John O'Laughlin's Journal

11:20am: montreal collins expected wins

adam   2015 8.59
olaugh 1980 8.15
boys   1926 7.46
joel   1916 7.33
brad   1877 6.83
andrew 1615 3.66

9:50am: portsmouth
I had 18 blanks out of 24, including 6 of 6 against Eldar, so I was able to survive a bunch of mistakes. Lots of fun games, though, and this was the funnest, though it was not without some slop.

http://www.cross-tables.com/annotated.php?u=8590#0

10:19am: collins jumbletime

             grids   words    average
           cleared  gotten  time left (where non-clears = 0s)
dec24-jan06    14%     95%         8s
jan07-jan20    36%     96%        21s
jan21-feb05    26%     96%        16s
feb06-feb22    21%     96%         9s
feb23-mar08    26%     96%        19s
mar09-mar23    26%     97%        17s
mar24-apr06    26%     96%        20s
apr07-may01    50%     98%        34s

I reviewed a bunch of # bingos during the 11-day JumbleTime outage and finally made some progress. Pre-Causeway goal is to get to 100%/100%/100s.

4:39pm: baseball trivia
(a) Of all players never to win the award, who has the most MVP votes of all time?
(b) Same as (a) but among only active players.
(c, d) Same questions but with Cy Young award.

7:31am: giraffe riffage#
( Read more... )

11:12am: collins jumbletime

             grids   words    average
           cleared  gotten  time left (where non-clears = 0s)
dec24-jan06    14%     95%         8s
jan07-jan20    36%     96%        21s
jan21-feb05    26%     96%        16s
feb06-feb22    21%     96%         9s
feb23-mar08    26%     96%        19s
mar09-mar23    26%     97%        17s
mar24-apr06    26%     96%        20s

A quarter of the year has passed and not much improvement so far, but I'll start looking deeper at # bingos after BAT.

8:17am: jt stats
I've been keeping track of my JumbleTime scores on the ABSP daily challenges. Got my first triple-clear (I do 7s, 8s, and Bingos) since January this morning to help salvage the most recent fortnight.

             grids   words    average
           cleared  gotten  time left (where non-clears = 0s)
dec24-jan06    14%     95%         8s
jan07-jan20    36%     96%        21s
jan21-feb05    26%     96%        16s
feb06-feb22    21%     96%         9s
feb23-mar08    26%     96%        19s
mar09-mar23    26%     97%        17s

7:46am: adgoprsu (#)
1991 Ween album + 2003 Ween song

6:31am: wsc 2011!
The announcement just came. Hilton Hotel, Warsaw, Oct 12-16, 36 games, $20k first prize.

2:16pm: Today I Learned
Michael Jackson cowrote and coproduced Do the Bartman This was confirmed by Matt Groening in 1998, but I managed to never hear about it.

There was an auto race from Paris to Madrid in 1903 on regular public roads. Half the cars crashed and at least eight people died. It was a very bad idea.

1:36pm: clt bings#
I shuffled my scoresheets#, so the games aren't in order.

SETENANT PARODIED LAMSTERS
rEOILING BURDENS GRAVEST
ORGONES METERAGE
HYPNOSES RORQUAL
FISTIAnA#
ZONUREs# TITHERS
PANIERS RAPiErING*
HEFTINg DISCOLOR
NOVELISH#
OVERCOMe TRIPLED
ANTIRuST
none
DANELAW# SWaMPInG EDUCATES RERAISED
MOURNERS CEASInG
FORDOINg DARGLES#
GArNERS MAJEsTY IRONIER# NEUROSAL
PROVIANT# UNBOILED
EOLIENnE# ORPHICAL STAMPED
TEENIER
LINOTYPE BRASIER VICEROYS

2:05pm: 2011 tourneys

02/18-21    Charlotte (CSW)
03/05       Concord (TWL)
03/19-20    Bethesda (CSW)
04/08-10    BAT (TWL main event + CSW late bird)
05/28-30    ArdenCup (CSW)
07/01-04    Albany (CSW)
07/15-17    US WSCQT if necessary
09/22-25    Toronto (CSW)
??/??-??    WSC if qualified
11/30-12/04 Causeway

Unfortunately WCWCWC and King's Cup aren't likely, but still should be an excellent year for Scrabble.

5:21pm: naspa csw most games played yearly leaders
(starting with WPC)

Sam Kantimathi 105
Ruth Hamilton   68
Nick Ball       66
Nathan Benedict 52
Stuart Goldman  52
Tapani Lindgren 52
Judy Newhouse   52
Mark Kenas      47
Jim Kramer      47
Brian Bowman    44
Travis Chaney   39
Dave Wiegand    34

I'm currently tied with the just-WPCers at 32 games.

8:00pm: candidate for #1 "wtf owl?" word
INASMUCH#

9:19am: wsc probably in poland but not a done deal
For those of you who aren't on the world-scrabble list, Philip Nelkon (kind of like the rest-of-world John D. Williams except he works for Mattel directly) addressed the rumors about Poland being the WSC venue and confirmed that it is the frontrunner#.

On Mon, Jan 31, 2011 at 6:10 AM, Nelkon, Philip <philip.nelkon@mattel.com> wrote:

> I can confirm that Poland is current favourite as a site for the 2011
> WSC. I am unable to confirm any further details at this stage, and it is
> not 100% certain, as budgets and venue availability still need to be
> agreed. I'll let you know as soon as I can, but it will be 2 weeks
> minimum.

3:32am: funny csw game against isc bot
http://www.cross-tables.com/annotated.php?u=7934#0

4:24pm: wsc in... london?
I spotted this on Bartek Poznan's blog:

http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=407263021528

The note on Facebook is something about sponsorfinder.co.uk trying to find a sponsor, and it's from May 2010. Perhaps Mattel tried to get outside sponsorship, failed, and are doing it on the cheap in Poland instead.

Check out the brochure they made for it:
http://www.sponsorfinder.co.uk/userfiles/file/World%20Scrabble%20Championships.pdf

12:05pm: my most-missed words on WordTwist
I started playing WordTwist against myself on Facebook a couple weeks ago and recording the words missed. Most of the frequently missed words are threes (probably because they come up the most).

INN
LAC
OAR
EMO#
AIA#
ORA
OCA
NINE
MOE#
MNA#

Other top misses four letters or longer:

NINE
ARNA#
THERM
TALA
RORE#
NENE
LOCAL
HIOI#
COAL
THEM

This is all from one-minute Sowpods 7-letter rounds. Seems like under the time pressure it's hardest to think of starting with a vowel, using duplicate letters, or putting a strange sequence of letters together.

5:34pm: most played 4-to-8 front extensions
Last one for today. These were each played at least 83 times in 8 million games.

( Read more... )

3:26pm: most played 7-to-10 front extensions
These were all played at least 39 times in 8 million games.

CORONAE  -> GEOCORONAE( Read more... )

2:45pm: wsc in poland?
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/local-national/northern-ireland/word-that-spelt-disaster-for-worlds-top-scrabble-player-tremelo-15062626.html

So says the Belfast Telegraph:

The pair are set to face each other at the World Scrabble Championships later this year, which are expected to take place in Poland.

2:12pm: most played 6-to-9 front extensions
These were all played at least 128 times in 8 million games.

VOICED -> OUTVOICED
QUOTED -> OUTQUOTED
FAUNAE -> EPIFAUNAE
FAUNAE -> AVIFAUNAE( Read more... )

11:52am: most played 5-to-8 front extensions
These were all played at least 300 times in 8 million games as xxx(xxxxx) plays, not necessarily at 8a. Top nine are all OWL, octothorps after the cut.

QUOTA  -> NONQUOTA
VOWED  -> REAVOWED
VOICE  -> OUTVOICE
ZONED  -> BLAZONED
JOINT  -> CONJOINT
VOTED  -> OUTVOTED
AZINE  -> TRIAZINE
QUEST  -> UNIQUEST
JOINT  -> DISJOINT
( Read more... )

10:10am: not-yet word of the day
NANG* will be good in Collins next year.

Here it is in context in a Collins press release:
http://www.collinslanguage.com/about/press/docs/2007-06-04.pdf

Not sure if we'll get SHIZZLE* what with the multi-word phrase controversy.

11:09am: Causeway 2011
For those of you who didn't see the announcement, Causeway this year is going to have a different format. It seems he's doing away with the teams, and it'll be similar to the North American NSC, with four divisions based on WESPA ratings (or national ratings for those lacking a WESPA rating) with limited play-ups. Prizes for Causeway Premier:

Champion: US$50,000
1st Runner-Up: US$25,000
2nd Runner-Up: US$15,000
4th Position: US$10,000
5th Position: US$9,000
6th Position: US$8,000
7th Position: US$7,000
8th Position: US$6,000
9th Position: US$5,000
10th Position: US$4,000

Still waiting on when and where the WSC will be, but I'm determined to play both this time.