Comments on: Blue-collar workers set three Scrabble records

By: David Norton

David Norton — Thu, 23 Nov 2006 21:15:08 +0000

I (for one) would be delighted to see the actual play . . . with notes as appropriate. I have tried to reproduce this play on my Scrabble board, but my effort totaled only 365 points.

Thanks!

By: Sterling Camden

Sterling Camden — Fri, 27 Oct 2006 17:37:22 +0000

I’m thinking a computer program might be in order. Given all possibilities of letter distribution, and the entire Scrabble dictionary, figure out the highest possible combined and single scores. Probably could be written in Lisp in about two statements.

By: TDavid

TDavid — Fri, 27 Oct 2006 17:14:59 +0000

The carpenter’s response was interesting: “It’s really not that big of a deal because I’m really not that great of a player. If you get two experts together, that game’s not going to happen.”

I wonder if two people tried to work in tandem to create the best score if that would be possible? Also, there is the random tile generation and distribution aspect to deal with.

By: Sterling Camden

Sterling Camden — Fri, 27 Oct 2006 16:49:47 +0000

I knew “quixotic”, but not the derived form “quixotry”. Both are derived from “Don Quixote”, of course.

My best scores in Scrabble never quite reached 400. I think I made the 390’s, though. I don’t know if there is such a thing as a perfect score in Scrabble. Theoretically, you would have to place all of the highest point letters on triple-letter spots in words that also cross the triple-word spaces (two or three if possible), and all other letters in degraded spots according to their degrading letter values. And your opponent would have to only get letters with a score of 1, and pass on every turn. That would give you a theoretical maximum, which could probably never be reached in a real game.