2023 Scrabble Players Championship Game 17 - Andy Hoang vs. Rafi Stern

[@AlexeysCarcassonneChannel]

One of the most spectacular games I've ever seen! Also, appreciate the bit at 44:54. A bit of something for my generation.

[@mnelsoncool]

UGH I wish I didn't click that timestamp

[@mattcanik]

LOL

[@chloemchll3774]

As a former poker pro, I might read that quick confident play as more likely to be a bluff than a real play. A few things here: 1) One of the most basic “tell” rules is “strong means weak; weak means strong.” Visible displays of strength (such as quick confident actions or staring down your opponent) are typically signs of weakness (in non-pros). Similarly, acting weak (not making eye contact, taking unusually long amounts of time to make a decision, etc) are usually signs of strength. The idea here is most people know poker is a game of deception, but they don’t understand how to be deceptive except on the most surface of levels. This is one of the best known tells in poker, being a subject of several pages in Mike Caro’s book on reading tells (still seen as the most fundamental tell reading book by most poker players, albeit most modern players value tells a lot less and rely on math/game theory a lot more when it comes to this sort of thing, at least against other pros. Against the fish, however, sharks will use whatever gets them the most to eat.) 2) Acting quickly means someone is more likely to be bluffing. This may apply more to poker, but the idea is simple- a quick action is more likely to be a bluff because it happens when you know bluffing is your only chance to win, whereas with most other hands you probably have to think about whether you’re better off betting (and if so, how much to bet, unless you’re playing limit where bet sizes are forced) or checking. To say it more precisely, a quick bet is more likely to be either a complete bluff or an unbeatable hand; it will rarely be anything in between unless your opponent is a sophisticated player (pros, generally) AND you know they know you are similarly sophisticated (pro), where you could be going into a leveling situation. Against most players, this tell is pretty reliable (it then becomes up to the player to figure out if it worth acting on, and what that action is, but it still is a good clue to work with in a lot of cases.) So this particular case is both played quickly (especially by the standard of how quickly he usually plays) and is trying to appear visibly strong and confident, and those two in combination would lead me to think about challenging if I had any doubt about the validity of the word. Something tells me Rafi knows better when he plays poker, and likely figured that, short of being up against another poker-literate scrabble player, it isn’t worth worrying about. Still, I wouldn’t attribute the way he played it to his poker background, as most poker players with a significant background in the game will be aware of at least one of the two above.

[@chloemchll3774]

One other thought: The biggest way poker likely helps a scrabble player isn’t by making you better at “bluffing”, but rather at reading your opponent’s rack based off their actions and your knowledge of their game. A lot of scrabble players already do this of course, but coming from poker, thinking about what your opponent has and what their intention is are two of the most critical skills in poker, so it is probably a lot easier for those with a poker background to learn how to do this in scrabble, and once they learn it, they will do it faster and more consistently than non-poker players with the same level of scrabble ability.

[@itchy7879]

gdi Matt I lost the game months later

[@ginggingna665]

21.44 Isn't GOLDTAIL on the L of lipides playable?

[@abraingaming963]

its not a word in nwl 23 i think not sure tho

[@Zurround]

Why is NONWHEAT not a word? Often cakes and breads are made without wheat due to issues with gluten. The "non" list is totally arbitrary and makes no damned sense to me and I tried to memorize it figuring if I did then any time I had NON on my rack I could quickly organize the other letters into a bingo if possible but even at THIS skill level they do not have it perfectly memorized? How the hell did Merriam Webster put that list together? its ABSURD. For example NONBANK is any building that is not a bank but is there a NONCHURCH or a NONSCHOOL or a NONOFFICE?

[@davidjury79]

My guess (I could be wrong) is that it simply comes down to whether they're able to document usage of the word in published material. If they have confirmed instances of NONBANK in print, but not NONCHURCH, NONSCHOOL, etc., that's all that matters. NONWHEAT may make perfect sense as a word in theory, but if it's not actually being used out in the wild, they don't have a basis for including it in the dictionary.

[@Zurround]

@@davidjury79 I get that. I once lost a turn and the game for playing MOATLESS which I complained should have worked because DOORLESS worked. So if a house has no door and is "doorless' than what if a castle has no moat (not all did) would it not be "moatless"? But NONWHEAT (noncola works how about that) totally should be in print and I am amazed that it is not because there is so much talk about how wheat is bad for us and some people avoid it even if they do not have a medical gluten food allergy. There have been many products that normally are made with wheat like breads where they use a wheat substitute, some other healthier grain and I am just flabbergasted that NONWHEAT never became a word and its so INTUITIVE that even a world class player did not challenge it. Many types of words have a degree of LOGIC to them which makes the lists easier to memorize but I have never been able to memorize the non list fully i just know some of them. I played NONZERO for a great bingo once. I would not at all be surprised if one of the new words next time an update is done to the world list is NONWHEAT.

[@jellomochas]

NONCHURCH (adjective in NWL, verb in CSW); NONSCHOOL (adj); no NONOFFICE*

[@Zurround]

@@jellomochas No offense meant to you but I almost got banned for insulting Collins. I want nothing to do with Collins and am committed to being an AMERICAN Scrabble Player.

[@TonyTarantula]

Words don't just exist because you want them to, and can think of a reason why they should. The dictionary is not perfect, but is based on documented usage. You should adapt to it rather than rage when it doesn't adapt to you.