Things I learned from club last night...

Game one:

1. GOWD is good, I've reviewed it perhaps once, but didn't see it.

2. GORRA* isn't good, and I have no idea why I thought it might be. Just BEGORRA(H).

3. If you have a Z,G, and S, and there's an A to play through, you should play ZAG, not ZAS. Yep, I did that.

4. JAUP is the anagram of PUJA. Wasn't 100% on it.

5. Other than those mistakes, I made decent plays during the game- but lost 288-408. Sometimes things just don't go your way.

Game two:

1. BEEILNY plays through an R.

2. ISOPODAN is good. Though I played SADI(R)ONS instead of IS(OP)ODANS.

3. Sometimes when you have a really unlucky game, you get really lucky in the next game.

9 Things learned from club last night

1. I make a lot of bad plays when I'm tired. (When I'm not tired, too, but more so when I've worked 11 hours.)

2. MUNCHY* still isn't good; can't believe I played it again (stayed on). HUBBED* isn't good, glad I challenged it off. HAJEE* isn't good, though I was pretty sure of that (challenged off). KHAN is good, haven't seen the HANK/ANKH card in a while. TOLENES* isn't good, I don't know why I even tried it (challenged off). And these were all in one game!

3. Chickened out on (UP)WAFT for 54. Darn.

4. Uh, NI isn't a word. Yeah, I let that one get by me.

5. ADINV?? plays to an M.

6. ECHE is good, haven't seen it enough to know it. (Had four E's and played ACHE, so it would have been useful.)

7. AAANRSU plays with a G on the board.

8. ACIMNRSU has two anagrams.

9. SANDELS* and SANDLES* are not the correct way to spell SANDALS. (there is a good word in there, though- are you reading, Saloma?)

Find the play...

http://www.cross-tables.com/annotated.php?u=9034#3Playing Words With Friends with Jsj1999 (sorry, I forget who is who according to their handle), and they spotted this amazing play:

http://www.cross-tables.com/annotated.php?u=9035#3
Note: the board in this is actually set up as a scrabble board, not a WWF board, but the principle is the same...

5 things I learned from club last night

1. If your opponent opens with exchange 4 and your rack is AAAILOR, playing RAIA for 8 is a bad idea. Sure you keep them from cashing in on the double word score, but a) you don't cash in on it, b) ALO isn't that great of a leave, and c) your opponent will play ZA for 40 something points as a reward for your stupidity. (which is what happened.)

2. Fun hooks: I got to play CENTAUr/C(OVERALLS). Missed the OVERALL hook with the first C, but was lucky enough to get the 2nd one and remember. What I didn't know is that CENTAUR takes a Y!

3. Sometimes you just can't draw to save your life. In my second game, I had three 6-vowel racks. One was a post-bingo rack, and the other two were after playing off 5 and 6 tiles, so it wasn't as though I was asking for it. And later I played off JO from AEIJORS (with 25 unseen and an open L on the board) and drew UU. I was able to bingo twice, but still lost by 30- but I was happy with even that.

4. READMIT also plays through an O. (and has a front hook that I didn't get to play.)

5. AINSSU? plays to an L ( I played SUNdIA(L)S.)

 

3 things I learned from club this week

Played one quick game at club- we both had 15 left on our clocks. I drew both blanks and all 4 S's, so it was an easy win, 464-300. If I had known #2, I would've had the distinction of playing all the S's in two plays.

 

1. AEEINV? has two anagrams; one scores more as an opening play. (I played NAIVEtE, that's not it.)

2. BIASED can be spelled with two S's! Didn't even occur to me as a possibility; It would have been a 100 point play rather than 28!

3. LNOSRT? plays to an E.

8 Things I learned from club this week

1. DEINRSS thru a U: two bingos.

2. It sucks when you play what, strategically, is the right move:O(G)EE, to balance your rack- and your opponent holds CDKNORU, looking for an E.

3. BOUGHT takes a front hook of A. (duh, past tense of ABY! maybe if it were spelled ABUY* I'd remember?) It also extends to BOUGHTEN.

4. Balked on REGAVE. I figured you couldn't give something again once you've given it, but hey, what do I know? Well, I now know that GREAVE is also         good, and it takes a D or S.

5. MUNCHY* isn't good. Neither is MUNCHIE*, for that matter- only MUNCHIES. I hooked MUNCH with PROGENY- it was either that, or PYROGENE*, which I     thought I was totally making up, but the anagram of PROGENY is PYROGEN- no E hook on that one, though. Thankfully it stayed on.

6. There are three 8's you can make from AEEIQSU?, but the one I didn't know was through the T on the board. 

7. SPERMS takes OO as a front extension, which then in turn takes a Z front hook. 

8. ENTANGLE takes a D,P,R, and S. Oh, well one is a front hook, the others are back.

 

 

Found word of the day: AAMNSP

SAMPAN a flat-bottomed Chinese skiff

 

Reading a kid's encyclopedia with my son at bedtime. See, even I learned something. 

Bonus quiz: SAMPAN + A, L, and T

Bummer...

Opponent opens with 8G ZEE. 

I play the only playable bingo with AACEIV?, which puts an E in the triple lane.

Opponent triple-triples thru E with DEOPSTU.

Adding insult to injury, there is now a U on the board and my rack is EKMNOSX! 

Pretty sure this is as close as I'll ever get to playing this 8 as a natural.

ALLOOTX

Just posted this as a 'quiz' on the Facebook Fan page. Though I didn't give the anagram there, just the pic and the fact that this is a 'famous' scrabble word....

WUU

On the way down to my parents house for Easter today, I noticed a license plate with WUU on it, in that order. Don't know if you've ever heard of the 'license plate word game', but it goes like this: you have to think of a word that uses the 3 letters listed, and contains them in that order. I doubted there was a word that met those conditions, but I was wrong.

The longer one, WELTANSCHAUUNG(S) is defined as 'a comprehensive conception or image of the universe and of humanity's relation to it' - it's German, of course, and also useless as any kind of scrabble play.

The other one, however is a five letter word that I've never seen and could be useful in getting rid of a couple U's. Know it?

HAYMARKET minus T or Y

At my favorite cafe here in Northampton, MA, where I deliver the mail....Haymarket Cafe.

Just realized that there are two sevens in there.

5 Things I learned from club this week

OK, 'from club' rather than 'at club', since most of the things I don't find out until I go home and go over my games. except this first one:

1. Always, always take a minute to look for a better play! ZA is on the board, 6 spaces away from the TWS. I hold G for, like, 6 turns trying to come up with     a word (chicken out on GURNET). On (what should have been mine and their) last turn, I have EEGINRV and immediately plop down GRIEVE for 46.         Smack the time clock, smack forehead. There was a lane starting with S on the board. Luckily I was already way ahead.

2. ZEBRAS takes an S! Neat. I didn't actually have the opportunity to play this, but was looking up extensions of ZEBRA since it was on the board. Winners     are ZEBRAFISH and ZEBRAWOOD.

3. RICING takes a front hook of T(and P)! Luckily my opponent didn't know either, it would've cost me the game.

4. I'm learning the value of playing phonies a bit more, especially against lower rated players. Played OVERLINE* and FULMATED* even though I was           pretty sure both weren't good. In both games, they were my only bingos and definitely helped me win in one. 

5. On the other hand, I need to take a little more time to block potential bingos after an opponent plays a phony and I challenge it off. Got rid of BLARIER*     and BRAILER*, but left an E open and opened a lane with an M in it- both not terribly difficult words to find. Whoops.

Yet another fill-in-the-blank quiz..

Playing on facebook, I drew two blanks after my opening play.. I kind of wish I had written down the racks now, because they have been pretty ridiculous. I actually had to exchange after getting the two blank rack. Anyway, here's the current rack, of interest because there's only two answers"

 

AIIOT??

 

Can you find them? 

8 Things I learned at club last night

1. FETTLES is good. And while I'm learning new _ETTLES words, you can put a P there too. (They're both verbs.)

2. KNAUR is another way to spell KNAR/KNUR. And speaking of K words...

3. VAS takes a front hook of K. I knew that, but when VAS was on the board, for some reason my brain was too busy making sure I didn't try and make it         AVAS*. Anyone have a tip for getting myself to find the possible hooks on the board, especially less ordinary ones? I have a bad habit of completely           whiffing on them, even when I know them.

4. I knew the other two _ELIC words, but not MELIC. (adjective, pertaining to a song)

5. Don't know if I knew BRIO. Challenged off BRIO/I(MAN)*. There's a Brio Cosmetology Academy here in town that I deliver to all the time, so it's ironic           that I didn't ever look the word up.

6. There are quite a few ordinary words I need to add to my cardbox, because I don't see them on a rack. PATIO is one of them.

7. DEOTUZ? has an anagram; I've seen it but never studied it. Missed it.

8. TRIFE* is not a word. I didn't play the phony front hook to RIFE, but was tempted. It may be because I've heard it in the song Bada Bing by                         DANGERDOOM, which is an album you should listen to if you like hip-hop and don't mind a little bleeped-out profanity.

Two spellings...

that are REALLY hard to remember. They're alternate spellings of the same vowel-heavy word, but the consonant/vowel orders are totally different.

Can you get it?

CDEIIOSU

CDIIOOSU

good luck...

 

Oh, and the definition is 'unisexual', whatever that means.

Fill in the blank quiz...

You have ABELOT? on your rack.
You have to overlap FOP/FA/PEE (so basically, over O and PEE).
Go.

Flashcard Follies

An unfortunate side effect of making your own flashcards (other than arousing jealousy amongst any passersby who see you studying them) is that you may occasionally botch one. I've had a few such incidents over the past few years, one which I chronicled here. That was the only time I managed to create a phony flashcard, though, as far as I know-  however, on a few occasions I've written one up and only later realized that I left off one of the words (almost always the more common one).
With that in mind, can you guess which word I left off the back of the FGHILNUS card?

YEAREND quiz

Actually the quiz is just about the word YEAREND. It has two anagrams, one you can find by squinting at the word, the other not.

While you're trying to figure it out, here are some YEAR extensions:

MIDYEAR(S)
MULTIYEAR (no S)
YESTERYEAR(S)

YEARBOOK(S)
YEARLONG (no S)

Reading is good for you

I just finished another paperback, The Book of Air and Shadows, by Michael Gruber. It was what one might consider a step above light reading since I think the author is a bit more intelligent than most of the crime/suspense novel writers out there. Anyways, my point is this- even when I read fluffy novels I tend to pick up new words. Here are a few I gleaned from this book:
CDEHIIV
ACEILLOP
AABDEGIN
AAKNOR
ACEIJNRR
EEILNPRV
AELMMSY
AEGMOXY
AAFGORR
AAEPPRT
as a bonus, which one doesn't take an S? (other than the past tense verb)

Things (re)learned at club last night

I should have gone 5-0, but ended up 3-2 due to the following errors:
1. Didn't challenge JOISTERS*
2. In the same game, when it came down to the endgame, I held both of the last U's and I's. Opponent has Q and Z on rack. He plays (FA)KIR down to the TWS row. I proceed to play NOI(R), WITH THE TRIPLE LETTER SCORE SPACE BETWEEN TWO I'S!!! I think I still had a chance to Z-stick him after that, but I was so mad at myself, I blew that too.
3. In another game, I saw a spot for my out play of GEE/ET, then proceeded to miss it on the very next turn (he blocked another spot which made me think it was the only one). My only defense on this one is that I was playing two games at once, hadn't tracked and was not 100% focused. But annoying nonetheless.
4. There is a good word in DOORMANS*.
That is all.