So Much Winning

So Much Winning
February 10, 2019
Hot Java
Long Beach

"It's not whether you win or lose but how you play the game"  - Grantland Rice, 1908

"Phht"  - Dave Postal, 2019



This post will be more of a Scrabble geek out post then some of my recent rants, so apologies to anyone who doesn't give a rats-ass about whether the proper spelling is ALFAQIS or ALFAQUIS (it's the latter), but I thought I would write about why I am in a better mood today than most days recently (and why it won't last). 

So to start off with, I want to say that it feels better to win than lose, which I suppose is pretty obvious.  And the scientific research behind it says that it feels worse to lose than it feels good to win, which is an interesting paradox. As a person who tends to want to shield myself from as much disappointment as humanly possible, it seems like,psychologically, we are always starting off with the score against us if the happiness derived from winning isn't equally matched by the disappointment of losing.   One of the reasons I find it ludicrous to gamble at a casino is that whether the games are plugged into a wall or dealt by a stone-faced woman from the Philippines, the odds are stacked against you as the player.  Of course that makes sense, as casinos are retail businesses not financial therapy centers for the poor and/or inebriated.   So, if I know that the odds are against me and I take the pain of losing harder than the joy of winning, it seems materially pointless
to risk anything in a place patently designed to cause you to lose.   Regardless of how logical that , thinking may be, based on the lines at the Powerball ticket window at my local 7-11 or the popularity and ever increasing visibility of gambling around the country, many folks still feel that it is worth it to take that risk.  May the odds always be in your favor!

Of course, the risk/reward paradigm of Scrabble is less steep.  There is not a lot of money involved, and often there is no money at all being transacted.  It's a zero sum game, so fifty percent of the time someone wins and someone loses, so there is no uphill battle with the odds of winning stacked against you from the start.  And, on top of that, there is a luck factor which dictates that even if you are a giant suck, there is still a chance you will win your share of games based on the "orgasmic" simplicity of drawing the right tiles out of the bag at the right time.

I sometimes confuse the amygdala, the pleasure center of the brain, with Golden State Warrriors
star Andre Igadoula. I'm told it is a common mistake

Being as it is, it still requires word knowledge, board sense, strategic thinking, rack management, time management, tracking skills and a fair amount of math to succeed at it.   Having spent a good portion of the last several years improving in all these areas, my amygdala smacks its lips over the potential of reward, and set its expectations a little higher on the basis of the investment and energy I have put into said improvement.

Prior to my 146 Blanks of Summer Tour last year, I put a lot more time into studying because I wanted to be successful on the tour.  I was investing more energy than usual into doing well.  And the tour started off okay, with a decent showing at the nationals in Buffalo and a quick one-off win on a beautiful night in Decorah on the WGPO circuit.  However, as the tour rolled on, and my study habits evolved into not-studying at all, my performances of 1240, 1298, 1399 and 1503 saw my rating tumble 100 points in the six months since the Nationals.  A direct correlation between studying and good performance had been established but, like all good intentions, I thought I would get back to it eventually.  Meh!

This has also been reflected in my club play.  Suddenly, instead of going 3-1 (or at worst 2-2) at club sessions, I was turning in more 1-3 (1 win/3 loss) performances.  My melancholy grew over my performances and reflected the theory that truly, it felt worse to do badly than it felt good to do well.  Perhaps that's a part of my depression.  I have told you repeatedly that I am pretty shallow, so is a source of my depression the fact that I have been sucking at Scrabble?  AM I REALLY THAT SHALLOW?

In lieu of some upcoming tournaments, I have turned my attention back to my Scrabble cards.  My dear old friends!  Painstakingly written and strewn about my apartment like ants at a gourmet picnic.  Sadly, one of my difficulties at picking them up again had to do with the fact that there are so many, that it became difficult to begin because the task once again seemed overwhelming.  In addition to the cards with 7's, I've got, 4 to make 5 cards (four letter words with uncommon front and back hooks), 5 to make 6 cards (same), 6 to make 7 cards.  I also have my 5-letter audio tapes (one for each letter of the alphabet replete with God-awful puns (COPRA - like Copra Winfrey) that assist me in remembering simply by listening to my made-for-radio-goofy-ass-commentary.  Important because staring at screens or cards after awhile wears me out so I need alternatives.  I also started using Zyzzva to study the common 8 letter words (the bane of my existence) and showing up for a daily Aerolith session, which doesn't feel like it has done anything except make me feel bad about my inaccurate typing skills and overall poor performance in timed testing.  She did better than me?  Ugh...she's just awful!!!

So I dove back in and I will adjourn this post shortly to continue quizzing myself as I prepare for the Phoenix tournament.  And you know what?  Suddenly some of the synapses have come back.  Hallelujah!  While it is disappointing that some of the time spent at memorizing useless words is lost forever, some of the old words have come back easily and faster than expected.  It is a more than just a subtle reminder that with an inflexible brain as old as mine, if I want to retain it, I've got it keep it fresh.  As Scrabble expert Matt Canik once mentioned, it is a question of moving these words from the short term memory into the long term memory.  Once they are lodged there, they have a better chance of staying with you. 

And to that end, I had a 2-2 club showing on Wednesday, followed by a 4-0 club showing on Friday and a big win at the Tallulah Blankheads event yesterday, going 4-1, good enough for first place.  Bingoes like HOLLAND, ALFAQUIS (albeit spelled wrong), DETUNES, TWANGLES, DEALATE, INTROFY, ZINCITES, ACROSINS have come pouring off my rack like honey off the cover of an Ohio Players album. 

Bingoes are pouring off my rack!

It just goes to prove that whatever you are serious about, it requires a lot of attention.   And I suppose you can either not take it seriously (and/or suffer the consequences or stop competing) or go all in and prioritize as you would.  There are seriously more important things to attend to in this life, but at the same time, if the time spent studying derives a bit of joy and I can prove it both emotionally and empirically, I best take that option.  And I know that my luck has improved a little as well,
and it is always important to realize that the pendulum of luck swings back and forth and there will be other lulls in my Scrabble ascent. 

However a lovely email came from Scrabble expert Amnon Meyers about my decent performance yesterday and that also improved my mood. 

Hi, David,

Thanks again, great to see how far and fast your Scrabble is advancing.

I keep going back to the story of telling David Poder a few years back that you were “up and coming”, that you had great board sense and Scrabble sense.

He was clueless, didn’t  know, didn’t notice ; - )

Amnon

I can't coast on the warm feelings my brain is currently experiencing for long, because I have to support myself, take care of all my bills and obligations and such.  And I have to keep all of this in perspective, really, it's just a small victory against the backdrop of bigger issues, but to just acknowledge that the effort required to do some things well does have a payoff from time to time.