Word Up!

 

For those of you who has ever played scrabble you probably will be able to relate to what I am about to describe. I don’t know about most of you, but when I play scrabble, I am like a little kid.  I get all excited when I shake that bag and slowly reach in to get those all important letter tiles  that will determine whether I am going to shout with glee and scaring my opponents with my maniacal laugh or cry like a banshee. In my case, most of the time I either get mostly consonant and two vowels on my first draw. Once in a blue moon, I would get lucky and have an awesome draw where I am able to use  all the letters on my first turn. Unfortunately, I do not have the acumen to become a world class scrabble player like the one described by Kerry Wood. According to Kerry Wood from the Helium website (2008):

For some time, the highest scoring English Scrabble word was QUARTZY, at 82 points. That record was broken by a player who, after a couple of rounds of discarding unnecessary tiles, managed to play QUIXOTRY, using all seven letters and extending over two triple word squares. (The R was already on the board for him to connect to.) His score, which is the current all-time record for a single play, was 365 points.

 This totally blows me away because the highest points I have ever earned during a single turn is 50 points. After reading about this unknown player, I searched for more information on what it takes to be a top player.  From the Helium website I have concluded that strategy is the key to winning this word battle.  According to Kirsten Remesen from Helium website posting, “Scoring highly in scrabble is less a matter of getting the right letter than a matter of good strategy.”  In other words, knowing where to put your letter (word placement) can make a difference in the amount of points you will earn.

A word game I love to play on line is Literati because it is similar to scrabble.  It’s fun to play against other people from around the world.  The most important thing to remember is be prepared to get your butt kick once in awhile. I have played against awesome players, but there were a couple of time where my opponent was either hook on phonics or so slow that I actually nodded off waiting for them to make a move! I hate playing with people who try so hard to strategize in order to win because they sometimes take too long.

Another online game I love to play is word racer where tiles of letters are exposed and you have to make as many words as you can.  The goal is to beat the other players by making the most words from the given tiles that is on a grid.  The longer the word the more points you will get.  There are four rounds and within each round you have about 30 seconds while the grid is cleared and loaded.  One time during those 30 second interval,I actually got into a fight some racist people who were being rude to the other players by making racial slurs because they had lost. Of course, being the outspoken person I am, I had to tell them to show some respect etc… Besides, I was practicing my verbal skills. The little “argument” actually stimulated my thinking skills because I had to think of polite ways to tell of those racist people.

If you are interested or ever get bored, you can go to yahoo games and play for free.

Image taken from Yahoo Games website of the wordracer.