Words With ScrabbleScrabble, Words With Friends, Lexulous

by atduskgreg

Just Simple Words, Very Seldom Heard

You go out of your way to do something nice for someone and the only thing you expect in return is to hear the person utter these 2 simple words “Thank You”. I enjoy being able to offer my assistance to others and I do so without ever expecting anything in return but it sure would be nice just to hear those 2 simple words every once in awhile. Unfortunately I will only hear this maybe 1 out of 10 things that I do.

You fill out an application for employment online or you purchase something online and in your inbox a few minutes later you get a nice email thanking you. Why is the only an automated thing? I do a lot of things for others whether it be some type of online research, or picking up something while I am at the store to like what I did last weekend for my eldest son when I saved him several hundred dollars and drove him down to South Florida. I expected him to at least pay me for the gas down there and for the gas on my return trip but in the end I did not hear the 2 words I expected to hear plus he gave me no money to buy gas for the return trip.

My other son was looking at ways he could make money without having to go out and get a job. I gave him the idea a few months ago about having software designed that there would be a market demand for. I also introduced him to the person who later became his business partner plus I did my own experimentation with different marketing methods to show him which ones would work the best. Eventually the postings I had done on certain forums started to pay off but all my son said to me was that he had visited the same forums a while back and that the sales he was now getting were probably a result of his earlier visits to these forums. Never have I heard from him yet “Thanks, Dad”.

A friend in Florida was looking at taking over this software product and I did my part to do a lot of research for him plus introduce him to a lot of people but all I ever heard from him was “Jeff, I am in my fifties and very smart when it comes to business I don’t need any of your help” Well, if he had taken my help then maybe he would not now have over ,000 invested and still not know everything there is about the software. A smart business person would not invest money into a company without first getting everything in writing.

Another customer just bought a copy of my youngest sons software buddypromoter and I was the one that had to email the customer with the download instructions. During the conversation my son asked me to pay him that I owed him onto his credit card so that he would have money this weekend as the money from his sales will not get to his account until next week. Funny, a year ago when my son was 0 short for the money he owed on his car where did he go for the money. Yet I never got that money back from him but he is still saying that I owe him money. No 2 words for the money I loaned him back then or even for the email I had to send to the buyer.

Amazing how all this stuff works out. Think back over the last 20 years I can name of hundreds of things I have done for others but yet only a small number of them ever thanked me. Now I can’t say that everybody is like this because I have met some people who will go out of there way just to say those 2 words or at least drop me a note or something.

I remember a dozen years ago I helped one friend that I grew up with by bringing him into my business and teaching what I did. I even went as far as to pay him a salary while he was learning this stuff plus I gave him a place to live. He now make 6 or 7 figures a year but not once has he ever said those 2 words to me or even done anything to show his appreciation. Another one of my childhood friends, when he got laid off of his job with AT&T I bought him a computer with a very expensive software package because in school he was the first person to get me into computers and I always thought that one day he would become a great programmer. I send him this computer and software for XMas a few years ago but the only thing I ever heard from him was that he needed to upgrade certain things on the computer I gave him. Nothing else.

I don’t do these things expecting any sort of compensation from others I do it because I can. When someone does take the time to send me a card of thanks or just drop me a line it means so much. Have you ever thought of all the little things in life that we take for granted on a daily basis?

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Scrabble: Not Just A Word Game

Scrabble is commonly cited as being the world’s most popular word game. Truly, Scrabble is a popular board game played throughout the world on kitchen tables and in a thriving international tournament scene. Is it, however, accurate to describe Scrabble as a word game?

At face value, a bag of one hundred letter tiles with each player having racks of seven letters at a time from which to form words and place on the board, it may appear to be a word game. On a closer examination, one must question that common assumption.

If Scrabble was truly a word game, one could expect that the most expert players would be those players with the best linguistic skills. These would include authors, journalists, language professors and similar professions. The reality tells a different story. These occupations are a rarity amongst Scrabble players at the top of the international competitive ranks.

If you were to survey the participants at any of the biennial World Scrabble Championships, you would discover a very significant proportion of these elite level Scrabble players come from mathematics, actuarial, accounting, architectural and engineering occupations. These professions reflect the strategic skills, the critical and strategic thinking skills and the mathematical and statistical skills that marks the difference between a winner and loser in Scrabble, or the difference between a masters level competitor and an intermediate or novice player.

Vocabulary is far less important than one might initially imagine in a Scrabble game. Whilst obviously vocabulary plays an important, in fact essential, role in the game, vocabulary alone won’t win many Scrabble games. You could liken it a little to war. In a battle, one side may have a majority of the weapons and even a larger army, though without a solid strategic battle plan the war is all but over before it even begins. Without a strong battle plan, the biggest army with the most weapons will not defeat their opposition.

On the Scrabble board, strategic decisions are made with every move. You may have a great word ready to play, but which is the best position on the board to play it? There will often be multiple positions where a word could be played. Rapid mental calculations need to be made as to which position will produce the highest score. Even then, it may not always be wise to play in the highest scoring position if, for example, it opens up a triple-triple bonus scoring opportunity to your opponent. Settling for a different position on the board for a lower score may sometimes be the better strategic decision.

Likewise, the strategic player considers the balance between vowels and consonants in the rack. It is often the wise choice to play a small scoring word and maintain a well balanced rack than to go for a higher scoring word that leaves you with no vowels at all for your next move.

The strategic player will also consider the statistical probabilities of drawing good tiles from the Scrabble letter bag. Playing away a single tile from your rack in the hope of picking up the Q is generally unwise due to the low probability of actually picking out that Q. The same play for the purposes of picking up a far more common letter that you need to form your next bonus word, such as an E, can more often be rewarding.

To further reinforce the case that Scrabble isn’t primarily a word game, a look at some of the recent victors in international tournaments tells a vivid story. A growing trend is for competitors from countries such as Thailand and Malaysia, where English is not even the primary language, to walk away with the tournament trophies. What these competitors may lack in terms of every day English language vocabulary, they more than compensate with their strategic, mathematical, statistical and logic skills.