has different levels of competitiveness and sense of enjoyment - where do you draw the line?
"it's about cold memorization and mathematical probabilities"
How odd. I never saw Scrabble as being anything but the above with one more element, quick recall. It's a database and probabilities game.
Neither do the French. French is a difficult and obsolete language made of gendered nouns and unusable grammar. It used to be spoken by some remaining native French people up to the end of the XXth century (date of the American TV series landings).
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
The summary mentions Martian Scrabble, as if the Poster had a clue that it actually existed.
Invented during the second week of January, 1966, at the Continental Lodge, in San Francisco, in Room 206, by a bored Irish Immigrant family.
The Rules are very basic:
Words must be plausible, pronounceable, and a definition must be provided. "Gxitb" is out, "Stalagotte", a fallen Stalagmite, is in.
The Referee, sometimes called "Mom", wrote the words down with their definitions, in Pitman, on a yellow Legal Pad. Over the years, many Pads would be filled in.
Normal Scrabble scoring occurs.
The Game traveled East over the years, along with current copies of the Dictionary.
whoosh
http://www.acetonestudio.com
Bordel de merde! Attrapez ce salaud d'un sans-papiers et egorgez-le sur la Place de la Concorde! Zut alors!
Everybody has different levels of competitiveness and sense of enjoyment - where do you draw the line?
Nowhere. The only place I'm qualified to draw the line is for myself.
I would think the hardest part about French scrabble would be finding an e with an accent mark over it. For real though, how do they handle accented versus not? They're two different words in most cases, although that wouldn't matter for scoring.
I've never played scrabble. The only place I've seen scrabble played (if it is the game that looks like a crossword puzzle?) is in Hollywood movies. Somehow it smacks of anglosaxon culture.
I'm not frrench, so I am curious: how popular is this game in France?
You haven't read the article. He didn't say it himself - the head of some other tournament he participated in said it. And didn't mean it in any formal or clinical sense of the word when it doesn't even have such a definition. It's just a popular culture term for a remarkably good ability to remember visual or written things so what else would he say as an off the cuff remark about the winner? And being an idiot wanting to prove yourself you don't just argue against your strawman, you also disclose which of those words is the only one you know (I know more and English is my third language so they're not that unusual). You succeeded. In proving that you're an idiot, that is.
Could you provide a car analogy?
Next you'll be trying to tell us that some people play Sudoku without any knowledge of math.
Chelloveck
I give up on debugging. From now on, SIGSEGV is a feature.
That is because the Thai education system uses scrabble to help teach kids English, which is a very different language to Thai. So most Thais have played the game, and so unsurprisingly a few get very good at it.