Monday, March 30, 2009

global crisis

I got fired today.
Reason : reduction of workplaces due to department restructure.

I've been working with the company for 4,5 years. I started as a CSR, then I became a Supervisor, then I worked in the IT in the Analysis Department.

And now for the good news:
3 months of paid vacation
2-months' pay extra
and...
a whole lot of time to learn new words

Sunday, March 22, 2009

1019

How do you call Scrabble games with a combined score of more than 1000 points? Millennia?



If so than this is my first ever millennium. It happened today in a game I played with my greatest rival in fight for the title of the Polish English Scrabble Champion - Rafal.

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

555

101 days before the Championships the Good Fortune struck again. I was playing a Scrabble game on http://www.isc.ro/ and then this happened.
.
After exchanging 2 tiles on the first move, I played 5 high scoring moves in a row:

(O)NERIEST for 77
QI for 64
TOURNEY(S) for 76
(E)NTAILED for 70
UPSIdeS for 70

ZIN for 44 and AFORE for 43 saw me finish the game on move 14.
Final score: 555:378 for me.


.
Can you get luckier than that?
I could have, had I not missed bingo #5 on my rack ...
MIAOUIN(G) for 78 on move 9 :)

Saturday, March 7, 2009

the numbers

On day 288 of my preparations for the WSC 2009 I reached following marks:
  • 1000 questions in cardbox 8
  • 5000 alphagrams in all cardboxes
  • 8000 words in all (70 % of them are 7's, 30% are 8's)

I now know:

  • 17 % of all 7's
  • 6 % of all 8's
  • 3000 most probable 7's
  • 2000 most probable 8's

another 3000 are words added to cardbox by using other criteria than probability (e.g. all 7-point words, words ending with -aed etc.)

I just figured out there are only 112 days left until the Scrabble Championships in Warsaw.

  • 288+112 makes 400
  • this means I started preparing exactly 400 days before the tournament

I'm sure nothing can go wrong now :)

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Monday, February 23, 2009

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
-----------------------------------------------------
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).

Friday, February 20, 2009

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...