Scrabble
Posted on March 2, 2006
One of my new found addictions is a console based version of Scrabble. No fancy GUI here. I open up the terminal window in Gnome and type in “scrabble 2″, where 2 is the level I want to play on. In this version, level 1 is the easiest and 9 is the hardest. Since I am only on level 2, I guess I have a way to go yet.
At first, I started out by playing on level 1, but it wasn’t very long before I began winning most of the games, so I began to play at level 2. The first few games on level 2 were easily won by the computer. I was nearly hopeless. In Scrabble, if you clear your rack of all the letters, you get an additional 50 points on top of regular points for the word. Combine that with a triple-word-score and the points can get lopsided very quickly. The computer has managed to do this two or three times on me, while I’ve only been able to do it once. even with that, I just played a game that is making me consider moving up to level 3.
I started out okay, but nothing stellar. The computer quickly gained the lead, by getting taxi on a double-word-score. I persevered, took my time, and made sure the computer didn’t get too far ahead. I lucked out a few times and was able to get a couple triple-word scores. Playing on level 2 taught me the importance of tactics and strategy. One of the TWS slots I got was with the word “big.” It’s not a big (no pun intended) word and I could have made a larger word somewhere else, but it was important to deny the TWS to the computer. A few more of these and I was ahead. I don’t pay that much attention to the score, but try to concentrate on making words instead. However, if I can make a few different words based on the letters I have, I will look at the score to decide if I need more points or if I need to deny the computer the chance to get points.
One of the letters I had was Q. Not a very useful letter if you don’t have a U as well, and you typically need another vowel as well (quit, quid, quad, etc). I kept the Q in my rack until there were only six letters left (the game tells you how many letters remain), then I changed it. Strangely, by this time I was also over 100 points ahead, so if I got it again, I could afford to be magnanimous about it. If both players have letters in their rack at the end of the game, then the point value of the letters is deducted from their scores. If one player has letters in their rack, while the other player has none, then the points from the letters is deducted from the score of the player with letters and added to the score of the player without. At the end of this game, the computer had a score of 195 to my 322, but the computer also had the letters QUUZ in its rack so I gained an additional 22 points, changing the final score to 344 to 173. If that isn’t lopsided, I don’t know what is. Most of the times, the scores are in the 260-280 range, with only a few points separating the scores. This score made me feel pretty fucking superior. That said, I will probably lose the next few games for bad karma.
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