By Julia Ziolkowski
Scrabble is more than just a board game. It’s serious business — at least for a die-hard Centretown group.
I met them at Woody’s restaurant on Elgin Street, where they congregate one evening a week and spend their time doling out words like “protamins,” “jiver,” “oration” and “loup,” trying to achieve the maximum amount of points.
They’ve been playing as a club for more than six years and come from vastly different occupations, from engineer to doctor and writer to student.
James Cherry is an engineer, and one of six Canadians who went to the Scrabble World Championships in November 1999 in Australia. He finished in 38th place, competing against players from all over the globe.
“We’re hardcore,” says Cherry. “There’s no screwing around here.”
Indeed — Cherry created his own computer program to help him improve his game. He was sitting at a table in Woody’s one recent Thursday night playing against 17-year-old Jakob Teitelbaum, a high school student whose father Peter founded the club.
Cherry spells out the word “hoodiest” with his tiles. After seeing my puzzled look, he assures me that “hoodiest” is a word that was added to the official Scrabble dictionary in 1996. It refers to the fashion look of wearing a hooded top or “hoodie.” If your top is really cool then it’s the “hoodiest” — better than all other hooded tops.
As the game goes on, Cherry considers challenging the word “telerans,” which Teitelbaum has just spelled out, then decides against it.
“I think it’s a word,” says Cherry. “I think I’ve studied it.”
I sneak a peak in the Scrabble dictionary, and sure enough, “telerans” is officially a word — albeit an obscure one — which demonstrates a unique aspect of the game.
The game improves your vocabulary for the purposes of Scrabble, but not necessarily for practical purposes, says Cherry. These are words you would hardly ever or never use in real life.
He also points out there are also words like “maxed,” which are used in everyday speech, but it’s good for spelling.
The game may not be good for learning useful vocabulary, says Teitelbaum, but it’s good for spelling.
“Anybody I know who plays Scrabble — their spelling is flawless,” he says.
Teitelbaum could be talking about himself.
He won $1,000 in an Ottawa Citizen spelling bee when he was just 12 years old. That’s also when he started playing Scrabble seriously by entering tournaments.
Both Teitelbaum and Cherry will tell you that Scrabble is about strategy. Cherry has a sheet that he uses to keep track of all the letters being used in the game.
By doing this, he figures out exactly what letters the other player has, and then can strategically place his words to assure his opponent gets the least amount of points.
Another useful strategy is knowing the anagrams of words — using all the same letters of one word to spell another word. “Stressed” could also spell “destress,” for example.
By knowing all the anagrams of a word, the player can see which version of the word will fit best on the board and achieve the highest amount of points.
But strategy aside, the controversy lies in which official Scrabble dictionary to use, the North American or the British.
To be a serious contender, you must learn both, because the use of words from either dictionary is allowed at the world championships.
Although he sticks to his North American Scrabble vocabulary, learning and using new words is part of the reason Teitelbaum loves the game so much.
“It’s different every time,” he says. “I’m always challenged.”