Scrabble, in all its odd glory!

Do you play?

How do you do? Are you more of a living room player (I am), or do you aspire to play in a tournament? Have you, perhaps, played in a tournament?

I just finished reading Stefan Fatsis's book on Scrabble, called Word Freak - Heartbreak, Triumph, Genius and Obsession in the World of Competitive Scrabble Players.

The author suggests studying word lists in order to improve. See, for example: http://homepage.ntlworld.com/adam.bozon/scrabblelists.htm#2letter

There are also numerous clubs where you can sharpen your skills. See: http://www.wolfberg.net/scrabble/massachusetts, which happens to be a list of all Massachusetts clubs. There are clubs all over the world - Israel, Canada, Australia, the Netherlands (yes, folks who may not speak English still play Scrabble - and in English!), South Africa, etc.

One thing that Mr. Fatsis also notes is that Scrabble, while ostensibly a word game, is also something of a numbers game. That is, not only are you always looking for the best score that you can get out of the tiles in your rack, but you should also be checking for things like the probability that your opponent has drawn a particular letter, or that a particular consonant or vowel remains in the bag.

Oh, and don't forget to ditch the Q ....

*** PS I have recently updated the Wolfberg link, at the request of Mr. Wolfberg.