"Exquisite," he said, "on a triple word score."

May 19, 2016 10:02 PM

How Nigeria has come to dominate the competitive Scrabble circuit. [SLWSJ]
posted by Chrysostom (24 comments total)

ZA and QI still make me mad when I'm playing Words With Friends.
posted by cj_ at 10:16 PM on May 19, 2016 [1 favorite]

Nicknamed “The Cat in the Hat” for his taste in fedoras, Mr. Jighere, 33 years old, is Nigeria’s Rachmaninoff of rack management.

I like Scrabble because it's fun to make words, and I share cj_'s distaste for that two-letter stuff, but this sentence is a bingo.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 10:53 PM on May 19, 2016 [12 favorites]

Never Mind the Pereiras, here's the Repairs

Champions have studied his defensive style, including his decision to put REPAIR on an S during the final, for 30 points. He could have earned 86, including a 50-point bingo, spelling PEREIRAS. Instead, Mr. Jighere kept an “e” for the next round.

Oh no, I'll keep the e and leave 56 points on the table because I'll probably be able to make better use of it.
posted by hawthorne at 11:26 PM on May 19, 2016 [2 favorites]

All of those Scrabble knockoff games are trash, because people just slot in random letters until the app says they have a word. I come across as a curmudgeon when I demand people define the garbage word they just made, and it's bad for my blood pressure, so I abstain.

*ahem*
posted by glitter at 11:26 PM on May 19, 2016 [6 favorites]

bad for my blood pressure

That's easily treated with a 12C homoeoepathic preparation of kwyjibo.
posted by flabdablet at 12:31 AM on May 20, 2016 [21 favorites]

Yeah, the bluffing is an integral part of Scrabble
posted by DoctorFedora at 12:34 AM on May 20, 2016 [1 favorite]

That was a very interesting article. Statistical analysis FTW!
posted by mosk at 12:55 AM on May 20, 2016

This is a great article, by the way!
posted by DoctorFedora at 1:58 AM on May 20, 2016

All of those Scrabble knockoff games are trash, because people just slot in random letters until the app says they have a word. I come across as a curmudgeon when I demand people define the garbage word they just made, and it's bad for my blood pressure, so I abstain.

With apologies to churl, obligatory.
posted by cj_ at 2:28 AM on May 20, 2016 [4 favorites]

Exactly!
posted by glitter at 2:59 AM on May 20, 2016

cj_: "ZA and QI still make me mad when I'm playing Words With Friends."

They shouldn't, though. A fat slice of ZA should reenergize your QI.

(tho WWF has some weird wrinkles, like it doesn't think "SLUT" is a word)
posted by chavenet at 4:40 AM on May 20, 2016

Nice Try WSJ but the truth is Nigerians have genetically superior scrabble cortices.
posted by srboisvert at 4:43 AM on May 20, 2016 [3 favorites]

Nice Try WSJ but the truth is Nigerians have genetically superior scrabble cortices.

Oh yes, the Scrabbell Curve.
posted by Dip Flash at 5:05 AM on May 20, 2016 [18 favorites]

Some day, I am going to learn what JO, XI and XU actually mean.
posted by tallmiddleagedgeek at 6:20 AM on May 20, 2016

xu are/(were?) a form of Vietnamese currency (a borrowing from French "sou"), xi is a Greek letter, and jo IIRC means "sweetheart"
posted by Earthtopus at 6:28 AM on May 20, 2016 [2 favorites]

Is playing defensively with short words really such a novel strategy? I could have sworn I've read about it before.
posted by Nelson at 6:45 AM on May 20, 2016

Is playing defensively with short words really such a novel strategy? I could have sworn I've read about it before.
posted by Nelson at 9:45 AM on May 20

I think I've read about it before, too. But because of how masterfully the strategy's being deployed by the Nigerian players, people are really coming to understand how truly effective it actually is.
posted by magstheaxe at 7:02 AM on May 20, 2016

tallmiddleagedgeek: "Some day, I am going to learn what JO, XI and XU actually mean."

Also, the Words With Friends app provides definitions for most words.
posted by Chrysostom at 7:25 AM on May 20, 2016

Oh no, I'll keep the e and leave 56 points on the table because I'll probably be able to make better use of it.

The article really bungles the strategy talk. In the actual game, there are 14 tiles unseen.

If Wellington plays his 86 point bingo, he empties the bag and if Lewis bingos back, the game ends and he'll get the value of Wellington's final rack added to his score. By not emptying the bag, Wellington keeps control of the game and prevents the only way he can lose.

It's not some crazy strategy, it's a pretty clear decision for a high level player.

Source: Played tournament Scrabble and memorized something like 50k words for about 4-5 years.
posted by paulcole at 7:39 AM on May 20, 2016 [10 favorites]

demand people define the garbage word they just made
"a word that lets me put the Q on the triple letter."
posted by plinth at 8:07 AM on May 20, 2016 [1 favorite]

WWF has some curious blind spots. I was quite surprised that it allows POOFTER, although the equivalent pejorative Americanisms are disallowed (which I'm just fine with).
posted by McCoy Pauley at 11:27 AM on May 20, 2016

The only bingo I've ever had in a game was "azaleas." I was first to go and it was with dawning horror I realized I had set myself up to be completely crushed in that game.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 1:46 PM on May 20, 2016 [1 favorite]

Mine was 'droplets'. I won, but don't play much.
posted by lkc at 6:30 PM on May 20, 2016

What the happy hell was Mackay doing ending a word with "Y" five letters below a triple word score?
posted by Joe in Australia at 5:50 AM on May 21, 2016