16 Jun 2012 - 1st Jurong Green CC Mindsports Day

The 1st Jurong Green CC Mindsports Day comprised of 2 mind sports - Weiqi and Scrabble. In this short tournament of 7 rounds, NTU WGS members infiltrated the respective scrabble divisions in pairs, aiming for glory in their tag teams.

In Division A, GM LKB and Master Sky faced off other Masters in this highly skilled arena, and some notable results include Sky's win of 520-283 with a mega spread of +237. Our own players ended up facing each other in Round 4, with Sky coming back from a very large deficit to score 2 bingos in the last 2 turns, resulting in a small victory of +64 for Kian Boon.

Eugene and Gabriel played in a relatively peaceful Division B, where even the high game was only a meagre 469, jointly set by Gabriel and another player. Our players also ended up on opposite sides of the board in round 4, culminating in what could probably be called the "Low Game" of the tournament, with a total score of just 625, ending 365-270 in Gabriel's favor. In the end, Gabriel managed to achieved 3rd position in Division B.

In Division C stood Chun Kin and Jinghan, both relatively new in the local scrabble scene, but battling bravely into their 2nd (I think) local competition. Chun Kin played splendidly in Round 6 to win with a spread of +258, the 3rd highest in Div C, while Jinghan played carefully to eke out 2 narrow wins with margins of +22 and +10.

Good job to all the players, and strive on! The National Scrabble Championship 2012 will be held at Bishan CC this year on July 21 and 22, and it will be a much more exciting event, with 16 rounds being played in both Divisions A and B, and 8 rounds for Division C.

A Deeper Understanding of the game of Boggle

What do we all know about Boggle? You need 16 tiles, 3 minutes, a piece of paper, a pen (preferably ballpoint), and a hand (or two) to play. In 2 lines, that's it.

How to improve your Boggle gameplay? Here's where it gets interesting...
First, take a look at the scoring system:
3 letters (1pt); 4 letters (1pt); 5 letters (2pts); 6 letters (3pts); 7 letters (5pts); 8 letters and more (7pts)

Some things we can deduce with respect to EFFICIENCY. Relating number of letters written to points awarded,

1. Writing 3 letter words are more efficient than 4 letter words
2. Writing 5 letter words are more efficient than 3 letter words
3. Writing 6 letter words are more efficient than 5 letter words

In general, longer words are rewarded better, with the sole exception being 4 letter words over 3 letter words. So shouldn't we just be learning long words? Why the importance on 3s and 4s?

2 reasons. Firstly, there are normally much more 3s and 4s on the board than 5s and 6s. Secondly, the difficulty level of finding 3s and 4s are much lower than 5s and 6s.

Next, we bring in the most important factor - the 3 minute time limit. This is more important than most people realize, and a 2 minute time limit or a 4 minute time limit would change gameplay TOTALLY. To write long words, or to write short words, that is the question. And this is the deciding factor (in my opinion).

Within these 3 minutes, there are 2 kinds of boards - Boards that you can write finish your words (to the best of your word knowledge), and boards that are so big that you can write nonstop for these 3 minutes.

In the first kind of board, it is clear that the player with superior word knowledge will dominate. As the board is small enough for both players to finish writing their words, naturally the player who knows more words will write more words. In this case, it would be prudent to start with 3s and 4s (since you can finish writing them anyway) before moving onto 5s and 6s. Should you start by finding 5s and 6s, on a small board, you may not be able to find enough to outscore your opponent who would have been writing simple 3s and 4s, and by the time you give up and move to 3s and 4s, you may not have enough time.

However, on the second kind of board, where there are so many words that players cannot finish writing, word knowledge is only secondary. Speed of finding words (not writing speed) and strategy is far more important here. Why? Assuming both players start by writing 3s and 4s, and when the time is up, they are only halfway across writing 4s. Naturally, all other factors constant, their score will be similar, because the player with the superior word knowledge does not get to fully utilize his advantage. In this case, to win, a player needs to find longer words, while at the same time maintaining his or her speed.

In reference to my above point, having a shorter time limit is like increasing the board size relative to time limit - you need to find longer words in order to secure an advantage, given similar writing speed. Having a longer time limit is like having a smaller board relative to time, it favors the player with superior word knowledge.

Some tips I have to offer on Boggle:

1. When playing a small/medium board (you have to stop and think to be able to find more words), the player who is more meticulous will win, given similar word knowledge, otherwise the player with better word knowledge will win.

• Being meticulous in extracting every single word you know from the board is easier, when you follow a logical and orderly way of finding words. Often we find that we miss words that we know, and in a small board, all these words would make a difference to the outcome.
• I adopt the anagram approach. Dividing the 4x4 board into 9 smaller 2x2 squares, I ALWAYS start from the 2x2 square in the top left corner, and find the 4 sets of 3 letter anagrams, and the 1 set of 4 letter anagrams.
• Before moving right to the next 2x2 square, I check if there are any words overlapping the 1st and 2nd 2x2 squares, before finding the 4 sets of 3 letter anagrams in the 2nd set of 2x2 squares, as well as the 1 set of 4 letter anagrams.
• I start from the top left, move all the way right, then go one level down, move all the way left, before going to the bottom level, and moving all the way right to complete all my 9 2x2 squares of anagrams. 
• After that I spend a few seconds checking for 3 and 4 letter words btwn groups of 2x2 squares which I missed, before trying to find longer words.
• Of course, you may happen to see longer words while looking for anagrams, and of course you should write them down immediately, but ALWAYS remember where you left off with your anagrams.
• In writing anagrams, it is best to have a fixed way of writing them down. For example, when I see the well known combo A,T,E,S. I ALWAYS write them in this order: ATE, ATES, EAT, EATS, ETA, ETAS, TAE, TAES, TEA, TEAS, SET, TES, EST, SAT, TAS, SEA, SAE, EAS, SEAT, SATE, SETA, EAST. 22 points, and I know with full confidence I won't miss a single one, nor will I have to stop and think which one I missed out, if I did. (Of course now with CSW12, ATS is a word too, so I will have to add that in)

2. The playing strategy is different with a big board. Being meticulous isn't necessary, as there are too many words to find. The essence is to find the big points, while maintaining  your FINDING and WRITING speed. I don't have a good gauge right now, since I having played writing boggle for months (only prolific), but I would say maintaining 3 letters per second would be about the maximum writing speed one can have. That would translate to 180 pts for all 3 letter words, and more for longer words.

• Identify the 's' on the board. It would be disastrous to find 40 words, and then realize half of them can add an 's' behind. If those are 4 letter words waiting to be converted to 5 points, it will be all the more painful.
• This time I use the hook approach. I still start in the top left corner, and start by finding anagrams, but I don't stick to the anagram method. This is just to buy me some time to find my hooks, while scoring points.
• Once I spot some nice hooking material, say 'ill', i jump to that, remembering where I left off. 'Ill' takes almost anything in front, except the vowels, q and x (that's 19). Don't forget the 5 letter 'ill' words such as trill, quill too.
• After I'm done with that, I go back to the anagram I was at to buy me some time before jumping to my next hook. 'Ing' is good too, lots of stuff goes in front (e.g. ding, hing, wing, sing...) Even better, after you're done with the front, lots of those take an 'e' at the back too (dinge, hinge, winge, singe), so that's a lot of points. Done? Get back to anagrams.
• In general, I follow the order of starting top left, moving right, then down one level, then left, then down one level, then right. But at any time you spot big points, don't hesitate to get to them immediately. Even if you forgot where you left off, don't waste time trying to find. Just choose a point, say 2nd row 1st block and start there.
• The key to FINDING words faster, is to be finding while you are writing. Looking at your paper and writing is a big no no. Constantly glance up to find your next set of words. Set of words, not word. Finding groups of anagrams or hooks will buy you more thinking time while you write them down, as compared to one word by itself. Moreover, you should always be finding one step ahead than your writing. Also, as I've mentioned earlier, having a practiced way of writing your anagrams down helps you to not miss stuff.
• If you find that you've missed 1 or 2 anagrams or hooks, DON'T WASTE TIME THINKING. Move on. There are other fish to be found in the sea.
• Combining hooks with anagrams are also useful, especially words that you can flip behind. E.g. ANT/tan/nat -> ANTE/etna(neat and tane if available) -> ANTA/ANTAR/ANTAE/ANTRE. By expecting these words, I can spot them quicker.
• Of course, this is just the playstyle I have determined works best for me with my given word knowledge. Using this, I can hit 150 constantly with big boards. Hope this can help those trying to break into 100 for big boards, and those trying to improve from 100-120 onwards.
•  P.S. I have heard that other players like Jeya adopt a different style, finding long words, and then breaking them down into smaller words. To do that, you need to have sufficient long word knowledge, and you cannot waste too much time chasing the ghosts of long words that aren't there. He has scored >200 with his method, so perhaps those seasoned scrabble players can try this.

Some useful big points to look out for:

1. TEA -> TEAD/taed/date -> TEADE/TEAED
2. STEAN -> STEANE -> STEANED
3. ?EAR -> ?EARE (lots of those) [one of them is STEAR->STEARE->STEARED, and scrabble players will know STEARIN -> STEARINE
4. WEETE/etwee -> WEETED/WEETER/WEETEN
5. Always look out for -ER, -ED, -ING, -IER, -EST, -IEST suffixes. Missing one whole set could be as costly as 20-30 points.