Word Nerd: Dispatches From the Games, Grammar, and Geek Underground

by John D. Williams Jr

  I decided to review the statistics on Cross-tables.com to check the number of women listed in the Top 25 players in North America. There was one: Canadian Robin Pollock Daniel in twenty-fifth place. Maybe more disheartening for women is that a thirteen-year-old boy, Mack Meller of New York, was ranked eighth. Granted, Mack is the current prodigy in a game culture that has only seen a handful in forty years, but still. What’s the deal?

  If we look deeper down the list, through the Top 50, we find two more women. Expand it to the Top 100 and the number of females rises to seven. Equally as inexplicable is the fact that only one woman has won a National SCRABBLE Championship in the history of the event. That was Rita Norr in 1987.

  An unassuming role model, Rita, who died in 2010 at just sixty-six years old, was smart and gracious. She told me a number of times that she felt extremely fortunate to have won and was mystified why twenty-five years later her accomplishment was never duplicated.

  So let’s agree that, despite disturbing conclusions, we’ll throw out the statistical evidence regarding male supremacy across the SCRABBLE board. How else could one explain it?

  One theory is that men as a group still have more of a cultural imperative to be competitive and dominant, whether the venue is business, sports, board games, charades, whatever. Personally, I believe this will change over time as a couple of generations of young girls compete equally with and against boys in soccer, Little League baseball, and the like.

  Perhaps the best theory was put forth by veteran Sports Illustrated writer S. L. (Scott) Price, who wrote a brilliant piece on tournament SCRABBLE back in 1995. After Scott spent some time with top-level tournament SCRABBLE players, he issued this simple explanation. “Forget about all your fancy theories,” he told me. “Men are better at SCRABBLE than women because . . . women aren’t that nuts!”

  Men do have an affinity for trivia, collecting, and focusing on one thing to the exclusion of others. In my experience, women, not so much. Scott and I talked about how it’s boys and men who early on memorize baseball statistics, car features, and other arguably useless facts. It’s an easy transition from that dubious pastime to studying and learning thousands of esoteric words that no one else knows or uses. A cynical friend once suggested that a guy’s knowledge of sports trivia is in indirect proportion to his actual athletic ability. More than one high school basketball team statistician has said to the team captain, “Sure, you can dunk a basketball. But do you know the name of Ty Cobb’s parakeet?”

  ■ ■ ■

  I decided to go right to the source and talk to three top female SCRABBLE players about their thoughts on the issue. The first was Robin Pollock Daniel, universally recognized for years as the top woman player in North America. While this is an enviable distinction, it’s as if Robin walks around with an asterisk tattooed on her forehead. Why not just refer to her as one of the best players in the world?

  Robin is distinctive for a number of reasons. She’s scary smart, she’s funny, and she’s generous of spirit. The mother of two boys, Robin has worked professionally as a copywriter, a researcher, and a psychologist, among other things. While she is feared and respected by top players internationally, a major championship win has eluded her.

  It certainly isn’t for the lack of trying. Robin is one of the most dedicated students of the game ever. She spends three or four hours a day whenever possible studying words, playing online, or conducting tireless replays of previous matches—both hers and others. There’s a word-study program at Zyzzyva.net created by the brilliant Michael Thelen, where players can second-guess their peers’ moves and analyze “best play” in various situations. The artificial intelligence will tell them how often they find the best play, the second-best play, and so on. Robin routinely finds the best play 90 percent of the time!

  Even when she first started out as a tournament player almost thirty years ago, it was clear where Robin was headed. She won a Best Newcomer Award and in her second year of play jumped from a 1544 rating to a 1750 rating in one tournament! The Expert rating starts at 1600. Most people get there incrementally—often over a span of several years. Robin Pollock Daniel did it in one giant leap, and she never looked back.

  Robin has been ranked as high as third overall—for both genders—and says the overriding thing to remember is that “tournament SCRABBLE is a meritocracy at the end of the day. It’s really that simple.” As a result, she says, men always accept her as an equal. Her record speaks for itself. “If anyone felt I was a bit fraudulent playing among the big boys, it was me—not them,” she adds.

  I asked her about being referred to as “the best woman SCRABBLE player in the world.” Robin chooses not to see it as dismissive or qualifying. “It doesn’t bother me in the least,” she asserts. “I like it because at the end of the day I think of myself as a teacher, a mentor. It gives me credibility that I can leverage to help other women.” When I kidded Robin about her fierce, word-nerdish study habits, more associated with men than with women, she laughed. “Yeah, well, as Woody Allen says, men cite statistics to delay orgasm.”

  Like the other women experts I interviewed, Robin is not hopeful that the situation will improve anytime soon for women tournament players. For whatever reason—biological, cultural, etc.—the statistics say it all. “It’s the same now as it’s always been,” Robin laments. Despite the changes in the last twenty years—the introduction of the National School SCRABBLE Program, more tournaments, Internet play, new study techniques, and more—the rankings tell the same story. “We’re very lucky if there are three women in the Top 50 at any given time.”

  A quick look at the results of the National School SCRABBLE Championship bears this out. That event is now over a dozen years old. Competitors are grouped in teams of two, which means there have been forty-eight finalists in all those years. Only one has been female: Aune Mitchell, daughter of well-known SCRABBLE organizer and coach Cornelia Guest. Aune was on the winning team in 2007 with Matthew Silver; she no longer competes regularly in tournaments.

  Out of curiosity, I decided to check out the male/female ratio for the National Spelling Bee. More established and better known than the National School SCRABBLE Championship, the bee arguably targets the same type of kid and the same ages, fifth to eighth grade. In theory, School SCRABBLE, if properly managed, has the potential to overtake the spelling bee in the future. Let’s face it, for most of us, SCRABBLE is a lot more fun than standing up in front of a bunch of people, trembling as you try to visualize, then correctly spell a twelve-letter word that even a World SCRABBLE Champion would not know. And when was the last time any of us participated in a spelling bee? A person can play SCRABBLE for his or her entire life.

  In reviewing the results of the National Spelling Bee over the last dozen years, we find that girls have won forty-six times through 2013. While not dominant, it is certainly statistically superior to their performance at SCRABBLE and better than boys, who’ve won the National Spelling Bee forty-one times.

  Now let’s look at crossword puzzle competition. Will Shortz, organizer of the annual American Crossword Puzzle Tournament, confirms that women have won that event three times in thirty-six years and finished second a dozen times. Will attributes women’s better showing at crossword puzzles to the following reason: “SCRABBLE is almost purely a math game at its essence, which favors males, whereas crosswords blend some math acuity along with word skills and knowledge of various facts.”

  ■ ■ ■

  I next posed the gender question to Lisa Odom of St. Louis Park, Minnesota, another perennial top female competitor. Lisa started playing tournaments in 1989, having become hooked on the game in what was at the time the semiunderground New York club scene. This was the SCRABBLE world before Word Freak or SCRABBLE on ESPN. A time when tournament players still toiled in obscurity and sometimes only as few as a dozen players would show up at a handful of locations – a friendly restaurant, a church basement, or a YMCA. Everyone pretty much knew everyone else
, and strangers entered at their own risk. Newbies and curious living room players were often treated with a blend of bemusement and contempt, and only the hard core would return.

  Lisa Odom not only joined this scene, she thrived. Lisa’s credentials are impressive. She has been the only female member of the American team in the World SCRABBLE Championship three times, in 1993, 1999, and 2005. She was also one of a handful of women who competed in the $100,000 SCRABBLE Superstars Showdown in Las Vegas in 1995. In addition, Lisa is one of the few women in history to be a member of the 2000 Club, the most elite rating designation among tournament players—those who have been rated over 2000 in the official rankings. As of June 2014, only thirteen tournament players were rated 2000 or above. In addition, Lisa has also been ranked as high as sixth overall among the thousands of players who maintain ratings.

  When asked to rate her competitive nature on a scale of 1 to 10, Lisa hesitated, then replied, laughing, “If I’m honest, probably an 8 or 9. But I wasn’t always that way. It evolved over time.” It must make for interesting games at home, as Lisa’s husband, Steve Pellinen, is also a veteran top SCRABBLE expert and tournament organizer.

  Lisa’s approach to competition and SCRABBLE has evolved as well. During our conversation, she shared a personal mantra she has developed. It is the acronym LOVE: Look, Overlook, Verify, Evaluate.

  Look simply means look over the complete board for all opportunities for both yourself and your opponent. Overlook means repeat that exact same exercise. It’s amazing how many times players are certain they’ve found the best play—only to find a better one after one more pass over the board. Verify means make sure the play is good, the word acceptable. Evaluate means carefully assess that the play you are about to make is the best move. This, of course, means the best strategic move, not necessarily the most points. They are not always the same. Just ask anyone who’s played some of the weaker SCRABBLE apps out there. For them, it’s always about points only! Why? Because very often no SCRABBLE experts were consulted when the manufacturers and marketers designed these apps.

  As we discussed, a good SCRABBLE move is comprised of what you put on the board to score with and what you leave on your rack to work with. For example, let’s say you score 37 points but leave yourself the tiles U, U, V, C. Sure, you scored some points, but you are going to have terrible racks for the next several turns because of your terrible tile “leave.” A better play—strategically—would be to play off a couple of those tough tiles or exchange them for new ones.

  Predictably, Lisa is a keen student of the game. She studies about five hours a week, she says, and once recorded and analyzed every game she played for an entire year using Quackle, the genius SCRABBLE analysis software developed by Jason Katz-Brown while he was still an undergraduate at MIT. “I took a year off between jobs,” explains Lisa, who works in health care, “and, believe me, nothing helps your SCRABBLE career more than being unemployed!”

  Like her peers, Lisa is at a loss to explain the lack of female presence among the SCRABBLE competitive elite. “This is not rocket science,” she insists. “Women should definitely be able to do this.” That said, she agrees that the immediate future does not look good and that women have not yet caught up with men in SCRABBLE competitiveness. “I really hope one of us wins a World or National Championship again in my lifetime,” Lisa said.

  That led to a brief story about Rita Norr, a friend and mentor to Lisa. Rita was known for her sweetness but could also be tough. Lisa described a situation decades ago when Rita had researched and compiled a “3 to make 8 letters” word list on her own. Examples might be adding SEA to QUAKE to make SEAQUAKE or COT to QUEAN to make COTQUEAN. I know, I know. You’re asking yourself, “Who would know this stuff?” I was flattered that Lisa assumed that I did.

  Lisa kept asking Rita to share this secret list, but her friend refused for years. Remember, this was before computer-generated word lists existed. Many expert players hoarded their lists, not only for a competitive edge but because each represented perhaps a hundred hours of thankless, tedious research. In the end, though, Lisa’s persistence and Rita’s good nature prevailed and the list was shared.

  As we ended our conversation, I asked Lisa to randomly tell me one of her favorite plays. She barely hesitated. “It was the word GOLGOTHA, played through an existing H on the board.” It means “a burial ground.” Like many people, I’ve seen the word over the years—but never on a SCRABBLE board!

  ■ ■ ■

  Debbie Stegman is the sassy, smart girl you knew in high school. She has an MBA from Columbia University and spent nearly two decades pushing the proverbial glass ceiling to become a vice president of Warner Bros. In 2013, she decided to take a break from the corporate world to spend more time “being happy” and, of course, playing more SCRABBLE. Debbie is newer to the scene than both Lisa and Robin but no less tenacious with the tiles. She played in her first tournament in 2000 and has been on a fierce streak ever since. After just her second tournament, she was approached by a couple of top female experts who’d been watching the newcomer. “Some day, you are going to be one of us,” they told her. That was all the motivation she needed.

  The day we spoke, Debbie was ranked second among U.S. women and fifty-first overall. Debbie has a number of observations about the gender gap in tournament performance. She agrees with the other women I talked to that it all comes down to one’s sense of competition. “I think women are more competitive within themselves as individuals, but not with other women,” she suggests.

  Debbie also says she’s noticed an interesting gender-based dynamic at tournaments. “When a guy breaks away from the pack to take a decent lead in the field, everyone silently roots against him. Not on a personal level—at least most of the time—but because if he falters, their own chances improve. It’s logical and natural.” But on the rare occasion when a woman breaks away from the pack, she can almost feel all the other females bonding in support. “Women don’t root against each other,” Debbie says.

  Like Lisa and Robin, Debbie does not feel as if her male opponents are ever holding back or deferring to her in any way. She’s just another expert. I ask her if she ever feels it’s an advantage being a woman in a division full of men. She pauses. “Not really,” she muses, “although I’m not above putting on some fresh lipstick if I think it might distract my opponent.”

  Asked for one of her memorable plays, Debbie goes back to a match at the notoriously tough Manhattan SCRABBLE Club in midtown. One night, in a casual team game, Debbie was partnered with champions Robert Felt and Joel Sherman. In this situation, it’s understood in the SCRABBLE culture that the lesser player pretty much sits in silence—just observe and learn.

  But at one point in the game, Debbie just couldn’t help herself. As Felt and Sherman intensely studied their rack and the board for the best play, Debbie impulsively grabbed the tiles and, in one swift move, laid down the word SCIENTISTS.

  The table was stunned. The weakest player—a woman no less—had thrown down a ten-letter word! Even more astonishing is that the play was through disconnected letters already on the board. In other words, it’s not as if TIS was there and Debbie simply built around it. No, she wove her way through. This is classic board vision, and it doesn’t get any better than that.

  When I ask Debbie about the future fate of female players, she says she is not encouraged by what she sees: “It doesn’t look good for us.” She notes that while participation in the National School SCRABBLE Program is roughly even gender-wise, for the most part only the boys seem to go on past the eighth grade and enter the world of adult play. The same with prodigies. There has never been a female SCRABBLE prodigy of the caliber of Brian Cappelletto, Adam Logan, or the current young star Mack Meller.

  As the father of two daughters, and as a male who grew up in a house filled with sisters, a mother, and a live-in aunt, I remain as discouraged as Robin, Lisa, and Debbie for the prospect of another female World or National SCRABBLE Ch
ampion. In fact, it appears the odds are much better that we’ll have a female president first. And I’m okay with that.

  16

  THE END GAME

  FEW MAJOR THINGS IN LIFE END when or how we presume they will. That marriage was over long before that first, raw, stilted visit to the couples counselor. Your favorite team’s championship hopes were exhausted long before they were mathematically eliminated. Sometimes the ending is a protracted, abstract, corrosive process that seemingly happened while you were asleep. Other times it can be an abrupt, unexpected bombshell, a veritable Dear John letter that arrives with a benumbing thud.

  I knew my SCRABBLE career would end someday. I just didn’t know when, how, or why.

  I had specifically addressed “the end” a dozen years ago with Stefan Fatsis in Word Freak. Interviewed at the NSA’s height of activity, I cautioned that it was unrealistic to assume this streak would last indefinitely. Over the course of my career, I’d worked for and with some fairly heady companies. They included not just Hasbro but Nickelodeon, Simon & Schuster, IBM, ESPN, MTV Networks, Merriam-Webster, CNN, Paramount, and numerous others. I’d been around the block. I’d learned firsthand the truth of the old adage that the only thing in business that remains the same is change—so be ready for it.

  Working with Hasbro—and previous SCRABBLE owners Selchow & Righter and Coleco—I’d probably collaborated with two hundred executives over the years. Some became friends and colleagues for decades. Others were simply bit players in the process. More than once, at all three companies that owned the game, my team and I had been told we would be working with a new executive who would be our point person for all SCRABBLE activities—only to find that person had been reassigned, had left, or had been fired before we’d even had a single meeting.