Here's a Christmas present for you. It's a list of all Collins words that take an S, which are also acceptable but do not take an S in OWL2.

http://mike.pietdepsi.com/scrabble/csw-takes-s.txt

Thanks to everyone who helped me with my decision to play in the Collins division in Phoenix. I'm now going a little crazy with the Collins study, and there are a lot of fun words in here.

I've also created a list that may be helpful to others, so I thought I should share it. It's a list of all Collins words that have no anagrams in OWL2. This may be useful if you want to quickly open up your word knowledge with letter combinations that don't occur in OWL2, instead of studying additional Collins anagrams to existing OWL2 words. To use this list in Zyzzyva, just include it as an In Word List search condition. Here ya go:

http://mike.pietdepsi.com/scrabble/csw-no-owl2-anagrams.txt

I recently found out the Phoenix Scrabble tournament will be hosting a Collins division, and I'm torn about whether to enter it. I'll definitely be going to the Phoenix tournament; my only decision is whether to play OWL2 or Collins. I like to make decisions by writing out lists of pros and cons, so here they are.

Pros:
- I like playing with Collins. I find it fun, and of course there's always the novelty of being able to play words I can't play at the club.
- Collins tournaments in North America are rare, and this one is nearly in my backyard, at a tournament I was planning to attend anyway. All it lacks is a bow on top.
- I am in favor of North American Scrabble eventually adopting the same lexicon as the rest of the world, and I want to support Collins play with my participation. I also want to support Larry and Barbara's decision to host a Collins division because I would like to see more tournaments doing so.
- Most of the players who are already entered in the Collins division are very strong players, and it's an opportunity to face some excellent competition. But maybe this should be on the cons list. Seriously though, I enjoy facing the toughest opponents I can.

Cons:
- I'm just barely getting back into studying after a long hiatus, and I have enough on my plate without reviewing/learning Collins words as well. My free time is pretty limited, and two months is not a long time to prepare.
- Lexicon confusion, of course. After preparing for and playing in the Texas Sowpods Challenge last year, I experienced a bit of lexicon confusion but not as much as I thought. I'm still not sure how much of an issue this would be if I start studying/playing Collins regularly, but I fear it could be a problem.
- Honestly, I think I'm more likely to win money in an OWL division. This is not the most important consideration, but sadly, it's on the list.
- The Collins division uses "WESPA rules" and I have no idea how different they are from NASPA rules. I would have to familiarize myself with what the differences are. Then again, there are also a bunch of NASPA rule changes I haven't fully assimilated into my brain, either.
- The Collins division is not an official NASPA event, and if I play in it I may end up dropping off the list of "active" NASPA players. Forget this one. I played 28 games in Phoenix last year, so I'll remain "active" no matter what. Not that being on the "active" list is a huge priority anyway.

The cons list looks longer. But looking at the lists again, it seems that the pros are long-term and idealistic, while the cons are mostly pragmatic and based in the short term. I'm not sure how to weigh them. What do y'all think? Are there other considerations I've left off the list? What would Brian Boitano do?

I'd like to make a firm decision ASAP so I'll have as much time as possible to learn/review Collins words if that's the route I choose. I've felt pulled in both directions over the past week or so, and I suspect I'm starting to lean in one direction over the other, but I'd like to hear any input you might have.

What's the point of studying HYPNIC if I'm not going to challenge PINCHY*? I totally didn't even think twice about it at the club tonight. Gah!

I've been doing some thinking and some reprioritizing of my time, and I've decided that I would like to get back into serious Scrabble study. I really haven't studied at all since Phoenix in February. And I can tell, because my brain has felt pretty foggy during most club sessions. The other day I played FAP# (hm, that must be why I thought it was good), and I challenged LOGE. I was "pretty sure" of both. I can easily find and play weirdos like KEIRETSU, but I can also carefully consider and play phonies like FOILERS*. This is not good.

My main problem is that I don't have much free time. Those of you who have sent me email, hoping for a response someday, have probably already figured this out. Another problem is that my current cardbox backlog is something like 3,000 questions per day for the next month and a half. Most of those are a relative waste of time because I'm not going to miss them even though I haven't seen them in two years. Not useful.

I need a study regimen that will let me get by with oh, say, an hour per day or less. Something that doesn't require me to answer thousands of easy questions every day. Something that will help me avoid playing phony 3s and challenging valid 4s would also be nice. So I came up with the following.

I created six separate anagram quiz files (regular quizzes, not cardbox), one for each word length from 3 to 8. The 3- through 6-letter quizzes are in random order, and the 7s and 8s are in probability order. 6s would probably be better in playability order or something, but I'm not worried about that for now. All I want is something that will, eventually, help me learn all the words of each length.

Each day, I do 50 questions from each quiz, with a 10-second timer. For 3s, 4s, and 5s, this is review just to keep the words fresh. For 6s, I'm mostly learning new ones. For 7s and 8s so far, this is review since the words are in probability order, but eventually I'll get to words I don't know yet. Anyway, this is a total of 300 questions each day, which takes less than an hour. Perfect! I cycle through the 3s every two weeks or so, never again to play FAP# or its ilk. The 5s cycle every four months or so, quickly enough to keep them current. It will take me a year and a half to get through the 8s, but that's fine with me. There's no hurry.

However, I also need some way of reviewing troublesome words, which is why I add all my missed words to the cardbox, and the last quiz I do each day is a cardbox quiz. I completely erased my cardbox data about two weeks ago (well, I backed it up just in case). After a few weeks of following this program, adding only missed words to the cardbox, my backlog has ended up being about 60-90 questions per day. I expect that to increase, but not nearly like the cardbox explosion I had previously. Also, once I move a word up to cardbox 5ish, I'll kick it out of the cardbox system entirely. I'll eventually see it again during the regular cycle, and if it still needs more review at that time (i.e. I miss it again), back in the cardbox it will go.

So far, after 10 days of the program, I'm happy with how it's going. It's not a burden to do 300 questions each day, and the cardbox review is helping for the difficult questions. We'll see if I can manage it in the long run, but this pace seems pretty sustainable. And it's still fun; I wouldn't do it if it weren't.

Here's a quickie. I'm visiting family in Michigan, and last night we played a couple of 4-player Scrabble games. The fact that we're playing in Michigan made it all the more appropriate that I found the following play:

(EDIT: there's a hidden blank in the picture - my rack is ?AEKORU)



( Answer behind the cut... )

Hi all, my accommodation plans for Phoenix have fallen through, so I'm looking for a place to stay for the Phoenix tournament. I'm playing in the early bird, so I'll be showing up Thursday night (Feb 12) and staying for four nights (Thu, Fri, Sat, Sun). If you have any space available, or know anyone who does, please let me know. If you already have a roommate but would like to split the bill three ways instead of two, I'm totally happy to bring a sleeping bag and sleep on the floor. I don't snore (as far as I know), don't smoke, and am generally a very easy person to room with. Please let me know! You can either post here or email me at "mthelen" at gmail (dot com).

UPDATE: I've found a place to stay, so if you've read this far, forget everything you just read.

I spent all of New Year's Day playing an informal 10-game double round robin with some guys from the club. We called it the Super Dog Challenge, and I won it with a record of 8-2 +700-something. The final game was one of the funnest games ever (easy to say when you win by almost 200). Even though we were playing a round robin with no KOTH, the final game also just happened to be against the guy in second place, who could have won the tournament if he beat me by 90 points. If you play the game all the way to the end, I promise the ending is worth it.

http://www.cross-tables.com/annotated.php?u=2805

Initial Rating: 1590
Final Rating: 1656

1. Phoenix Early Bird, 4-4 -86 (div 2)
2. Phoenix Main Event, 13-7 +498 (div 2)
3. Texas Sowpods Challenge, 9-5 +345

And that's it! I've had a lot of things going on in the past year, but Scrabble hasn't really been one of them. I was extremely grateful to be able to attend the Texas Sowpods Challenge though, and to luck my way into a 3rd place finish. I discovered that playing the Collins list is a lot of fun, and I hope that sooner rather than later, we can adopt it as our own.

This coming year, I am definitely planning to do Phoenix again in February, and tentatively planning on the National Championship. Other than that, I may do the DO, and maybe another relatively close tournament like Albuquerque or something. The budget is still tight, but I'm feeling a lot better about my potential for going to more tournaments from here on out. Still not as many tournaments as you lucky coastal bastards, but hopefully more than two anyway.

And for that reason, I'm actually studying again. I've had too much word uncertainty at the club lately, especially on 5s, and I've played a ton of phony bingos I thought were good. So I'm currently running through the 4s and 5s to refresh my memory, and then I think I may want to try the Insane Kenji Method for a while.

Pop quiz: when you see this on your rack, what must you play, regardless of the score, or board considerations, or how much vodka you drank straight from the bottle?


You guessed it!


And when you have two blanks for an out play, you must do this, declaring both blanks as Zs:

In the QUAGMIRE game last week, I lost in a squeaker ending where I had racks like ?ISSSUU and couldn't quite make it work for me. It turns out I missed five bingos in that game, including with the S- and U-heavy racks. Here are the alphagrams (without blanks, you lucky dogs). Only one of these was on my study list, and it wasn't the highest probability one. But they're all on it now!

1. ACDEHPTU
2. DDEIMOSU
3. DEILMOSU
4. INSSSTUU
5. DIINOSSU

( Answers behind the cut... )

After assessing my personal situation and discussing it at length with my wife, I'm disappointed to say I won't be able to attend the World Players Championship. I know it is going to be an incredible tournament with a lot of strong players from around the world, and a unique opportunity that I'm missing out on. But right now, I just can't justify the time or money I would need to spend to make it happen. I hope Chris Cree (or someone) puts on another tournament like this in the future, because I expect my Scrabble tournament-attending situation to improve dramatically over the next year or so. If the WPC were happening a year from now, I would definitely be there. I'm very sad that I can't make it this year.

As a result, with no Sowpods tournaments in my future, I've gone back to OWL2 studying for now. The last several months have been pretty tough on the study front, especially since I haven't done as much studying as usual. The studying I have done has been heavy on Sowpods short words, which are extremely useful, but tougher to slog through than bingos. For right now, I figure I'd better focus on extending my OWL2 knowledge. Getting back into my OWL2 cardbox has been going swimmingly so far. I'm doing a lot better than I expected, since my cardbox mostly contains difficult bingos and I haven't seen them for months.

On a related note, I suffered my first actual consequential Sowpods confusion during a club game this week. I challenged TZAR, because I thought it was Sowpods-only. Turns out I was thinking of KSAR#. Whoops! I've found that for the most part, compartmentalizing my word knowledge hasn't been as difficult as I thought, but then again, I only have a relatively small set of Sowpods words in my brain, and I've only been studying them for about 6 months. Ask me in five years how it's going, and it might be a different story. For now, at least I'm not petrified of confusion like I was before I started. A few incidents may occur, but I think it's worth it. Studying and playing Sowpods is fun, and for me that's the most important thing.

This Wednesday at the club, I found one of the prettiest plays I've made in recent memory. It was met with, "You've got to be kidding me."



And here are some bingos just for kicks:

Mine:
BEMEANS
JERE(M)IAd
KNELLED
(D)ISINTER
TONN(E)LET*
InDEVOU(T)
(Q)UAGMIRE

Theirs:
RIp(P)LIER
SPEARI(N)G
EN(L)ISTEd
MANAGeD
FLUTIST
AVERRIn(G)

A few months ago at the Texas Sowpods Challenge, olaugh taught me the word MOREPORK#, which is an alternate spelling of MOPOKE. I was pretty sure I'd seen it before, except I thought it was MORPORK*... but it wasn't. Just now, I finally realized what I was thinking of! I haven't read a ton of Terry Pratchett; just one book, Small Gods. Apparently it was just enough to result in Scrabble confusion.

Having never played a Collins game over the board, I traveled to Dallas this weekend for the Texas Sowpods Challenge, and finished 3rd place with a record of 9-5 +345! The whole event was just super, and if I wore a hat, it would be off to getofftheoven for putting the tournament together. And to Bryan Pepper, who did a great job directing (as usual), while playing to make us even, despite having basically no knowledge of the Collins list. It was also great to meet a lot of players I had never met in person before. And congratulations to olaugh for winning it!

I've done a lot of OWL studying in the past year or so, which I think was a good base to work from. I started looking at the Collins list for the very first time about 3 months ago, after I released Zyzzyva 2.0. Below is the entire extent of my Collins preparation. Going in, I thought I was pretty unprepared, but I found that knowing the following words was sufficient for me to be able to play a decent game.

- 2s and 3s, drilled to essentially 100% confidence. (300 words)
- Q-without-U words, the longest of which was 10 letters. Why not? (38 words)
- 4s and 5s with JQXZ. (110 words)
- 4s, 5s, and 6s with 75% vowels. (41 words)
- 7s in the top 200 by probability. (40 words)
- 8s in the top 200 by probability. (47 words)
- 7s from a few stems: TISANE, SATIRE, RETAIN, ARSINE, SENIOR. (70 words)
- 4s with KFVW, low confidence since I barely got to these. (453 words)

That's it! That's 646 words (with a few counted twice) if you don't count the KFVW 4s I had only seen once or twice, and about 1100 words if you do count them. Not that I think this is sufficient for me to become a world-class expert or anything, but along with my OWL knowledge it is certainly sufficient to be able to play a quality Sowpods game. I found that getting my feet wet was much, much easier than I thought it would be, and most of the words I learned were the same kind of thing we have in our list already. Not a big deal.

I also played a half-dozen Collins games against Quackle, to start to get used to seeing Collins-only hooks, etc. That helped, but I found that the board vision was pretty easy to pick up, even in real time over the board. I wouldn't be surprised if Quackle tells me I missed opportunities in my TXSC games, but for the most part, I felt like it was relatively easy to get used to. I was definitely trying to be more cautious and defensive though, because the Collins list allows more opportunities for high-scoring ripostes.

Another thing I did to prepare was to play a lot of Donkey Kong instead of studying during the whole month of April and the first half of May. I wouldn't say that was the best preparation for Scrabble, but I enjoyed it anyway.

I'll be making another post before long with actual analysis of my games, because I feel like I drew really well, and I'm interested to see exactly how well. I'm also curious to see whether my intuition is correct about the relative ease with which I was able to acquire Collins board vision, or whether I was actually unwittingly missing a lot of best plays.

Before this tournament, I was quite afraid of poisoning my brain with non-OWL words, since I thought it would be tough to keep them straight. So far, it hasn't been bad, though we'll see whether I still say that in a year or two. If you're on the fence about trying out some Sowpods, I'd say go ahead and learn the 2s and 3s and see how you like it. I thought it was a lot of fun. My only goal for this tournament was to have a good time, and I achieved my goal!

Yesterday I turned 31 (it's nice to be a prime number again), and I celebrated by playing Scrabble for 6 hours at the club. Apparently the gods felt like showering me with birthday blessings, as I went an undefeated 6-0. I also won both weekly contests, with the high M-T play and the high non-bingo. There were a few interesting positions in which I'm pretty sure I found the best plays, including an endgame sequence to win the last game of the night. I'll see what Quackle has to say, and I'll probably post some positions in a day or two. In the meantime, here are some bingos:

Mine:
(D)UBONnET
(S)TRANDER
RESEAUS
RAILERS
TWINLET* (oops, thinking of TWINSET - and was pretty sure it had an anagram so I spent a minute looking for an anagram of TWINLET before I just went ahead and played it anyway)
I(N)bOARDS
HERMItS (the high M-T play, played against a weaker player - and yes, I was setting myself up for the front hook, which I hooked to hit a TWS next turn. I'm evil :-)
REEDITS
MiGRAT(E)D
ENOLASE
FEaSTI(N)G

Theirs:
SARDINe
ErASION
RESTYLe(D)
HE(A)RTIES
PLACING

After I got home from the club, I read You're Broke Because You Want To Be, which I had gotten from the library the day before (thanks cacomixl for the recommendation). I finished the book in about 3 hours. It was a good read, and a good kick in the pants.

More than anything, while reading it I kept thinking "you're FAT because you want to be" and realizing that my own out-of-shape-ness is something I have chosen. I'm not super overweight, but I am too easily winded and I could certainly stand to lose a good 30 or 40 pounds. I've been fully aware of my weight as it has creeped slowly upward in the past few years, and just haven't cared enough to do anything to stop it. I think that time is coming to an end. I'm finally annoyed enough that I want to make a change.

I realized last night that my eating habits have a tendency to follow the "most calories for the cash" scheme. For example, I can spend $1 on fruit, which is healthy and has few calories, or I can spend $1 on a Carl's Jr. hamburger, which is loaded with calories and all sorts of other goodies, and will eventually kill me. To me, the hamburger seems like a better deal because the calories per dollar is much higher. How messed up is that!? It's like I've been packing away an emergency fund of calories in my body, just in case there is a famine or something. That's a great idea when it comes to saving money, not such a great idea for consuming food. I'm not sure where this skewed idea of "value" comes from, and I've never fully articulated it until now, but it seems I've had it in my head for a long, long time. This will be one of the big psychological barriers I have to break down in order to start eating more wisely.

Anyway, I now know that I have some things to work on, and I'll be doing a lot of writing things down to make sure they don't slip away into the ether. I think it'll be back to The Hacker's Diet for me, because I'm much too lazy to do anything else, and even that got to be too much hassle after a while. I need to figure out a good way to harness my laziness in order to eat better and exercise more. Is there an envelope system for food? (Hm, the question almost answers itself, as I know that Weight Watchers is exactly that.)

I haven't posted much Scrabble content lately, but I felt like I got to play some fun bingos at the last two club sessions, so here they are for your enjoyment and edification:

Mine:
KATcINA
GAROTED
SUBSONI(C)
BIL(A)NDER
NIObITE
(C)ANISTEL
TITHERS
DELTOID
ABAXIaL
(S)TEARINS
SNARLIS(H)*
TATtERS
SHALIER
ARSINES
BETRAYS
(E)UpHROES
DENARII
MANTEAU
ECdYSES
O(V)ERLAPS
SENORI(T)A
LOACHEs
SToLLEN
ABIDERS
FOREmAN

Theirs:
OU(T)LIVES
aBORT(I)NG
TATTInG
BETTINg
Q(U)ENCHeD
NETIZE(N)S
ENGAGeS
OUT(L)EaRN
ERASION(S)
(B)OUNCIEr
(D)ETAINER
TOStADA(S)

By far my favorite was finding the only bingo in ?CEESSY. After that game, one of the guys told me, "Thelen, you need to get out more."

Last night at the club, I noticed myself noticing a fair number of Collins hooks and other Collins words. In the past week, I've been consciously trying to do this during games against Quackle, but last night the thoughts popped in there unbidden. It was slightly annoying, in fact, that I wasn't able to make some obviously superior plays because the words aren't valid in OWL2. But mostly, it was just cool to be seeing new possibilities.

I had a 38-point JUDY# to clean up my rack nicely, but I had to play DUTY instead. An opponent bingoed with NOVELLA, and for some reason I knew it took an E, but only in Collins. I tried WOUNDERS* and got it challenged off, but felt a bit justified when I discovered it's really WOUNDERS# (should have remembered it's only REWOUND though). One club member opened (not against me) with ANODISE#, and I was happy to know that there are no OWL words in there, but three Collins ones. On one rack I had the possibility of TWIGGERS# but didn't like it and played WIGGERS instead, discovering the # later.

It's been fun so far, and apparently learning some Collins hasn't tripped me up yet, as I went 5-0 last night. We'll see if I can say the same thing several months from now.

Oh yeah, I also got a 52-point YAKUZA, which was pretty cool. Later on, my opponent hooked an S on it, and I was conflicted about whether to challenge. I remembered that while studying, I had made a point of remembering whether it took an S... but I couldn't remember if it did, or didn't! I ended up letting it go, because Japanese nouns don't have plurals, and I generally don't expect them to take an S. Since I had to make an effort to remember the hookability of YAKUZA, I figured it must take an S. Otherwise I wouldn't have had to make a special effort to remember it, right? Bzzzt. Ah well.

Here are some bingos for ya:

Mine:
NOIsIER
DACITES
ANTEINg
FLORETS
CH(E)QUERs
A(D)JOINTS
REWOUND
ENTICER
sWATTER
R(E)TINALS
(B)ATTENeR
UpRAISE

Theirs:
DElOUSE
INNATEL(Y)
(G)ROUPIES
R(E)CISION
ANEROID
NARCIST(S)
NOVELlA
LANTErN

Just a warning, the Scrabble content of this blog will probably be very Collins-heavy for a while. You've been warned!

After spending about a month and a half working on a new Zyzzyva version specifically to help me study Collins, I finally started studying in earnest last night. I forgot what it feels like to learn 2s and 3s! There are only 23 Collins-only 2s and 277 Collins-only 3s, but going through them makes me feel kind of like a dunce because... well, they're 2s and 3s, and I don't know them. It's also exciting, and I'm looking forward to playing some of these monsters like CH#, AUA#, TWP#, and ZHO#.

Speaking of which, last night I played my first Collins game ever, against Quackle. I missed a 50-point ZHO#, playing ZEE instead, and Quackle immediately hooked it to make MZEE#. OMGWTFBBQ!? How wicked is that? I was proud of myself because I did make a few Quackle-best plays with Collins words, like HOA#/EH/IO#/LA, GODWIT/TE#, and BLAG#/AMI/GOY. But I missed the best spot for a bingo with ?EKNOPS because I forgot about EE#, and missed a few more best plays due to OWL board vision. It will take a little while for my brain to adjust. Not to mention I have to learn the words before that can happen.

As I was studying last night, I noticed a lot of Collins 3s that for some reason I always think are good in OWL, or always see even though I know they're no good. CUZ#, DOH#, GON#, HOH#, JAP#, NAS#, NAT#, SOG#, SUD#, TID#, TIX#... all good. Even EMO# is good. And it has an anagram! I started wondering whether I'll be able to remember which of these are Collins-only, especially since I already get confused on some of them.

As a result, I added a function to Zyzzyva today which forces you to type lexicon symbols along with words when taking a quiz (by default, this behavior is turned off). For example, "NAS" would be considered an invalid quiz response, but "NAS#" with the octothorpe would be considered valid. Already I'm finding this useful, as it forces me to remember which words are Collins-only, as an integral part of the quiz. There are a few more features I plan to implement before releasing a new version in a month or two, but if people want to get their hands on this right away, I may be able to put together a development release. I think it might be a good idea to start doing that anyway, just so people can try out bleeding-edge features and give me feedback before I create an official release.

So, it begins. I haven't even looked at anything more than 2s, 3s, and a few stem 7s, and I'm already excited. There's a lot of cool stuff in here, and it should be fun to start digging it out.

The Phoenix tournament starts in a few days, and I'm finally starting to get excited about playing tournament Scrabble again. This may be my only NSA tournament of the year, and since it's also my first tournament in about 8 months, I'm definitely not taking the tournament scene for granted.

I'll be driving down from the Salt Lake area on Thursday. I'm looking forward to the road trip. Beautiful desert scenery, unhealthy fast food, and long hours full of last-minute cramming. What more could a guy ask for? I've cleaned my car inside and out, and taken care of several hundred dollars of repairs I've been putting off, so it almost feels like I have a new car. I like the color. Deep blue is much nicer than salt-dirt gray.

This week I've been reviewing high probability 7s and 8s, and HOLY CRAP it's a good thing I have been. I studied the hell out of these words when I first started playing, but haven't seen many of them lately. I'd forgotten more than I realized.

I meant to avoid the registrant list because it accomplishes nothing to check it. But I've found myself looking at it a few times in the past week or so. Normally, I would hope for no higher-rated players to sign up and bump me to a lower division, but this time I've been rooting for more registrants to bump me down so I can have a better shot at winning money. My rating means nothing to me. I have more use for money than I have for rating points. I don't really expect to win anything, but it would be nice.

Mostly, though, I want to have some fun. It'll be good to see a lot of people I haven't seen in a while. I also haven't had a vacation lately, which means I haven't eaten at In-N-Out Burger in a long time! I have maps to all the In-N-Out locations near the tournament site, and I am not afraid to use them. If you'll be in Phoenix, see you soon. If not, wish me luck!