{"id":9822,"date":"2006-10-27T12:37:19","date_gmt":"2006-10-27T19:37:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/2006\/10\/27\/hextuple-word-score.html"},"modified":"2006-10-27T12:37:19","modified_gmt":"2006-10-27T19:37:19","slug":"hextuple_word_score","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2006\/10\/27\/hextuple_word_score.html","title":{"rendered":"Hextuple word score?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n<\/div>\n

A record-breaking game of Scrabble<\/a>, including most points in a game by a player (830), most total points in a game (1,320), and most points on a single turn (365, for “QUIXOTRY”). Yikes.<\/p>\n

\n

Let’s begin with the fact that Cresta and Yorra aren’t expert-level players. They know the basics\u2014like the 101 two-letter and most of the 1,015 three-letter words\u2014but they’re both rated in the bottom third of tournament players. In Lexington, where the record was set during the club’s regular Thursday-night session, <\/strong>Yorra is known for trying implausible words and hoping they’re in the Official Tournament and Club Word List. Cresta has memorized thousands of obscure words (like those ending in
\nWOOD or starting with OVEN) by reading, writing down, and tape-recording pages from the Official Scrabble Players Dictionary. But he doesn’t study the highly probable words <\/strong>that are essential for climbing the competitive ranks. “These are not guys who have low ratings because they haven’t played in many tournaments,” Mike Wolfberg, the Lexington club’s statistician, told me. “They have low ratings because they aren’t very good.”<\/p>\n

To understand how Cresta and Yorra broke the record, let’s take a closer look at the game. (For the full play-by-play, click here<\/a>.) Yorra opened with JOUSTED, a “bingo”\u2014Scrabble lingo for using all seven tiles, which earns you an extra 50 points\u2014worth 96 points. Cresta then traded in all seven of his tiles in the hope of getting more-playable letters, not an unusual move. Yorra bingoed again, very nicely, with LADYLIKE for
\n73 points and a 169-0 lead. The first L in LADYLIKE landed between two triple-word-score squares, giving Cresta a shot at Scrabble’s holy grail\u2014a “triple-triple,” covering two triple-word scores with one word. That’s worth nine times the value of the word, plus the 50-point bonus for using all seven letters.<\/p>\n

[…] Looking at the game as a whole, it’s clear that a lack of expertise created the conditions for the record. The play that enabled QUIXOTRY, for one, was a clear mistake. When Yorra played SCAMsTER, which scored 65 points, there were eight other bingos available worth 72 points or more that wouldn’t have dangled a letter in a triple-triple alley. Among them were several common words, including the 94-point dEMOCRAT. Most players would have taken a few extra moments to search for one of those moves.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Cool.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A record-breaking game of Scrabble, including most points in a game by a player (830), most total points in a game (1,320), and most points on a single turn…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9822","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gaming"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":6666,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2004\/08\/05\/bad_words.html","url_meta":{"origin":9822,"position":0},"title":"Bad words","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 5-Aug-04 10:01pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Because it's bad enough that there are bad and offensive words out there, kids, but imagine the unmitigated and insensitive gall to think that you could use one of them...","rel":"","context":"In "ZT & PC"","block_context":{"text":"ZT & PC","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/zt-pc"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":41677,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/04\/10\/words-mean-things-5.html","url_meta":{"origin":9822,"position":1},"title":"Words Mean Things","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 10-Apr-14 11:10pm","format":false,"excerpt":"I get into arguments with folks over whether something is a \"real\" word. But these Scrabble folks (and their Words with Friends cousins) take that whole argumnt to another, arguably more meaningful level.\ufeff The Word That Won Scrabble\u2019s New-Word Contest Is Totally Useless in Scrabble When Hasbro last week revealed\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":48107,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/11\/14\/gaming-for-eternity.html","url_meta":{"origin":9822,"position":2},"title":"Gaming for Eternity","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 14-Nov-14 3:18pm","format":false,"excerpt":"This is ... very cool. Applause to the family of Mr Lind. Originally shared by +Geeks are Sexy: Since Paul G. Lind of Portland, Oregon, loved to play Scrabble so much, his family decided to have this Scrabble-themed tombstone made just for him when he died in 2005. Last year,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":29906,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/08\/19\/cheating-at-scrabble.html","url_meta":{"origin":9822,"position":3},"title":"Cheating at Scrabble","author":"***Dave","date":"Sun 19-Aug-12 9:18pm","format":false,"excerpt":"I will confess that, when playing Scrabble (and, um, well, uh, most board games), I tend to be, well, um, competitive.But cheating? \u00a0Crikey, no. That's no fun. Embedded Link The Real Story Behind the Cheating Scandal at the National Scrabble Championship I had just hung on for a 395-352 victory\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":19795,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2011\/01\/08\/daveapalooza.html","url_meta":{"origin":9822,"position":4},"title":"Daveapalooza!","author":"***Dave","date":"Sat 8-Jan-11 10:34pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Margie put together a very nice 50th birthday party for me here in Denver, with our sundry closest friends who could make it: Stan, Randy, Jackie, Doyce & Kate, Dave S., Lee & De, plus Rachel and Kaylee. The food theme was around bacon -- and we had a variety\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Family"","block_context":{"text":"Family","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/personal\/family"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/01\/bacchanalia.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/01\/bacchanalia.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/01\/bacchanalia.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/01\/bacchanalia.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/01\/bacchanalia.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/01\/bacchanalia.jpg?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":12398,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2008\/05\/13\/the_password_is_remake.html","url_meta":{"origin":9822,"position":5},"title":"The password is … remake","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 13-May-08 10:06pm","format":false,"excerpt":"I loved the game show Password as a kid. Being a wordy kind of guy, it makes sense -- finding a way through one-word clues to get someone to guess...","rel":"","context":"In "Gaming"","block_context":{"text":"Gaming","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/gaming"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9822","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9822"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9822\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9822"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9822"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9822"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}