NONFICTION
To S c r a t c h , C l a u u , or
Grope
C l u m s i l L / | o r F r a r t i c a 11 Ly) j>
.ROXANEGAY
This is the definition of the word "scrabble"
according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary.
My third tournament started with a brutal game
In all seriousness. Scrabble was invented by a
where 1 lost by more than two hundred points. man named Alfred Mosher Butts.
1 was the fifth seed and feeling confident—too
confident, really. "We Are The Champions" may have been on an infinite loop in
my head. And yet. It was also early on a Saturday morning. 1 am not a morning
person. Before the tournament started, people milled around the hotel meeting
room chatting idly about the heat, what we had done since the last time many
of us had seen each other (the previous tournament in Illinois), and some of the
more amazing plays we had made recently.
Scrabble /• players love to talk, at length, with some repetition, about their
vocabulary triumphs.
There were twenty-one of us with various levels of ability but really, if you're
playing this game at the competitive level, you generally have some skill and can
be a contender. The more experienced players, the Dragos to my Rocky, studied
word lists and appeared intensely focused on something the rest of us couldn't
see. Many wore fanny packs without irony—serious fanny packs bulging vwth
mystery. As 1 waited for the tournament to begin, 1 studied the table of gamerelated accessories—books, a travel set, a towel, ^ , . ,
, ,.,
Scrabble tournaments are a lot like soccer tour-
„.„
a deluxe board, and some milled French soaps naments for four-year-olds in that, often times,
clearly taken from someone's closet-all for ^"^'^""^ ^°'' *^°"^""^^ """'^ something,
drawings to be held later in the day. ->
,
^
At nine o'clock, sharp, the tournament direc-
Officially rated tournaments are run by NASPA-
approved tournament directors, NASPA is the
North American Scrabble Players Association.
Tournament directors are generally encyclopedic in their knowledge of Scrabble and can
easily clarify any confusion about the rules or
negotiate disputes that arise during a tournament. Disputes, they arise.
tor,
You have to understand. 1 was lonely in a new
town where 1 knew no one. 1 wanted to be back
home, with my boyfriend, in our apartment,
complaining about how SportsCenter seems to air
perpetually or listening to him nag me about my
world competitions (thefirstworld champi-
°"=^*P ^^^ ^'^^ '" ^59i), a cottage industry of
Scrabble-related merchandise, game timers,
boards, tiles, etc., books, documentaries, and
academic articles on the nuances of competitive
Scrabble. There are Scrabble-related apps for
your iDevices (1 use Zarf, Checkword, the official Scrabble game, Lexulous, and Words With
Friends). There are Scrabble games on Facebook
(i play the official HASBRO game and Lexulous).
^^'^^^^'^ °"'™. here's the internet Scrabble
Club (ISC), where 1 also play. There is a website,
cross-tables.com, dedicated to tracking all the
° ^ " ^ ' tournaments in the country with scores
and rankings. 1 am ranked 1,651st in the country. I'm guessing that's out of 1800 players given
imaginary Internet friends. My apartment was
empty, no furniture, because 1 left my sad graduate student furniture behind. After work, I'd sit on my lone chair, a step above
._,
,
I. J J ^ , , ,
There are more than two hundred Scrabble
clubs in the United States. The club in my town
meets monthly while the club in Champaign,
,,,. .
,,,,..
..
Uhnois, meets weekly. In bigger cities, some
clubs will even meet twice a week.
sad, purchased at SofaMart, wondering how my
>
life had come to this.
,...
„
b
•
•... j
J
... i.
When my new colleague invited me to her
°
home to play with her Scrabble club,
.
,.
Henry is not his name.
He has the most gorgeous blue-gray eyes 1 have
ever seen. The beauty of his perfect eyes only makes me hate him more. He has
been known to wear a fanny pack and often scowls. Nemeses aren't born. They
are made.
Shortly after 1 started playing vAth my local Scrabble club, Marty told me
about a charity tournament he holds in Danville, said it would be a great experience for me to play. 1 had nothing to lose so 1 agreed. 1 had no idea what to expect
as 1 walked into the main building of the community college in Danville. After 1
registered, 1 stood awkwardly, wondering what to do until my club friends took
mercy on me and showed me the lay of tournament land.
Serious Scrabble people study words and remember matches from eight
years ago where they played a word for 173 points. They remember when they
didn't challenge a phony and lost the match. They remember everything. Some
serious Scrabble players are poor losers. 1 am a good loser. 1 am proud of this. 1
loveScrabblesomuchldon't careif llose. Ialso
,
,
. ^^ ^
1 have always enjoyed board games. 1 love roU-
have
to be
a good
loserUnlike
because
1 lose
a lot so
practicality
plays
a role.
most
serious
Scrabble players, 1 don't have the patience to study
all the possible three and four-letter words,
for example, but still, 1 am extremely competi-
ing !dice and moving small plastic or metal
sets from around the world. 1 will play any game
so long as there is a possibility 1 can win. 1 take
^^'"^ seriously. Sometimes 1 take them too
senously and conflate vnnmng the game of Life
with winning at life.
tive. -> It's an awkward combination.
1 began the tournament thinking, "1 am going to win this tournament." 1
approach most things in life with a dangerous level of confidence to balance my
generally low self-esteem. This helps me as a writer. Each time 1 submit a story
to fancy magazines like, say, the New Yorker or the Paris Review, 1 think, "This
story is totally going to get published."
My heart gets broken more than it should.
1 registered and got all my paperwork and such and looked around at the other
word nerds. 1 felt like people were checking me out. 1 was prepared to reenact the
GAV
SCRABBLE
beginning of "Beat It" when everyone is silently
stalking each other trying to size up the competition. There were thirty-two players, four groups
(based on ranking) with eight players in each.
We would play seven rounds to determine the
one Scrabble player to rule them all. The tournament director read off the names of each person
in each group along with their seed. He read my
name last and 1 understood my place. 1 was the
lowest ranked (worst player) in the room. /> 1 was
the last kid who would be picked for dodgeball.
1 sat down for my first round with the top
seed in my division and she was pretty cocky. 1
was too or 1 was trying to project cockiness and
calm. My hands were shaking under the table
1 was so nervous. My primary ambition was to
not humiliate myself, make any missteps where
Scrabble etiquette is concerned, -> or shame the
members of my Scrabble Club, several of whom
were in attendance.
My opponent looked up and said, "1 was in the
next highest division yesterday." The gauntlet
was thrown. She said it with a kind, warm smile
but she was trying to intimidate me. 1 could tell
by the way her upper lip curled. It worked. Well
played. 1 wondered if 1 could purchase adult
Scrabble people are really quite friendly and
gracious but to be clear, they are also intense
and serious as hell. 1 have an imagination. In my
head, as we prepared to word rumble, 1 felt as if
we were about to throw down like in the music
video for Michael Jackson's "Bad." A lot of my
life can be described in terms of Michael Jackson's music. I'd explain the significance of "Man
in the Mirror," but then you'd think 1 was crazy.
Players can be very... particular about how
you comport yourself during a Scrabble game.
Some players want complete silence during
matches so won't appreciate your idle chatter.
Some players think you're cheating if you play
with your phone. Don't take a call should your
phone ring, that's for sure. 1 once got a dirty
look for tapping on my phone vrithout muting
it. Apparently, the gentle beeps were simply
too much for that player. The longer you play,
the more you finely hone these particularities.
I, for example, have developed several Scrabble-related pet peeves and preferences. 1 have
strong opinions on the type of scoring sheets
1 use and the kind of pens I use to keep score
(Uniball .5mm roUerball). I now have a very low
tolerance for players who draw their tiles in
annoying ways. 1 am particularly aggravated by
players who do a lot of mixing the tiles up before
each draw. IT DOES NOT CHANGE THE OUTCOME. I
also do not look kindly upon players who tap the
tiles on the board as they tally their points. Why
are they doing that? What really sets me over
the edge, though, is when players wrill recount
my word scores after I've announced my score
attheendofa turn as if 1 am incapable of simple
math. Certainly, math is not my strong suit, but
in general, 1 have addition under control. When
this unnecessary score verification occurs, I
sometimes have to sit on my hands to keep from
punching a player in the face.
diapers at the nearest gas station.
The tournament started and 1 managed to spell my words and use the timer
correctly. 1 got into a rhythm. 1 placed a bingo, "ii I was feeling good. My skin
flushed warmly with early success. 1 started
A bingo is when you play all seven letters on
thinking 1 had a chance. Then Number One Seed your rack. This is one of the most coveted
proceeded to v«pe the board with my ass; the Scrabble plays. 1 am a bingo player. I have no
time to learn all the three-letter words and
final score was 366-277.1 smiled and shook her random obscure words so 1 spend most of my
time going for bingos because in addition to the
hand but a small piece of my soul was destroyed. points you earn from the board, you also earn a
fifty-point bonus. There are twenty-three pos1 thought, "Je suis désolée."
When 1 composed myself, 1 took stock of what
happened. 1 played decently and had two bingos
33
sible Scrabble words in BINGO.
NINTH
LETTER
overall. There was simply nothing 1 could do. 1 kept drawing terribly
and getting outplayed and she was so damn confident the entire time. Worse
,,, .
Don't get It twisted. Competitive Scrabble is
both word chess and word poker. You need a
ganie face and you need to wear that game face
hard.
yet. Number One Seed played me better than
-^
^ •'
she played t h e game.
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