Saturday, January 24, 2009

What I know

Enough about history. Let's talk maths.

Currently I have 4188 anagrams in my Zyzzyva cardboxes. Those are 7 and 8 letter words.
Among them there are 3000 most probable 7s and 1600 most probable 8s.
I'm almost ready with adding the remaining 7-letter 7-point words (1642 in all). Some of them (like sissoos) are pretty low on probability, but I guess it would be nice to say: "I know all 7-letter words consisting of 1-point letters" :)

245 days have passed since I've started preparing for the championships 2009.

There are 157 days remaining and I have more and more doubts. Concentrate on learning new words or start playing more...



Saturday, January 17, 2009

History part 3 (last)

And then until 2007 I couldn't really decide which scrabble I wanted to play - Polish or English. In 2007 I decided I had better chance of winning in English Scrabble than in Polish. Back in those days English scrabble wasn't very popular and so I thought I'd fill that niche.

In May 2007 I started preparing for the Championships and, as it turned out, it was a late start. Nonetheless I still had great expectations. I even dreamt of flying to Mumbai for the WSC 2007. But that was not to be. I finished disappointing 3rd.

In May 2008 I started preparing for the Championships in 2009...







This is me and Stary Marych - my city's local celebrity famous for popularizing our local dialect.
Marych is wearing my bronze medal for the 3rd place in the Championships in 2007.

Sunday, January 11, 2009

History continued

And then on February, 23rd 2003 I started playing literaxx.
The game can be played on http://www.playok.com/en/literaxx and if you're lucky you may find me there - my user name is literaxx.

Playing literaxx I met my first girlfriend. Our relationship ended in 2004 when I moved to Szczecin (a city 200 km from Poznan) in search for a better job. A year after that my ex-girlfriend emigrated to Ireland, so I guess it wouldn't have worked out anyway.

Literaxx, due it's board structure forces a defensive and close style of play. This is the place where I learnt my 3's - after two years of playing I could say, I knew all of them.

In October 2005 I played my first official live tournament. It was Polish Scrabble in Poznan. I placed 30th out of 70 with a 7-5 record. This brought me the prize for the best debutante. Proud as I was back then, it remains my best performance ever in a Polish Scrabble tournament.

Earlier in 2005 I was willing to play in the English Scrabble Championships in Poland in Nowe Miasto Lubawskie. I even signed up for it, but due to a lucrative job offer (as an interpreter for two German insurance detectives) I was forced to withdraw.

This meant waiting the next two years for my first chance to play in an English Scrabble tournament in Poland (...)

Saturday, January 10, 2009

Welcome!

Hello folks!

This blog is about me and Scrabble.

My fascination with this game began very early - when I was 8. It was in 1987 when my mum and I started playing this game in Polish. When I got better my mother didn't want to play with me anymore and in 1995 we quit playing together. My first contact with Scrabble in English was in 1996 when my mother borrowed a Scrabble set from a library. I played the game by myself and was thrilled to find out that even with my poor English skills I managed to complete the game and... not get stuck with the Q.

After that nothing happened, until February, 23rd 2003, when (...)


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This is actually one of the games I played back in 1996. Please notice the amazing words: JAR, QUICK, TAX and ZERO.
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