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meezerman's LiveJournal:
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| Sunday, November 15th, 2009 | | 12:00 pm |
| | Wednesday, October 28th, 2009 | | 5:18 pm |
The great voyage begins tomorrow
My longest trip ever, and probably my most complicated. I have seven different flight segments on eight different airlines. Five of my flights have already been rescheduled. Let's hope there aren't any more. The main issue has been wrapping this around three different Scrabble tournaments (Cal Open, WSC, Causeway). Actually, it's now four, as I've signed up for a one-day in Hamilton, NZ since I'll be right around that area anyway. After going to the Cal Open this weekend, I'll be flying to Sydney for three days, then from there to Auckland, where I'll start a three week circuit through NZ, flying back out of Auckland to Singapore. After two Scrabble tournaments, I fly out to Jakarta, taking two weeks to transit through Java and Bali. After an awful overnight flight from Den Pasar to Brisbane (with an oh-so-convenient 3 AM layover in Darwin), I spend three more days in Australia before finally making it back home on Christmas Eve. The two brief stops in Australia are due to Qantas offering US-AUS round trips for $700, as opposed to the $3k or so it would cost to fly directly into Auckland and out of Bali. As always, I'll be posting Scrabble content here and vacation content on my blog at Travelpod. But I won't be taking my laptop this time, so postings may be sparse until I get back home. | | Wednesday, October 14th, 2009 | | 9:04 pm |
Is this guy for real?
http://www.geocities.com/capitolhill/lobby/7049/scrabble.htmI stumbled across his page today. If you don't want to read the whole thing, he claims to run a non-NASPA Scrabble club in Dover, DE, which plays entirely by his own rules: 3-4 player games, 8 tiles to a rack, no plays that make only 2 letter words, an extra three rows of squares on every side of the board, etc. Most humorously, they use a combination of the American Heritage Dictionary and his own ukases. He arbitrarily strikes 2 and 3 letter words he deems stupid or foreign or just plain doesn't like, including some pretty common ones like CEL, ORC, MIB, and KOI, which, if nothing else, shows the folly of letting a single amateur decide what is and is not a "real word" based solely on his own vocabulary and common sense. A search of CGP archives turns up no mention of the name Donald Sauter. His website is remarkably up-to-date for a geocities page (I thought they went the way of the dodo), as he has an analysis of the words played on board 1 of the 2009 Nationals. Most bizarrely, I can find nothing on his page about where and when this club meets, other than Dover, DE. He claims correspondence with Bob Lundegaard and the Columbia, MD club, but otherwise precious little contact with the rest of the Scrabble world. Is this guy just the fictional alter-ego used by some real Scrabble player to vent his frustrations at the aspects of the game he doesn't like? (I can think of one who fits the bill perfectly.) Or perhaps a parody of players like this? It seems like far too much work for a joke, and there's lots of other non-Scrabble stuff on this guy's site, so he must be a real person. Anyone heard of him? Anyone been to this crazy Dover club? | | 7:04 pm |
Scrabble two in the wild (sort of)
It's been almost a year since I got back from Vietnam, but better late than never. When I went to the National Museum in Ho Chi Minh City, they were having a special exhibition of historical Vietnamese currency. My interest was immediately piqued as my thoughts turned to Scrabble--isn't the XU a former Vietnamese coin? Might I actually see one in person? Capture one on camera for posterity? A slight twinge of disappointment hit me when I saw the "No photography" sign at the entrance to the exhibition room. But a few minutes later, I was overcome with joy when I spotted an authentic 2 xu coin. And the exhibition room was empty--no guards, not even another patron! Could I bring myself to violate the ironclad rule of law (as manifested in a taped up sign) and take a picture? What if a guard came around the corner at the exact moment I was taking a picture? Just to get a picture of a 2 letter Scrabble word, was I going to risk 20 years in a Vietnamese gulag? (Or, more realistically, the guard politely tapping me on the shoulder, pointing to the sign, and me having to pretend that I didn't see it--but c'mon, I'm trying to strum up some drama here!) Well, of course the answer is yes. So, without further ado, here it is, behind the cut: ( The elusive XU: ) | | Friday, October 9th, 2009 | | 12:51 pm |
Fixing the playoffs
I love baseball, and enough of my LJ friends seem to as well that I decided to post this here. I really hate the way the playoffs are set up now. The WS is guaranteed to run into November, and maybe even as far as the 5th! That's a full month later than it used to be. Obviously two extra rounds of playoffs are part of the reason. I'm not going to argue about the wild card here, but what I will argue is that there are far too many off days in the postseason. Teams play almost every day during the regular season, with an off day every week or two, often playing 29 out of 30 days or something insane like that. In the post season, there are a maximum of 19 games in a 30 day span, and that's if every series goes to the last game, which few do. In addition to creating lots of boring, baseball-less off days, this allows teams to ride an ace way more in the post season than the regular season. Sabathia could hypothetically pitch 6 games for the Yankees on normal rest, 7 if they have him pitch on short rest only in the WS, and 8 if they do it for the ALCS as well. It's insane that a pitcher who gets 1/5 of your starts in the regular season can get as many as 8 of the 11 wins you need! Now obviously winning 8 games would be an otherworldly feat and is unlikely to happen, but it still shows the distortion the extra off days cause. A team with 2 great starters and 3 great relievers is much better in the postseason that one with 5 good starters and 6 good relievers. Sure, everyone knows this going in, so it's not really unfair to anyone, but it doesn't mean it's a good idea. And there are other problems. MLB tries to stagger the series so there's not 4 games one day and none the next, but this leads to weird stuff like the Yankees/Twins series being so spread out as to require only 3 starters, and the ALCS and NLCS ending one day apart, giving the NL team an extra day off before the WS. So, without further ado, here's my revised playoff schedule: Divisional series. Keep 2 of them as the standard 2-2-1; make the other two 1-2-2. All series start on the same day, with a grand total of 1 off day in the series. The Home/Away schedules: HH_AAH HHAA_H H_AAHH HAA_HH Each series' off day is different, so we get 3 or 4 games every day. Championship series. Starts the day after the divisional series. You want an off day? Beat the other team in 4 games or fewer. Keep the current 2-3-3 format, but with only a single travel day. HHAAA_HH HH_AAAHH WS: Again, no break after the last series. Same 2-3-2 format as the CS, with the single travel day wherever it fits best. This pares down the post season schedule from 30 to 22 days. Even if you're less sadistic than I and want to add in off days between the three rounds, you're still only up to 24 days. Teams would have to either use a fifth starter or pitch on short rest (unless they won all their series early). You couldn't ride three bullpen guys and two aces the whole way. It would be much more like regular season baseball, and would have the advantage of ending well before November. I expect MLB to wholeheartedly accept my proposal shortly after we switch to SOWPODS and the metric system. | | Sunday, October 4th, 2009 | | 2:44 pm |
Which of these ER words take an S?
  Tough quiz here: ALERTER BITTERER BLACKER BLANKER BRIEFER BRISKER BROWNER CRANKER CROOKER DECENTER DIRECTER DROLLER DWARFER EVENER EXACTER FAIRER FALLOWER FASTER FELLER FIRMER FLUSHER FOULER FRANKER FRESHER FRONTER GASHER GREENER GROSSER JUSTER LAVISHER LIMBERER MELLOWER NARROWER PINKER PLUMPER PLUSHER QUEERER QUIETER RECENTER REDDER ROUGHER SALLOWER SHARPER SHEERER SHOALER SHORTER SICKER SLEEKER SLIGHTER STANCHER STILLER SWELLER SWIFTER SWISHER TENDERER WANTONER WRONGER YELLOWER Answers (OWL; CSW answers vary) after the cut... ( Read more... ) | | Wednesday, September 30th, 2009 | | 10:18 am |
| | Tuesday, September 22nd, 2009 | | 9:06 am |
Endgame #2
First one has been solved. This is actually a 1 in the bag problem, which is just endgame x 8. From an informal game with Mike Baron before the tournament. VENUTO* is phony. Mike has exactly one play that wins 100% of the time: ( Read more... ) | | Sunday, September 20th, 2009 | | 8:14 pm |
Endgame from ABQ
I promised ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) cesarsalad I'd post some endgame positions. Here's a good one from game two of Albuquerque: ( Read more... )Despite drawing both blanks and out-bingoing her 3-1, I haven't managed to put Carlene away. Technically, she has no win here--best play loses by 2. But I have to be very careful and spot a hidden resource to squeak it out. Find her best sequence. Edit--I have BINRUU. It's a little blurry in the diagram. | | Monday, August 17th, 2009 | | 1:30 pm |
The 5 point challenge gambit
In double challenge, it's rare to challenge a word you know to be good. The only time it comes up as a strategy is if you have an unplayable bingo (or need a particular tile for a bingo), and you hope that by "passing" your bingo will go the next turn. But in 5 (or 10) point challenge, there might be other reasons to do so. A good example came up in a game I just played against Quackle. It bingoed with METAPLOT#. I remember reading on getofftheoven 's blog about how this has nothing to do with the Wikipedia definition, but is rather the plural of some Hebrew word. Against a human, this would be a great opportunity to challenge. For the small price of 5 points, I convince my opponent that I don't know the word. He would thus be very tempted to hook an S on it later, costing himself a turn worth much more than 5 points. Does this situation occur commonly in 5 point challenge games? Are there ethical limits? Would it be wrong for me to hold for a long time, write the word down several times on my score sheet, mouth it, stare at the ceiling, shake my head in despair when I lose the challenge? | | Monday, August 10th, 2009 | | 9:13 am |
Something I don't care post to CGP...
Re: number of games per day in Nationals. "The Nationals is Division 1. Everything else is stamp-collecting." If the point of the NSC is to determine the national champion (and it is), then it should be as long as is feasible. More games means less variance, which means a more accurate result. I really don't give a rat's @$$ if some blue-hair in div# 4 gets tired after 4:00, or wants to skedaddle early to watch a concert that night or whatever. If a couple lower division players don't show up because of the grueling 8 games of sitting on their butts pushing tiles, so what? Their entry fees aren't being shifting to div 1, so I don't see how their presence benefits or even concerns me. Hell, make two different division fives, one with 7 games a day, one with 8 for all I care. Oh, and newsflash to those who don't want to turn the NSC into an endurance contest: competitive competitions include a large element of endurance. You think Kobe isn't tired in the 4th quarter? Santana still has his best stuff in the 8th inning? The 50th hot dog goes down Kobayashi's gullet as smoothly as the 1st? It looks like 2010 is already decided, but let's push for 2011. | | Thursday, August 6th, 2009 | | 10:10 am |
Random Dayton and post-Dayton thoughts
Had an excellent time at the Nationals this year despite mediocre performance. Congrats to drbing for his great comeback performance to win his second Nationals and truly establish himself as one of the all-time greats. If Scrabble had a hall-of-fame, he'd be a first balloter. Sadly, this was not my tournament to win. Of my thirteen losses, four were completely unavoidable. Five involved no major mistakes on my part, but some tiny equity slipups here and there. Obviously it's tough to say what would have happened had I played perfectly--making a different play on the third turn of the game changes everything a la the butterfly effect. But I doubt more than one, maybe two, were salvageable. My other four losses involved major errors on my part. Of those, one was almost certainly winnable with perfect play; the other three might have been but it was no sure thing. So, optimistically, I could have gone 24-7. Pessimistically, 19-12. Realistically, I think perfect play nets me two more games, good enough for a top ten finish, but nowhere near winning it. Orlando might have been winnable for me--all three ties should have been wins, plus I botched my game against Robin. I probably threw away another game or two somewhere. What's worse--losing a tournament (or game) you could have won, or never having a chance? I was quite saddened to get home and read cesarsalad 's report of suspected cheating by a high finishing division 1 player. Even though he didn't cash, he might have affected others' results. And of course any misconduct in this game is just sad by itself. While I had some nice dinners and after hours anagramming, I think Dallas next year will be much better. More good restaurants within walking distance, and an all night playing room (none of this closing at 11 B.S.). Opened with OVOIDAL against Ben Withers. On turn 2, he had a bingo that would only play by hooking the S to OVOIDAL. He wasn't sure and so eschewed it. Orry Swift told me after the game that OVOIDALS is in the OWL, but not the OSPD4. Sure enough, I looked it up, and it's true. It's not dirty or copyrighted, so what's up with this? Is this just one of the OSPD's famous editorial mistakes? I thought they'd finally fixed all that crap. Well, time to start studying for the World's and Causeway. The success of Dave, Adam, and Nigel shows that juggling the two dictionaries is not impossible. I wrote out all the threes on the plane ride home yesterday. I think I did pretty good for not having studied Collins in ages, but I haven't checked my results yet. I might post some of my more interesting games later, although sadly, they were few and far between. | | Thursday, July 9th, 2009 | | 9:26 pm |
Another couple of Reno games
http://www.cross-tables.com/annotated.ph p?u=4110#0 http://www.cross-tables.com/annotated.ph p?u=4111#0 Lot's of tough decisions in my game against wantonhalo . See if you can do much better than I did. | | Wednesday, July 8th, 2009 | | 6:43 am |
| | Tuesday, July 7th, 2009 | | 4:56 pm |
Reno Report
Well, obviously Reno went quite well this year, especially considering what a poor start my trip got off too, and then almost having to cancel out of the main event due to illness. ( Read more... ) | | Wednesday, June 10th, 2009 | | 11:59 am |
| | Thursday, June 4th, 2009 | | 6:07 pm |
Interesting position
From a Collins game against Quackle today. I don't have the position saved, but the only relevant part is that the word OUTEDGE# is at 9a, wide open. You have ?EHJPSW. Your choices: JOW a8 39 --- ?EHPS JOSEPH a8 63 --- ?W JoSH 8a 90 --- EPW Do you go for max points, crummy leave with JoSH, max leave, crummy points with JOW, or split the difference with JOSEPH? | | Wednesday, May 27th, 2009 | | 4:19 pm |
If you're going to cheat, at least make it plausible
Just played a game on ISC against an unknown. He made the highest scoring play on every turn, once burning a lone S for an extra 1 point. He bingoed out with pARAZOAN. Seriously, what's the point? Why do people waste their (and my) time doing stupid stuff like this? | | Tuesday, May 26th, 2009 | | 10:52 pm |
Beat the computer
This would be a lost endgame against even a minimally competent human opponent, but lucky for me, we've got an ISC Bot. So find the win.  | | Saturday, May 23rd, 2009 | | 11:19 am |
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