Keeping up with the Jones

SCRABBLE

I have a jones for Scrabble. I play about 10-15 games online each day, having amassaed a total of 4,600 games at ISC (the best internet Scrabble site). I study the Scrabble dictioanry on my rides to and from Manhattan (I just finished the Cs). I even have a Scrabble tattoo on my left arm. So it was frustrating that my move to New Paltz took me away from the NYC Scrabble club where I got my start in tournament Scrabble. I also found myself impossibly removed from the Long Island tournaments where I played as often as I could (tho usually no more than 3 times a year), usually coming in first or second place in the top division. I let my Scrabble News subscription lapse during our move. Since all of my opponents over the past 18 months have names like redsox2 and scrabmom, I started to feel like I was losing touch with real-life play.

A few weeks ago, I finally renewed my Scrabble News subscription (the paper had since become thinner, an apparent money-saver). To my happy surprise, there are monthly tourneys in North Salem, NY, about an hour from me. I was hoping to enter the tournament this weekend until I remembered that it conflicted with the performance of the Nutcracker that Emmett and I are in (more about that soon). I'm looking forward to the one in early January.

At ISC, I mostly play speed games. Under tourney conditions, each person has 25 minutes, but in speed games, it's about 4 minutes to a side. The computer automatically calculates score and keeps track of remaining tiles, but still, that's pretty fast. Not surprisingly, speed games are not as high-scoring as their slower counterparts, but they're still good for keeping my skills up, and they make tournament games much easier...a stroll in the park by comparison. I also like the fact that I can play my real life friends from time to time, and the chat feature means that we get to talk a bit during and after games. It's a nice way to keep up with the Joneses.