Hello, Scrabble World

Here is my Scrabble self:

As a child and growing up, my family played Scrabble. My mom played me Junior Scrabble which I remember vaguely and fondly. My grandmom played me Scrabble and my cousins played my Scrabble. I think my Dad even played me scrabble once.

Sometime in 2002 I found the Scrabble Server, ISC.

Someone on ISC was impressed by my "living-room player" bingos and recommended Word Freak by Stefan Fatsis, and Everything Scrabble by Joe Edley. I read those and then I went to the Tucker Scrabble club in Decatur to play. After gaining some experience there I entered my first tournament in Rome, Georgia in 2003. This is an intense contest with a 25 minute clock for the entire game, and a person can lose a whole turn just for getting a single letter wrong! I came in near the top of the beginner division.

Over the past three years I have played in twenty tournaments with a cumulative record of 171 wins and 132 losses. My rating has risen from 999 after my first tournament to 1526 now and I am studying more words every day. I hope my brain is young and healthy enough to keep growing my scrabble vocab! A lot of the words that are useful in Scrabble are not especially useful in other fields, so I am facing a danger of wasting my time in this endeavor. However it is enjoyable and if I present a friendly and positive attitude to Scrabble folks then I hope something good may come of my Scrabble contacts.

My tournament record is available in detail at this link to Cross-Tables.com.