literaxx word square

More about word squares:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Word_square

scrabble for literaxx quitters

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I know many of my friends playing literaxx at www.playok.com/en/literaxx may not like me after reading this post. For my excuse: I did it only for the sake of science.
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When you get bored playing literaxx at http://www.playok.com/ and want to switch to Scrabble, here is what you should know.

The word list used at literaxx is called YAWL (Yet Another Word List). It is a public domain word game list authored by Mendel Cooper and Alan Beale. This list hasn't been modified since October 2004. More about YAWL: www.gtoal.com/wordgames/yawl/README

The word list used at Scrabble (except in the USA, Canada and Thailand) is CSW (Collins Scrabble Words). I haven't found any information about the legal status of this list, but it appears that many internet sites use it for generating anagrams or validating Scrabble plays on gaming sites like e.g. http://www.isc.ro/.

Although CSW has about 1% more words than YAWL, there are words which can be found in YAWL only. For a person switching to Scrabble it means 'forgetting' some literaxx words (and of course learning some new, too)

Below are lists of words unique to either Scrabble (UPPER CASE) or literaxx (lower case):

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2-letter words

JA, KI

ph

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3-letter words

AHI, AKA, ALF, APO,AUA, AUE, BAC, BOI, BRU, CAA, CAG, CAZ, DEG, DOF, DOY, EMO, EVO, EXO, FAA, FAE, FEG, HOM, IWI, JAI, JOL, KAK, KIS, LOD, LOU, MEE, ONO, ONY, OUS, PAV, PLU, REO, SAV, SIF, SIK, TEC, TEX, TIX, UMU, VAG, WAI, WOF, YAD, YAE, ZOL, ZZZ

ahh, anu, civ, emf, foo, laa, lbw, phs, sco, ssh, viz, von, yer
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4-letter words

ACAI, ACCA, ADDY, AHIS, AIGA, ALCO, ALFS, ALKO, APOS, APSO, ARPA, ARSY, ARTI, ATUA, AVEL, BACS, BAGH, BHAT, BIDI, BIST, BLOG, BOAB, BOEP, BOET, BOIS, BORM, BOYF, BRAK, BREY, BRIK, BRUS, BUDA, BUDI, BYDE, CAAS, CAGS, CAMA, CAVA, CHAV, CHIB, CHOG, CIDE, COCH, COMM, CONF, COWK, CRAY, CREM, CROG, CRUE, CYTE, DACK, DEBE, DEGS, DEIF, DELO, DERO, DESI, DHOL, DIMP, DOCO, DOON, DORB, DOUK, DOUN, DOYS, DRAC, DUKA, ECOS, EINA, EISH, EMMY, EMOS, EMPT, EREV, EVOS, EXED, FAAN, FAAS, FAUR, FAUT, FEEB, FEEN, FIER, FIFI, FLIM, FRIB, GANS, GARI, GERT, GNOW, GOOG, GORA, GORI, GOSS, GUNG, HAPU, HAUF, HIOI, HOHA, HOKA, HOMA, HOMS, HORI, HUHU, IKAN, ISIT, ISNA, JAAP, JAFA, JAGA, JARP, JAXY, JEDI, JOLS, JONG, JUCO, KAAL, KAIK, KAKS, KARK, KARO, KAWA, KEKS, KERO, KETE, KEWL, KIFF, KLAP, KLIK, KOAP, KOHA, KORO, KORU, KUEH, KUFI, KUIA, KULA, KUTA, KUTI, KUTU, KUZU, KYBO, KYPE, LATU, LIAS, LIPO, LODS, LOUS, LUMA, LYRA, MAKI, MALA, MECK, MEDS, MEES, MEFF, MEZZ, MICH, MIHA, MIHI, MIRO, MOAI, MOBE, MOBY, MOER, MOFO, MOTI, MUNG, MUZZ, MYXO, NADS, NAMU, NANE, NISH, NOAH, NONI, OCCY, OMOV, ONIE, ONOS, OOFY, OPPO, OUMA, OUPA, OVEL, PAAL, PATU, PAVS, PLEX, PLUE, POEP, PREM, PUBE, PUHA, PUKA, PUPU, RARK, RENK, REOS, RIBA, SADO, SADS, SAFT, SAMS, SAVS, SAXE, SECH, SESH, SIES, SITZ, SJOE, SKEN, SKET, SKYF, SOBA, SOMY, SOOL, SPIF, SPIM, SPOD, SPUG, STIM, SUMY, TAAL, TAIG, TECS, TEEK, TOMO, UDON, UMPY, UPTA, VAGS, VEGO, VERD, VROT, VROU, WAAC, WAIS, WARB, WENA, WERO, WHAE, WHIO, WOFS, WUDU, YAAR, YABA, YADS, YARK, YEBO, YORP, YUZU, ZOLS, ZOOT, ZZZS

ahhs, aina, anyu, apio, atar, cami, civs, clit, cums, daal, darl, dast, dicy, emfs, erub, fack, foon, foos, furo, giri, gork, heli, hidy, hoos, ibid, iiwi, izba, jari, kram, laas, laff, laks, lect, olde, outa, poil, pres, sila, suni, terr, ugli, umma, vada, vegs, voop, wada, weck, wels, zari, zopp

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Obviously there are lists with words longer than 4 letters, too. If you need them, I have them. Simply write to me using the private message system at http://www.playok.com/ (my user name is literaxx).

Malaysia, here I come...?

It's official.
The 10th World Scrabble Championship is taking place in Johor Bahru, Malaysia on 26-29 November 2009.

This has following implications:
1. I still have 7 months to learn my 4s and 5s.
2. I will have to review my goal defined in this blog ("represent Poland at the WSC 2009").

The latter is mainly due to the costs of the plane tickets for the journey to and back from Malaysia. At present the cheapest ticket option is 4000 PLN (839 EUR). Polish currency is very weak at the moment so the price can only go down. Nevertheless, I don't think I'll be able to afford it, unless I win at Lotto :)

That's dreams and reality...

crazy about zyzzyva

I spent the whole last week playing with the zyzzyva database. I merged 2 database files into one (to be exact: I added the tables from CSW.db to Anagrams.db).
Now I can query the data from different tables using the JOIN statement. This gave me the possibility to see exactly what kind of words are in my cardboxes.
Using the programs called sqlite I generated and then imported into Excel different lists of 7/8-letter alphagrams from my cardboxes. I divided the lists by:

• probabilty
• point value
• number of unique letters
• number of vowels
• number of anagrams
• length

I also created a special Excel file which queries the zyzzyva database almost in real-time, so that I have up-to-date statistics on the number of words that are going to show up next in the cardbox quiz:


I also made a chart showing me the numbers of alphagrams in different cardboxes:


and finally the number of 7 vs 8 letter alphagrams:



I love it!

zyzzyva hacked

Yesterday I managed to get access to the database files Zyzzyva saves the cardbox questions in!

This is great news for me, because from now on I can:

• count the alphagrams and the anagrams in each one and all of the cardboxes (or even split them by word length)
• generate a list of alphagrams i had most or least problems with guessing
• generate a precise list of the alphagrams that will appear in my next cardbox quizzes
• manually change the cardbox the alphagram is in or set the date I want this word to appear in the quiz next time
• calculate the overall success rate for all the words (or only words with specified length)
• see how many questions were asked
• generate many other statistics I'm yet not even aware of

So now for some of my cardbox stats (as of February, 11th):

• in my cardboxes there are only 7 and 8 letter words
• there are 4427 alphagrams (72% of them are 7s)
• there are 7088 anagrams
• I have been asked 48353 questions and I answered 80% of them correctly.
• each alphagram was asked on average almost 11 times
• 22 % of all the alphagrams are in cardbox 6
• another 20 % are in cardbox 8

Now I've got to get back to studying, otherwise the statistics won't change much... ;)

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On the method I used to hack zyzzyva database:

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/zyzzyva-users/message/821

Warsaw - Poznan 16:8

Just got back from Kutno. We played a friendly match Warsaw vs Poznan. My city lost with 8:16.

Out of six games I won three (avg spread +174). The other three games I lost were with my most serious contenders for the Championship: Wojtek and and Rafal (avg spread was -56).


And now for the good news:

1. Irek (a new player I invited to play with us) beat Wojtek - the reigning Polish English Scrabble Champion. It was a close game and Irek finished the game with a two-blank-bingo TAINTED. Wojtek missed a bingo at the end which he was unsure of - CEMENTS (funnily this word is known in Polish as 'cementować').

2. I am aware of the reasons I lost to Rafal.

a) I didn't challenge a phoney 3-letter word! When he put *KAG on the board I got hypnotised and started wondering if this word takes an S in front of it instead of challenging it off. When I was sure the word didn't exist it was already too late to challenge. After this move Rafal bingoed with S(H)UTTING, which I see as an immediate result of him dumping the letters K and G in *KAG.

b) I didn't do the tile-tracking - why, oh why? In the end with a very closed board I was left with AEERN unable to play it out. In the end Rafal played a 3-pointer (S)UI and I lost with 5 points.

c) talking of 5 points: I could have well had them, had I not earlier challenged the word TILLED worth whole 7 points. No comments on that.

3. And the greatest news of the day is:

Hurray! My attitude has changed. I played the best moves I could and didn't think during the game about the potential loss. I finally realized the (not so) simple truth: If you want to win you must be prepared to lose. You must accept the defeat. If you're sure you played your best, the defeat won't taste bitter. The defeats will come from time to time, but losing once or twice doesn't mean you're worse. It may as well mean your opponent was a bit better or had more luck. I hope to keep up that attitude until the Championships (taking place on June, 27-28).
(...)
PS.
Good God! I let another phoney off the hook. *PEATING is a FREAKING PHONEY!!!
From this day on I shall challenge every bingo I hadn't learnt.
Beware!

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An article about the match (in Polish):
http://www.ekutno.pl/?kutno=0&y=1&zoom=3346

an interview

Q: Who are the people you're inspired by?
A: Joel Sherman, Helen Gipson and Adrian Tamas

Q: Why Joel Sherman?
A: Because of his decision to dedicate to Scrabble and try to make a living out of it. A crazy idea, almost as crazy as my goal of qualifying for the WSC 2009.

Q: Why Helen Gipson?
A: Because of her consistency in learning new words using Zyzzyva. She currently has about 36000 words in her Zyzzyva cardbox, I have 4500. A long way to go for me.

Q: And why Adrian Tamas?
A: Because he's the first ever player from the Post-Soviet bloc to finish in the upper half of the World Scrabble Championship standings thus assuring Romania 2 places in the WSC 2009. Someday I'd like to do the same for Poland.

(to be continued...)

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Helen Gipson's blog:
http://countrystrife.blogspot.com/

Adrian Tamas on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhxjT8ZM1ys
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0tImF5UXS0

Kutno here we come.

I'm very excited. On Saturday I'm playing English Scrabble in the first ever friendly match between Warszawa and Poznan. We'll be playing in Kutno - a city almost exactly in the middle of Poland and almost exactly midway between Warszawa and Poznan.

So far we have 3 participants from Poznan and 4 from Warsaw.

In preparation for the match I'm reviewing the lists of 3-5 letter words with doubled consonants. I'm also going to concentrate on some awkward consonant dumps like HWYL and on vowel dumps like EUOUAE. The nice thing about those words is that they divide into managable groups of about 100's. I hope that on Saturday they will help me in dealing with strange racks like DNOSVWW.

It seems that my overall game has improved recently. My ISC ranking has gone up to 1550. I hope it's not only due to the good tiles I am getting.

I noticed that I am now able to concentrate better. I also try to control the board and manage my rack all of the time. And most importantly, I am mean and greedy - I try to get as many points as possible and lose as little points as possible. Simple as pumpkin pie.

Keep your fingers crossed for Team Poznan on Saturday - it's gonna be tough but with a little bit of luck we're gonna make it! :)