On Scrabble

This one's a little off topic, I suppose, but what isn't these days?

Life is a lot like Scrabble. Or, if you like, Scrabble is a lot like life. I like the second one better, actually, because it's more practical, kind of like a guide to Scrabble.

In Scrabble, you have no choice over what letters you draw, only over what you do with them. Sometimes you get a bad rack, and it's tempting to just skip your turn and exchange all your letters. Every once in a while, this is the best choice, as all Scrabble masters might tell you. But usually, you just have to make the most of which letters you have. Having all vowels can seem like the worst, but in order to come out ahead in the end, you just have to look at the board a little differently. You might have to change your "playing high-scoring words" strategy to a "play vowel-dumping words" strategy, as frustratingly difficult as this may be. On the other hand, you may be stuck with a Q and no U. In this case, the idea is to realize that "quiz," "quizzical," and "quizzes," are not the only Q words in the dictionary. If you instead look at every possible word you can make with that horrible Q, you'll realize that "qi," "qat," "qaid," and "suq," among others, all somehow exist as well, and that sometimes you may have that special opportunity of playing "qi" on a triple-letter-score, perhaps even on a triple-word, and that furthermore, "qi" in the right spot may score much better than would have "quiz" anywhere else on the board.

This brings us to our next point. The tiles that are in your rack, the assets that you have, don't mean a thing unless you match them up with tiles on the board, the culmination of turn after turn of complex, intertwined human creation. A good word is only good if it fits in with the rest of the game. Sometimes it fits perfectly, sometimes it never fits, but most of the time, you just have to wait for the right time to play it! But be aware, if your heart is set on one word, one idea, one brilliant thought, and the opportunity for its wonderful debut never arises, you may have wasted your time. The antidote to this curse is to let that one word, one idea, one brilliant thought change as the board changes. It doesn't have to be much, and it usually just involves something as simple as changing the tense of a verb. But you've got to be flexible.

Our third point is about brute force. You can only make up so many words in Scrabble before you get challenged. You've got to spend some time reading the Scrabble dictionary. There is no alternative. You've got to be creative in Scrabble, but you've also got to accept that not everything you create is going to up and harmonize with the rest of the board. Neither Scrabble nor life allows every individual possible combination of the letters you have, but there are still a hell of a lot of the words in the dictionary. This doesn't amount to solely memorizing first-glance impressive words either, like "epizeuxis" and "zeugma." These are great words to know, and if the occasion ever arises, can yield mountains of points, but frankly, the chances that you will get an opportunity to play one of these words in a game are incredibly minimal. The most important words to learn are the short ones, the two-letter ones, the little quirks and mannerisms and everyday happenings in life. There are 101 two-letter words allowable in Scrabble, as of the 4th edition Scrabble Dictionary, and these are by far the most valuable to take the time to learn. Knowing these words, these simple solutions, and knowing how to use them in combination with each other during each play most importantly opens up new directions in which to play every one of your oh so precious words. Instead of playing each word perpendicularly to the rest of the board, you can begin to play them parallel to, alongside other words, and make them even more valuable. Unfortunately, when people look at life or at a game of Scrabble, they tend to see only the big words, the impressive ones, the bingos. And, as impressive and wonderful and useful as these golden words may be, without an underlying understanding of how to use the two-letter words, how to make use of the little things in life, how to tie the big words together; the eight-letter and nine-letter words, the golden philosophies and deepest truths, simply aren't even worth it.

Those are the most important tenets of Scrabble that relate to life, although there are many more, and with proper time and dedication, one could really investigate and find meaning in every single letter, every vowel combination, and every bonus square. However, that could take pages, volumes in fact, and I'd rather not waste paper on this blog. If you really want a happy note to end on, I suppose you could even say, "in the end, it's not your score that matters, it's the fact that you're having fun," but I think that might just be a little too optimistic.