“Yo, Marlon, I made a play for you tonight,” I say.
“What’s that?”
“DASHIKIS.”
He immediately gives me a soul handshake and one of his deep, appreciative laughs. “That’s good!” he says. “That’s damn good! How you know that word?”
I’m starting to notice that the intensity of Marlon’s cause is inversely proportional to his performance in Scrabble. The angrier he gets, the worse he plays. While I was in Australia, Marlon drove to a series of Florida tournaments with the Baltimore expert Gordon Shapiro, a round, retired trucker with W. C. Fields’s face and Archie Bunker’s sensibilities. In three tournaments, against relatively weak competition, Marlon went 7–5, 8–4, and a horrifying 6–10. His rating plummeted to 1732—lower than his inaugural rating. Worse, the NSA received complaints about Marlon’s behavior—cursing during games, storming out of the playing room, shouting in the hallway—and was considering taking action against him. “It’s gotten to be too much,” a Scrabble official tells me.
The mathematics of Scrabble—of life, really—dictate that, over time, in randomly occurring phenomena, like choosing seven tiles from a bag of one hundred, luck tends to even out. Edley has taught me to respect probability, never to complain about my tiles, to believe that I can control even the tiles I pick. But Marlon doesn’t believe in probability. He believes only that his luck sucks, and that he is still better than just about every player out there. “There are less than ten people, RIGHT NOW, I would not play” for $1,000, Marlon posted on CGP. In Bird-in-Hand, he puts the number at seven, including Edley, Matt, Ron Tiekert, Brian Cappelletto, and Samson Okasagah, a Nigerian expert now living in Washington, D.C.
“Adam Logan?” I say, mentioning the red-bearded mathematician and 1996 Nationals champion.
“Yes.” Marlon would play him.
“Lester?”
“Yes. He’s old.”
“Wapnick? Sherman?”
“Deh-fu-nit-ly.”
On Saturday afternoon, after the seventh game of the tournament, Matt rushes to find me in the intermediate playing room, which is on the opposite side of the hotel swimming pool from the experts’ room.
“Marlon's erupting,” he says.
I’ve just played OFFBEaTS to a triple-word score for 104 points late in a game. Displaying classic Scrabble behavior, I'm more interested in showing off my brilliant play than in hearing about Marlon.
I get Matt to admire the play, then I cross the pool for an update. Marlon has been drawing bad tiles and losing, and letting everyone know about it. His usual chorus of “God-damn” and “This is ree-dick-uh-luss!” has been punctuated by profanities. He’s storming out of the playing room during games. He berated the New York expert Lynn Cushman for playing AZIDO in a spot permitting a high-scoring counterplay when, in Marlon's estimation, she should have played the Z more conservatively.
“Well, Marlon, when you draw these tiles you can play them the way you want,” Lynn told him, before he raced out of the playing room one more time. “He’s behaving like an eight-year-old asshole,” Matt Hopkins, a skullcap-wearing Philadelphia player who’s helping to run the tournament, tells me in the hallway. “If it was my tournament, he’d be out the door.”
When I spot Marlon before Game 8, he is frowning deeply and staring sullenly into the void. He looks like a teenager in after-school detention.
“Stupid shit keep happening to me,” he tells me later. “I'm losing in ways not even fucking imaginable.” He admits to acting up, especially against Lynn, but he's in no mood to apologize. She made a dumb play, he says, and then benefited a turn later.
“I went ballistic,” Marlon says. “Make a totally fucked-up play and get rewarded for it. I told everybody to kiss my ass.”
I’m staring at EEGLNS?.
Instantly, I think FEELINGS. Then the song “Feelings” comes into my head and I can’t get it out before it’s stuck on one of those endless loops, distracting me during a close game. “Nothing more than FEELINGS,” it screams, and I can't even play the word, or any other bingo, on the tightly packed board. I open things up with GLENS to a triple-word score, saving E? (“...trying to forget my...”), and draw BFFOT, and the song is still there (“...FEELINGS of love...”). I make my (brilliant) play OFFBEaTS (“...wo, wo, wo,...”), draw a challenge, pull the X and the second blank, slap down PaX for 55 (“... again in my heart...”), and wind up winning 454–289.
I do the math: From the time “Feelings” began its torturous soundtrack, I outscored my opponent 237 to 63. I never realized how much I loved that song.
There are twenty-six players in the second division (of three) at Bird-in-Hand, and I’m in the middle of the pack. I know a handful of the players from previous tournaments, but none scares me. In fact, I walked into the Eagle Room (who names hotel conference rooms?) a little full of myself. The two weeks in Australia hobnobbing with the stars, a string of victories at the club and in the park, even my first two wins over Matt in the bar—I think I’m prime time. I’ve long forgotten my Scrabble malaise. No one rated under 1700 intimidates me (much), whereas just a few months ago I was awed by the number next to a player’s name.
Plus, the simple act of engaging in regular word study has boosted my confidence; I’d been through all of the fours twice in a week, solving the anagrams for each, highlighting in yellow the words I miss, and then reviewing those. Once I got over the panic owing to hunger and lateness, I surveyed the room—dingy compared with the Worlds, with its wide, cloth-covered tables adorned with the little flags—and thought, “You’re not going to lose here. You’re a favorite. Now go prove it.”
On Saturday morning, I down a banana and a Clif Bar and run three miles though the manure-scented Amish country air. I win the day’s first two games to improve to 4–1. I drop a squeaker. I rebound with the FEELINGS game and take the final game of the day, as well, getting away with a famous phony, UNTIMED*. At 6–2, I’m tied for the best record, walking on manure-scented air.
Over dinner with Matt down the road at the Intercourse Village Restaurant—pork chops and applesauce for me, crab cakes for Matt, the check for me—we talk about Marlon’s outbursts, and how they hurt his game and his reputation. Matt suddenly is the rational member of my little band of Scrabblers. He swallows a plastic container’s worth of pills.
“It’s just a self-perpetuating cycle that makes him not get better at what he wants to be good at,” Matt says. “There’s a good amount of talent there. That’s not what the problem is.”
The problem is self-control, about blaming luck, about not taking responsibility for his game. “I’ve talked to him about it. But it doesn’t seem to help. He’s let himself down as a player, and he doesn’t put the best face on himself. It’s too bad. He’s got so many good qualities no one knows about.” Matt describes Marlon with terms I’ve never heard him use before to describe a friend—intelligence, warmth, depth of humor—and I recall that Marlon was one of the few people Matt turned to when he was sick.
I point out that the problem may not be Marlon’s letters but Marlon’s weltanschauung.
“Surely he doesn’t think The Man is fixing the tiles,” Matt says.
He doesn’t have to think it’s racial, I say.
“Right. It’s just that he’s getting fucked over.”
The next morning, I lose Game 9 with a bad blunder, playing a phony (REAIRING*) when patience would have revealed an actual word (GRAINIER). I’m 6–3 and starting to think negatively. I’ve blown tournaments with late droughts before, and every time, I’m convinced, it’s been because of my attitude. I repeat my mantra: I can win, I can win, I can win.
Despite pulling only one of the four S’s, I draw well enough to win Game 10 against Ann Mirabito, a direct-marketing executive who aspires to experthood. Ann is curious, analytical, socialized, and sportsmanlike—a rare Scrabble grand slam. So I’m not disappointed when we’re paired again in Game 11, especially since I have the psychological upper hand
.
I make a bad play on the second turn of the game—eschewing GOLDEST, about which I’m unsure—but quickly counter with a phony, VALENTS*, which Ann lets go by, thinking, like me, that it has to be a plausible variation of COVALENT. (LEVANTS, a verb meaning to avoid a debt, is the real word in that mix of letters.) On the next turn, I unhesitatingly plunk down LUNCHER for 81 points. Ann challenges.
“The play is acceptable,” Charlene, the word judge, announces.
I wasn’t sure of the word, but figured it made too much sense not to be good—to lunch is a verb; ergo, one who lunches is a luncher. It’s not a risky move of the kind I like to think I only used to make, but a smart, logical, grounded decision. I draw EIIJKNT and stare at my rack, and the board, for nearly two minutes. I’m ahead by 20493, cruising to an easy victory. I could play it safe with JEU for 30 points (leaving the ugly IIKNT) or take a chance with a creative play: INKJET, for 34.
I weigh the options. I wonder whether INKJET has made it into our word source; many computer-related terms (LAN*, INTERNET#) haven’t. Then I weigh the risks. If it’s good, and Ann challenges, I’ll pile up spread points. If it’s not, I’ll still hold a commanding lead. So I play it. Ann challenges. Charlene returns to the table and thumbs through the OWL.
“I know INKJET isn’t a word in WordPerfect’s spell-checker,” Ann says. Given the score, and her general perky demeanor, I’m not offended by the coffeehousing.
“The play is acceptable,” Charlene says, her voice rising with surprise or respect or both.
“Ugh!” Ann sighs, slumping over. I’m up 238–93. I play HAJI for 40. Ann exchanges. I lay down HERTZ for 34. I’ve been able to make four consecutive plays and built a 312–93 lead. Later, Ann opens up a bingo lane, allowing me to add insult to injury. Down comes VIRTUeS for 66.
Final score: 487–266.
I take a deep breath. I realize that I am guaranteed to finish first or second in the tournament.
No one has kissed Marlon’s ass, but he isn’t thrown out of the tournament either. By Saturday night, Marlon had calmed down, despite his 3–5 record, and even apologized for his outbursts. “My behavior was deplorable,” he says as we sit in the expert room, where a halfdozen games of Scrabble, Anagrams, and Boggle are in progress. When I suggest that he might be at risk of getting suspended or sanctioned by the National Scrabble Association, Marlon scoffs. “They can’t kick my ass out of tournaments. My behavior was bad, but puh- leeze.”
I think Marlon has been playing too much, and doing too little of anything else. He’s like a gambler who can’t refuse another hand even though he’s borrowing money to get in the game.
The man in full emerges: Marlon as victim, Marlon as unlucky, Marlon as oppressed—by the cops, by employers, by The Man, by the tile gods themselves. “You wouldn’t understand,” Marlon often says, leaving off the first half of the phrase (“It’s a black thing”), whether he’s talking about drawing a W and a U in tandem or fewer than half of the blanks or a string of consonants befitting a Bosnian city. But I do understand: Marlon needs to stand out more than he needs to win.
“That’s it,” Marlon tells me. “The Nationals is gonna be my last tournament.”
I write down his words in my notebook, but I don’t believe them for an instant.
I’m standing in the hotel parking lot. A group of Amish boys, no older than ten, walk by in straw hats, black pants, and white shirts, and I imagine how I would explain to them what I’m experiencing right now: how I’m about to play a big Scrabble game, how I’m eating a Snickers bar for energy, how I’m standing here alone, breathing deeply the malodorous air, because I need to focus on the game, to minimize distractions, to get away from the white-noise chitchat that fills the playing rooms between rounds.
Could I make them understand why this tournament is important to me? Why the act of playing a single round of a mass-produced board game against a middle-aged woman will affect my mood and self-esteem for days to come? Could I explain the player I walked past in the hotel parking lot this morning, mumbling to himself, who didn’t look up, who looked mentally lost? Could I explain how I can relate to that sort of behavior, how this game has made the socially bizarre commonplace?
I visit the expert room for an update on Matt (he has lost two of three today, dropping out of contention) and to update my friends on where I stand. Marlon has chilled out enough to congratulate me on being in first place—I’m tied with one other player at 8–3, but my spread of +753 is more than 300 points greater than anyone else’s in the division, which is how I know I’ll finish either first or second. “Now go do it!” Marlon barks at me, slapping my hand.
My opponent is the other 8–3 player, Wendy Littman, a fellow Brooklynite who is in a wheelchair with multiple sclerosis. Wendy handed me one of my losses. She’s a fine player, as her record and her 1506 rating would indicate. But nothing can faze me now. I feel confident, tough, centered. Like Joe Edley at the 1980 Nationals, I have this weird feeling that I’m going to win. The game is secondary; I already know the outcome.
So I play self-assuredly. Wendy opens with HARES, leaving an obvious front hook with an S. I casually lay down BASINAL, take my 71 points, and hope she challenges. She doesn’t, and rebounds with the double-double SNEAKED for 48. I play NIXE and OOZY and go ahead 171–126 and feel as if I can’t lose.
I doubt Wendy feels any pressure. She’s played hundreds of games, won a few tournaments, and probably doesn’t care much whether her rating goes up or down or even whether she wins the $250 first prize or the $125 for second. She’s just playing tiles, I know. She doesn’t take much time on her moves, doesn’t get anguished. And why should she? It’s just a game.
So when she plays VOLVO* for 33, I don’t bother challenging because, I think, she doesn’t seem like the type to play phonies. (VULVA, VOLVA, VOLVOX, VOLVATE, VOLVULI, but no VOLVO*.) Wendy chips away at my lead, and after I exchange late in the game with three I’s and two R’s on my rack, she moves ahead. Neither blank is on the board, and I start to worry. I retake the lead, and pull a blank. I get away with a phony three. The bag is empty. Wendy plays JILT to tie the game at 341–341.
I hold DTUU? and see DUSTUP, but no open P or S to make it work. I determine that she holds II?, and breathe easier. I’ve got less than thirty seconds on my clock and no time for analysis. I play DUsT for 13 points, leaving myself a U. Panic! There’s no place to play the U! But then I see two N’s a space apart (NUN) and another orphan N (NU) and relax. I realize I can’t lose, and I don’t. Final score: 354–347.
Wendy shakes my hand, and other players gather to offer congratulations. I’m trembling from stress and satisfaction. My final record is 9–3, +760. I played smartly. I didn’t take foolish risks. I crushed the field on spread. I never thought I would lose—except for that fleeting moment late in the final game. Craving the affirmation of my peers, I head over to the expert room. Dominic Grillo, the young, muttonchopped, marathon-running engineer from New Jersey, praises my word knowledge, saying, “This guy’s playing words I don’t even know.” My club friends—Sally Ricketts and Lynn Cushman and G.I. Joel’s brother, Larry—are pleased. Marlon bear-hugs me. Matt shakes my hand. The two of them may be coming unhinged, affecting both their lives and their Scrabble, but I’m finally discovering my game.
At the awards ceremony, the division director introduces me by saying, “He gave everybody problems throughout the tournament,” and I smile at this high praise. I accept my check and a sixteen-inch-high trophy with Nike, the winged goddess of victory, holding a torch aloft on a purple stand. The inscription reads SCRABBLE TOURNAMENT 1999 FIRST PLACE INTERMEDIATE BIRD-IN-HAND, PA. I crouch next to Wendy for a photo.
This is so cool. I haven’t won a trophy in twenty years.
I call Joe Edley in hopes of collecting more kudos. But first I give him credit. I had talked to Edley the day before Bird-in-Hand just as I had when I won my first tournament six months ago. He laughs and asks me how I did it. I credit his tips on co
ncentration, focus, patience, and stamina.
“Sounds to me like you’re ready for Division 2.” For a second, I stop breathing. Classic Edley, I think, the Most Hated Man in Scrabble at his condescending finest. This was Division 2, Joe, I want to say, and I won it, and by now haven’t I established myself as a legitimate intermediate player—not that that means very much to you elitist experts? Sensing my jaw lying on the floor, though, Joe recovers. “To win it,” he says.
I realize that he means the Nationals next summer in Providence. And he’s serious. There will be six divisions at the event. The ratings brackets are set at 1900 and up for Division 1, 1700 to 1899 for Division 2, and 1500 to 1699 for Division 3. Players will be able to play up one full division. By then, I’ll surely be well above 1500, if not 1600, so I’ll be able to move into Division 2, where not a few experts will camp out.
In Bird-in-Hand, Matt joked that I was the George Plimpton of Scrabble. Well, now I’m thinking that I’m not wearing the number 0, the way Plimpton did when he played quarterback for the Detroit Lions. No one’s giving me a free ride, letting me take a few snaps with the big boys. I’m clawing my way up—humiliating myself in afterhours games against higher-rated players, struggling to find anagrams that Matt tosses my way, failing to keep pace with the logological banter when the boys gather. I see myself less as George Plimpton than as an athlete who has to work harder to compensate for limited natural talent.
Now I have my goal: Win Providence.
Word Freak : Heartbreak, Triumph, Genius, and Obsession in the World of Competitive Scrabble Players (9780547524313) Page 33