Maximize is lots of points

Thank you very much & appreciate you giving my content a try!

Is there a game format where both players don't fully behave as opponents but more like teammates? In which the main goal is for both players to help each other. 'The best word must go out' so to speak? You are still opponents though, but if your board is a higher score than another pair of players, you move up in rank somewhere else.

Haven't heard of exactly this - I've heard of 'tag team scrabble' where you and a teammate set yourselves up for big moves, but that's about it.

That’s quite an achievement, nice one!

I've been learning Italian for many years now, and you have me curious because I've never thought about it, but I assume that's because all verb conjugations are allowed? Considering the tenses, there are considerable more than English.

@@jamisonr You're right, in Italian every verb has 25 conjugations. But even if we don't consider verbs, Italian has around 300k words, still more than English. Another interesting thing is that in Italian there are more 8 letter words than 7 letter words. This change completely the strategy to bingo

@@jamisonr I found an Italian game ended 1147-730, with the record world "TACQUERO" for 330 points

@@alessandroserra9779 I'd love to see a comparison of average letter value in different languages, based on scrabble scoring. Like, multiply the frequency of each letter in the language by the scrabble value for that letter, add them up, and divide by number of letters. There has to be a decent correlation to scrabble highscores.

Ha, nice spot! I'm sure somewhere out there somebody has clinched a game with WINN...

While Dave finished on a HI. IT decided the game

No lie, I actually once played out with the triple-triple bingo of TROUNCED.

@@alexpotts6520 siiicckkkkk

We don't bite :)

Ah, my apologies & thanks!

Still the likelihood of SLOJD versus the likelihood of a huge -ED play like VAMPED or something is a huge disparity, and SLOJD is the only big threat in the lane (other than a 3x3 lol)

obviously i always play around... *looks at comment again* SLOJD *nod*

@@evanyurko3640 - agreed!

Nope - David Webb vs. Bob Violett, 711 - 502. Another game Will should recap at some point.

Good grief, I've not seen that one. Gotta dig it up!

​@@AlexDingssomehow somewhere, there must be a collab.

I really appreciate the kind words, thank you.

I hear you with not wanting to mess with your memory as a TEL player. Otherwise, I find that it’s all the same good stuff to enjoy in both dictionaries.

I’m glad somebody enjoyed that :)

Going first is in general a non-trivial advantage. Depending on what data set you consult, it seems like it confers an additional 3-ish winning percentage right away (so the player going first between equally skilled players would be 53% to win)

it's akin to white over black in chess

@@wanderer15 that seems like a pretty big advantage. No idea what it is in chess. But in games like chess it can't really be helped. But when it's games like Scrabble that look at a cumulative score. Giving each player na equal number of turns at least is probably the best way to balance it. Most modern board games are designed like that. I do understand that changing rules that have existed for long is complicated. But if you look at other competetive games and sports they do evolve to make things more balanced/fair etc. Just saying that in a game where you only get a chance to score when you get a turn, having more turns than your opponent is gonna be very good... Also the bonus of getting points for nay tiles they hold makes ending the game quite important I'd think. Maybe there are also stats on win% for ending the game, and %for games where the winner had more turns etc =)

​@@MrTandtrolletchess might be a wrong example here, chess is generally 50% win for white, 25% win for black, and 25% draws. But that is considering all skill levels. If you only take grandmasters into consideration, then that distribution is closer to equal with a higher draw percentage, but still heavily tilted towards white.

@@MrTandtrollet Giving each player an equal number of turns in Scrabble is harder to achieve than it might seem at first glance. For example, what do you do about endgames where one player is stuck with an unplayable tile? Maybe a simpler way to try to mitigate the first-player advantage is to make the central square *not* a double word square.

Sounds very impressive indeed ;) but Scrabble is fun as long as you’re evenly matched no matter your level!

Thanks! I'm sure such stats exist and might be interesting to break down at some point (Collins scores are certainly higher, and the only question is by how much)

I would say that the task of learning an entire dictionary is indeed daunting. But there are groups of words that are significantly more useful than others. Learning a manageable amount of the most useful words at each word length will have a really dramatic effect on your overall skill level. I made a video about learning words a few years ago, including my best attempt at a tier list (about 7:00 through) kzfaq.info/get/bejne/frmYYJl4vN7Vp6c.html

Records suggest that it’s in the low 550s, so this game shattered the prior record.

@@wanderer15 David Eldar vs at 2017 worlds was 574-576

Functionally, horizontal and vertical are equivalent. You can transform any Scrabble game along the diagonal line of symmetry. The only difference is psychological. Many players are bothered by a vertical start, just because there is no practical difference and it would be easier to build the mental map of how the first few turns go if everyone started in the same direction.

Correct!

That list is just people participating in this particular tournament taking place this week.

Yes, this is just the entrants for this one tournament - admittedly, he has not traveled stateside to play for a while, but he is still active closer to his home country of Malaysia.

Love both, but true outlier Scrabble games like this are incomparable!

When one player uses up the last tiles on their rack, the game ends, and the remaining tiles on their opponent’s rack are added to their score. So, Dave’s move ended the game before Alec could play “ate”.

Yes; the game ends when the bag is empty and one player gets rid of all of their tiles.

@@calvindang7291 much appreciated.

​@@jonwalters5395additionally the player using all their tiles gets a bonus of twice the points of their opponent's tiles.

Multipliers get used on one *turn* - if you form two words on that turn, you get the multiplier for each word. That's why high-level players make a lot of "parallel plays" alongside other words - you get the bonus squares twice, once for the main word and once for the "extra" words that happen to hit the bonuses. Once you use up a multiplier, it's done for all future turns.

Still very impressive on your part - not easy to get so high!

Yes, once either player uses their last tile after the bag has been emptied, the game is over and the value of unplayed tiles is used to adjust the score in favor of the player who went out first.

Probably that is a game played by Nigel in Swahili and the opponent scored 178 or something 🤣

Its up there, but not quite. A topic for a future video!

There are a handful of other games where the losing player scored in the 540s and one where the losing player scored 552 - this game smashes those records!

That's to denote words only valid in the Collins dictionary used in international play. It's a courtesy for players based in North America who might not have seen these words before. I could be clearer about what this notation means for those who haven't seen it before.

By rule, Dave using the final tile on his rack ends the game, giving him a bonus for Alec's unplayed letters.

Oh ok thanks, wasn't aware of that rule! Played it wrong with my friends all these years! 😅@@wanderer15

E(RE) only scores 6 points instead of 28, so no. Unless I misunderstood...

Keep in mind that when one player uses their final tile after the bag is empty, the game ends. So, by rule, Dave’s play of HI ended the game, and Alec’s unplayed letters were added to his score (at 2x face value of the letter).

@@wanderer15 ahhh thank you!! I'm new to Scrabble

That’s still amazing on your part!

@@wanderer15 even more so on my opponent's part. Scoring over 500 against me is not an easy task.

Remember, this game was an extreme outlier. A typical average for an elite Scrabble player is about 2 bingos per game. Very few games are like this one!

Bro let Nigel cook, he can get there.

not to mention the error in the sidenote# at 2:16

These items are not intended to be literal, so I stand by all three. But thank you for the excellent game!

For the sake of the title, the important part isn't the specific number 591. It's that the players scored above 590, and it makes a more eye-catching title to simply round it. As a viewer, you should understand that the point of the video is to explain the players' thought processes throughout the game. Although those words weren't played, Will is assuming that Dave must have seen them, and made a conscious decision to play a different word, which he explains the reasoning for.

@@NZsaltz I do think this particular commenter has sufficient insight into the players' thought processes, but your point still stands of course

@@bungaIowbill Yeah, I'm sure this commenter does, but the video isn't made for just one person