NSC 2014

Unless you're living in a hole, you must know that the National Scrabble Championships have been taking place in Buffalo, NY. Well, that, or you're just not a scrabble fan. But if you weren't, you wouldn't be on this page, right? 

Well aside from checking to see how my personal friends are faring, as well as checking to see who is leading Division 1 (gasp! The top seed is currently not even in the top 10- but I wouldn't count him out just yet), my favorite thing to do is to visit the live annotated games. It's great to follow along top players in action, and to see if I can properly guess what their next move will be. 

If you'd like to try it, visit here: http://event.scrabbleplayers.org/games///nsc2014/

I got it!

Now begins the sifting through and highlighting new words of interest. Who's with me? 

New 3 letter scrabble words in the OSPD5/ OWL14

You've all likely heard of the four new 2 letter words: DA, GI, PO and TE- but I haven't seen a list of the new three letter words anywhere. Well fear not, dear readers: I've scrolled through the OSPD and made an attempt to glean all the new 3 letter words. My friend has verified that these are all in the new TWL- some I have had to guess at the definitions.  Thanks to those who have helped add ones I was missing! 

New 3 letter scrabble words:

AJI a type of chili pepper 

CAF a cafeteria or cafe 

CAL small calorie

CUZ a cousin  

DAS plural of da

DEP a convenience store

DOH do

DUM cooked with steam

ECO ecology 

EEW eeew, used to express disgust 

EMO emo rock 

EST a group technique for raising self awareness 

FAH fa

FOO a name for temporary computer files

GIF a computer file 

GIS plural of gi

GRR interj used to express annoyance 

HOM a sacred plant of the ancient Persians 

HOO expresses suprise (interj)

LAH la

LOR variant of lord

LUD a form of address to a judge in a court 

LUN a lee

MAM a mother 

MEH interj boring 

MES ???

MMM mm

MOI me- interj

MUX to transmit several messages simultaneously along a single channel 

NAV navigation

NUG a chunk of wood sawn from a log 

OCH used to express surprise or regret

OIK a very rude or stupid person

OMA grandmother 

OOF interj used to express discomfort 

OPA grandfather 

ORG organization 

OWT anything 

PAK pack

PHO Vietnamese soup

POS plural of po

REZ reservation (area of land)

ROO kangaroo 

RYU school of japanese martial arts

SAN a sanatorium 

SEV an Indian food of deep fried strands of flour 

SEZ ???

SHO former monetary unit of Tibet 

SIG an email signature 

SOC a sociology course

SOH sol

SUS to suss (figure out)

TEC tech 

TES plural of te

TIX tickets

TIZ tizzy 

TUM stomach 

UMS to pause in speaking 

UNI uniform/ university 

VIN French wine

VOG air pollution caused by volcano

XED to mark with an X

YAS an Asian pear

YER ??? (found on naspa website)

YEZ you 

WUZ ???

WALK this way

Recently had a game where WALK was on the board, which made me wonder what front extensions there are for the word. There are 16...

BOARD

CAT

CAKE

CAT

CROSS

DUCK

JAY

MOON

OUT

RACE

ROPE

SHEEP

SIDE

SKY

SLEEP

SPACE

I find SHEEPWALK the most intriguing... It's a apparently what they call a sheep farm. 

Fun words and advice!

The NASPA (North American Scrabble Players Association) group on Facebook has a thread going via the link below- it's for an upcoming article in Time magazine, but the answers are fun to read, as everyone lists their favorite words, as well as a piece of advice! 

https://m.facebook.com/groups/72742393367?view=permalink&id=10153003520868368

Things I learned from a casual game this week

Well, no scrabble club this week, but I did meet up with a friend who is attending Nationals and was looking for extra practice.. 

1) OUTWEAR is good. And it takes and S and a Y! I was skeptical when I played it but decided to take the chance. The Y hook even crossed my mind but seemed even more implausible at the time. 

2) Getting both blanks is good, but if you get them at the same time and can only a play a low scoring bingo (and your opponent bingos twice naturally), then it's not so good. (Luckily this happened to him, not me) 

3) Always play the less common bingo! If the scoring isn't different. TETANOID drew a challenge. Know the anagram? 

New words coming soon!

For those of you who haven't heard, the long awaited update to the scrabble dictionary is coming... To be released at the national scrabble championship in August: http://www.scrabbleplayers.org/w/2014_National_SCRABBLE_Championship

I haven't been posting on here much, but it's possible that having a new set of words to study will be good incentive to do so! Stay tuned.