February 2010 Archives
There are just 10 days until the Scrabble tournament! Thank you to those who have already pre-registered. Pre-registration isn't required, but it helps us better plan the event. And it's super easy, just follow the three prompts on the web site.
To help you get ready for the tournament here is some advice from seasoned Scrabble players Jessica, Tara, and Krystal:
- Learn a few Q words that don't require U's, like QI and QAT.
- SUQ ("an Arab marketplace") and QAT ("an Arabian shrub") are the most important words you can know to use up a Q. One doesn't require a U and the other has the Q after the U.
- Each turn's score is important, but so is making sure your rack stays balanced. If you have five vowels and two consonants, don't play just your two consonants -- you risk pulling even more vowels! It's usually worth playing a lower scoring word if you need to ditch some tiles that are making your rack really hard to play.
- Remember the musical dealie, "do-re-mi-fa-so-la-ti-do."
- Don't overly focus on building the perfect word in your rack. Use the best premium squares (triple-letter score!) and build a word around that.
- You should never play an S for less than 30 points.
- If you score out possible plays on a turn, you'll find that the long single words almost never score as many points as a shorter one that places a high-scoring letter on a premium tile.
- Simple words bring big points if they're placed right! Look for more than one word per turn by watching both vertical and horizontal placements.
- Good Scrabblin' takes PRACTICE.
- Good at memorizing? The Two Letter Words
- Never, ever play something that opens up a triple word tile for your opponent. They WILL use it, even if it's just with low scoring tiles, so that you can't use it. And if they can pull off even a moderately good word, you could be in the hole by 50+ points in a single turn.
If you want to keep up with the league between e-mails, here are a few ways to get the latest info:
The Web site: http://cardboardleague.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/cardboardleague
RSS: feed://cardboard.tumblr.com/rss
Tumblr: http://cardboard.tumblr.com/
We look forward to seeing you next weekend!
Hello Esteemed Members of the Urban Honking Athletic Club,
UHAC, the greatest athletic club in the greater Portland area, has been challenged. No other than my arch rival and younger brother, Curt Merrill, has created the Card Board League, a monthly series of games that are either card-based or board games (and sometimes both!). He did this last year in the city of Atlanta and for 2010 he has challenged us, proclaiming that his champion of cards and board games is greater than our champion.
So this is how it will work:
You show up once a month to play either a board or card game, we track the stats, and then the winner will go head to head against the reigning champ from Atlanta.
The first event is a Scrabble tournament on Feb 20. There is more information here:
http://cardboardleague.com/events/1/
Curt will be officiating the games in Atlanta, and I will be officiating the games in Portland. After Scrabble the games will be:
March - Spades
April - Battleship
May - Poker
June - Backgammon
July - Magic
August - Chess
September - Cribbage
October - The Championship
There is a $3 entry fee on most events, but you also win medals! Yay! You can pre-register for the events online:
http://cardboardleague.com/events/1/
Or you can just show up at 2pm on Saturday, Feb 20th.
Yours,
-Kenneth Michael Merrill