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Bad Scrabble strategy, from Alaska
I try not to blog Sarah Palin, but this passage, reproduced on Andrew Sullivan's blog, caught my interest for non-Palin reasons:
"Everybody in the family played Scrabble and took great pride in hoarding Ks and Qs and slapping them down in long, fancy words on triple-letter scores." -- Going Rogue, p. 12.
Sullivan's reader objects that there is only one K and one Q but I think permissible to use the plural in this context, referring to general acts of hoarding over time.
My point is that this is bad Scrabble strategy. The way to do very well is to put down seven-letter words on bonus squares, thereby getting the fifty-point bonus for using all your letters and doubled or tripled at that. Such a strategy means maximizing one's holdings of S, R, E, T, O, A, and N, essentially, and dumping awkward letters which stand in the way. "ING" is a powerful combination. In addition, high frequency letters help you link up with other words running crossways, boosting your score further.
The astute MR reader will recognize here that we are dealing with portfolio theory, albeit where many assets are complements rather than near-perfect substitutes.
K doesn't mesh well with most other letters and so you should try to dump it quickly. Q is paralyzing unless you have a U to go with it. If you are happy because you could lay down "quit" on a double word score, for 26 points, I would say you are not a very ambitious Scrabble player, all the more if you hoarded letters and waited turns to do that. (You have some chance of "aliquot" or "quaeres" or "quinoas," but do you really expect to score "obloquy," "quassia," or "qigongs"?, keeping in mind that if you build upon an already-laid tile you need an eight-letter word with q to score the bonus.)
If this is her game of Scrabble, you can only imagine what her foreign policy would be like.
Correction: If you search inside the book, you will see that she is referring to the Scrabble strategies of her grandparents, not her own Scrabble strategies. They are the ones who cannot be trusted with U.S. foreign policy and it can also be said that she misses this chance to condemn their weak gaming strategies.
I thank Seth H. for the pointer.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on November 28, 2009 at 12:46 PM in Games | Permalink
Comments
Depending on the dictionary you use, Q can be pretty useful if your opponent is unexperienced and puts an "I" next to a double or triple letter score. In the official scrabble dictionary, QI, KI, KA are words. I've made ~60 points off QI quite a few times.
It doesn't make sense to hoard Qs and Ks, but they are decent letters.
I'd say J is probably the worst letter.
Posted by: Robert at Nov 28, 2009 1:33:38 PM
I am distressed that she thinks ~7 letter words are "long" and "fancy."
Posted by: ieintense at Nov 28, 2009 1:45:30 PM
If this is her game of Scrabble, you can only imagine what her foreign policy would be like.
I wonder if she would have tried to pay back the Chinese in clunkers.
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=d9c_1258865433
Posted by: anon at Nov 28, 2009 1:52:33 PM
I am distressed that some people think the upper limit in Scrabble word length is 7 letters.
Posted by: Yancey Ward at Nov 28, 2009 2:00:05 PM
you can only imagine what her foreign policy would be like.
Quickly attacking Khamenei's Qom bunker, quashing killer nuke quest.
Posted by: nathaniel at Nov 28, 2009 2:08:47 PM
I frequently play scrabble with my fiance, and we've found that the game is actually dominated by short, easy 3-4 letter words using high scoring letters.
QAT (a flower found in Suadi Arabia)
ADZ (a centuries old wood working tool)
VEX
These words are easy to form, fit easily into smaller spaces between the longer words on the board, and can capture bonus tiles that your oponent thinks they have neutralized by cutting off space for longer words.
Posted by: Matt at Nov 28, 2009 2:18:51 PM
Scrabble-Boxing to decide the election?
Posted by: Andrew at Nov 28, 2009 2:21:28 PM
If this is her game of Scrabble, you can only imagine what her foreign policy would be like.
Overanalyzing much?
I am distressed that people are reading so much into something like this. So it's a suboptimal Scrabble strategy - so what? It might be more generally successful to to hoard common letters and play lots of obscure weird 3-letter words, but it is a hell of a lot more fun to bust out QUIETLY on a triple-word square...
:P
Posted by: Bob Montgomery at Nov 28, 2009 2:26:47 PM
Better than Obama´s for sure
Posted by: k at Nov 28, 2009 2:27:42 PM
With that last line, are you making fun of Palin, or making fun of Andrew Sullivan?
Posted by: John Smith at Nov 28, 2009 2:29:55 PM
Came to mention Qat, but expected to be late. Posting to say I very much enjoyed Nathaniel's comment.
Posted by: dsmith at Nov 28, 2009 2:43:06 PM
"If this is her game of Scrabble, you can only imagine what her foreign policy would be like."
What if she were surrounded by all of the right people (even though she isn't)? I'm not sure that her level of scrabble-intellect is as much of a hindrance as one may assume. It's probably scarier when you have an intelligent leader with horrendous guiding principles (i.e. Obama, Carter, etc.).
Posted by: Jacob Arluck at Nov 28, 2009 3:01:08 PM
What brazen insensitivity. Obama is so going to nail her with the dyslexic community.
Posted by: Andrew at Nov 28, 2009 3:03:25 PM
Scrabble is a **game**, played for **fun**. I don't know about you, but I like making weird and unusual words even more than winning the game, since I think that's fun, and there is **NO BENEFIT** to winning a game in any event.
Posted by: billswift at Nov 28, 2009 3:08:02 PM
I'm absolutely no fan of Palin, but I sincerely hope this is Tyler's version of a joke. I'm not sure I can adequately describe the respect I would lose for him if he's even remotely serious in his conclusion.
Posted by: BKarn at Nov 28, 2009 3:13:58 PM
People, this last sentence is Tyler's version of a joke. Although I do think that Kasparov would make a good President of Russia!
Posted by: Tyler Cowen at Nov 28, 2009 3:29:47 PM
An eight-letter word that includes both Q and K.
Posted by: Quackery at Nov 28, 2009 4:12:54 PM
Tyler's joke reminds me of a similar one in the movie "Charade," where Audrey Hepburn overhears in the US embassy: "...and I bluffed him out of the pot with a pair of twos. So what are the Russians doing with him?"
Posted by: Ken at Nov 28, 2009 4:16:18 PM
Any other person at the other end of this joke and can be taken as just that. But with Palin, given your fellow intellectuals rather intense dislike of her, you have in effect taken sides [the rather safe side in your world I might add]. Noted.
Posted by: Jorge Costales at Nov 28, 2009 4:17:45 PM
I don't get the connection between Scrabble and portfolio theory. You can try to maximize your expected score for each turn (local strategy), or try to maximize your expected total score (global strategy), but there's no notion of risk here, only linear expectations. Of course, neither of these strategies is optimal, since you also need to take into account the hooks you're leaving your opponent.
Posted by: Chris Long at Nov 28, 2009 4:18:12 PM
The way to do very well is to put down seven-letter words on bonus squares, thereby getting the fifty-point bonus for using all your letters and doubled or tripled at that.
The fifty point bonus is not doubled or tripled. It's added on to the score once all premium tiles are counted. See the rules here:
BINGO! (50 extra points). If you play all seven tiles in a single play it's called a Bingo. Bingos score you a premium of 50 points on top of your score for the turn.
Now, bingos are a great way to score lots of points, but playing conquest on two triple word scores yields much more.
On a baseball note, Javier Vazquez holds the highest scoring name of any player in the history of the game.
Posted by: David Pinto at Nov 28, 2009 4:41:23 PM
Q's are great. Qis, qats and suqs make them relatively easy to throw down for a quick and dirty high score.
But I mostly wonder at the "triple-letter scores" part of the strategy. Surely she meant triple-word score tiles? Getting a long word with K's and J's and Q's is hard enough as it is -- but holding on to the letters in the hopes you'll not only find a word to use them in but also find a word that has the K/J/Q fall on the appropriate tile is crazy talk.
Posted by: SueSimp at Nov 28, 2009 4:43:55 PM
How many heads will explode by president Palin's second term?
Posted by: Fred at Nov 28, 2009 5:02:00 PM
Soon: candidates who spent childhood playing "Grand Theft Auto".
Posted by: zbicyclist at Nov 28, 2009 5:05:39 PM
How very amusing! Commie fucking nonsense.
Posted by: Bob at Nov 28, 2009 5:25:48 PM
Billswift hit the nail on the head.
Posted by: Ryan at Nov 28, 2009 5:41:51 PM
Tyler, now that you have claimed expertise in foreign policy (in addition to Scrabble), I'm waiting for your review of Obama's foreign policy. In particular, I look forward to your application of Tom Schelling's views on strategies to deal with critical bilateral relations.
Posted by: E. Barandiaran at Nov 28, 2009 5:53:23 PM
Aw, c'mon: the last sentence is gratuitous.
Respectfully request a follow-up post, wherein you describe how you would personally derive a foreign policy based upon a casual riff about a board game, sir.
Posted by: smitty at Nov 28, 2009 5:58:17 PM
Palin Derangement Syndrome -- it can strike anywhere, any time.
Posted by: Jim at Nov 28, 2009 6:15:19 PM
I'd be more interested in how she plays Settlers of Catan. Or Diplomacy.
Posted by: Noah Yetter at Nov 28, 2009 6:21:03 PM
All the Palin bashing has gotten rather absurd. What percentage of Washington politicians are smarter than Palin? 50%? 30%? 60%? She's probably pretty average. Does anyone think Maxine Waters is smarter? How about Harry Reid?
What annoys me:
Oppose trade, and the media treats you as an intellectual.
Don't attend Ivy League schools and believe in God, and the media treats you not only as an idiot, but with contempt.
It's identity politics run amok, as if the establishment in the liberal bastions of San Francisco and New York don't believe the common folk in the rest of the country are fit to govern themselves.
Posted by: mgunn at Nov 28, 2009 6:45:37 PM
It's identity politics run amok, as if the establishment in the liberal bastions of San Francisco and New York don't believe the common folk in the rest of the country are fit to govern themselves.
It is not "identity" politics. It is the increasing concentration of power in a centralized government, in all 3 branches of the federal government.
Tell your state legislators to uphold their oath of office and resist further encroachment and domination of your state by the feds. Tell your state legislators to read their own state's constitution and the 10th Amendment to the US Constitution.
Posted by: anon at Nov 28, 2009 7:07:50 PM
"If this is her game of Scrabble, you can only imagine what her foreign policy would be like."
If this is your idea of how someone should qualify for President, I can only imagine what your ideal candidate is.
On a lighter note, as annoying as picking up a Q is, it is worth all of the other failures when you can lay down QUOTIDIAN in game of Fast Scrabble.
Posted by: Eric at Nov 28, 2009 7:36:17 PM
I'm not sure who I'd rather avoid reading, Andrew Sullivan or Sarah Palin...
Posted by: tkehler at Nov 28, 2009 7:47:59 PM
Nathaniel,
That was very witty, hah hah, but in case you have not been following things the latest reports are that Khamenei is actually the anti-nuclear weapons guy in the Iranian leadership, with power shifting to the more militaristic Revolutionary Guards. Khamenei long ago issued a fatwa against nuclear weapons, and there is every reason to believe he means it. The RGs do not. So, if Palin followed your proposed strategy, well, that would much dumber than hoarding Ks and Qs in Scrabble.
Posted by: Barkley Rosser at Nov 28, 2009 8:21:19 PM
I'm really not a Palin fan and I play Scrabble well. But as a parent I'm curious
1. which American politician would MR's readers like their children to emulate,
2. how inconsequential should we deem political success in America, and
3. what do our answers suggest about our politics and its ultimate end?
Posted by: toss255 at Nov 28, 2009 8:38:28 PM
I voted McCain / Palin. It would have been the better of two terrible options.
Right now, the republicans are having a resurgence moreso because of barack obamas incompitence, rather than their own confidence.
But they will destroy all that if she seeks the office of the presidency.
Thoughout the whole election, and even now, I was and still am disgusted with the way the left has treated Palin. At the same time, I hope she is never president.
Posted by: mark at Nov 28, 2009 9:12:40 PM
Yeah, a lot of big talk from people that don't seem to play a lot of scrabble, which is surprising given that everyone seemed addicted to scrabulous for a while last year. As others have mentioned, QI and QAT are great ways to score high points, by putting the Q on a triple LETTER score, that plays both vertically and horizontally, you can often get 62 points for a 2 letter word. More than the 50 points you get for using all 7 letters.
Posted by: Ben Ho at Nov 28, 2009 11:06:20 PM
Ben Ho illustrates the fatuous presumption of knowledge in some big talkers. Bravo Ben!
Posted by: indianajim at Nov 28, 2009 11:42:32 PM
Hoarding Ks and Qs - sounds more like a game of Bridge (to nowhere).
Posted by: anon at Nov 29, 2009 12:38:20 AM
Sure are a lot of people taking Tyler's obviously-kidding last sentence very very seriously.
Posted by: Andrew Edwards at Nov 29, 2009 12:58:04 AM
Tyler, I don't want you to look like an idiot, but please read this:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/28/opinion/28sat1.html?_r=1
Posted by: E. Barandiaran at Nov 29, 2009 5:49:35 AM
Indeed the alternatives to Sarah Palin are much better. Read
http://justoneminute.typepad.com/main/2009/11/from-the-department-of-2020-hindsight-john-kerry-chairman.html
http://www.julescrittenden.com/2009/11/28/no-dithering-around/
Posted by: E. Barandiaran at Nov 29, 2009 5:55:47 AM
"What if she were surrounded by all of the right people"
Actually her Scrabble problem appears to be with the people around her, as it is other people's strategy she was describing.
Posted by: Leigh Caldwell at Nov 29, 2009 6:57:41 AM
"If you are happy because you could lay down "quit" on a double word score..."
That must be her favorite word.
Posted by: Mark O. at Nov 29, 2009 7:00:23 AM
Tyler, don't overlook the fact the fact that K and Q are very common letters in a host of languages (Germanic and Romance, resp.). So Palin might do a lot better abroad than in the US.
However, this linguistic remark is not intended to encourage her in any way to do more than gaze at other countries across the Beringstreet.
Posted by: Guido Thys at Nov 29, 2009 7:25:27 AM
Quilting
Posted by: Bea at Nov 29, 2009 8:36:33 AM
I know the last line is a joke, but I didn't realize that immediately! :)
@David Pinto at Nov 28, 2009 4:41:23 PM:
Even considering that one of the Z's will have to be a blank tile, since there's only one 'Z' tile in Scrabble?
Posted by: Arnold D'Souza at Nov 29, 2009 11:28:08 AM
Palin's proprietary lexicon of Q and K words is arbitrarily large because she has license to make stuff up.
Posted by: Michael Drake at Nov 29, 2009 12:27:19 PM
Isn't Vazquez a proper noun?
Posted by: John at Nov 29, 2009 1:09:08 PM
