Word Freak
Heartbreak, Triumph, Genius, and Obsession in the World of Competitive SCRABBLE Players
by Stefan FatsisJoe Edley, the Scrabble Association's in-house expert, is a health nut who practices tai chi. He is hated by many for what is percieved as his extreme arrogance; he doesn't care about wether or not he is perceived as a good player. Joel Sherman, called G.I. Joel for his GastroIntestinal problems, has extreme health problems that prevent him from holding a real job and allow him to devote his life to Scrabble. Matt Graham takes hundreds of pills in an attempt to make himself sharp enough to win at Scrabble. Lester Schoenbrun is a communist who got hooked on Scrabble in New York's Flea House, which is fabled for its chess players. Daniel Goldman was an orthodow Jewish teenager (he isn't teenage anymore) who played on Saturdays without being able to write down his scores or use an electric timer. Of course, Scrabble features some less eclectic players as well, but this book focuses on those people who make the world of competitive Scrabble interesting to read about.
Also included in this story is Fatsis' own story; he took time off his job with the Wall Street Journal to research the Scrabble world and ended up being sucked into the world he was supposed to only study. He studied off of flashcards to learn bingo blocks and memorized all of the two and three letter words. He entered Scrabble tournaments and raised his rating from 760, around 2000th of registered American Scrabble players, to 1733, around 180th of Scrabble players. The toy company plays and strategies are discussed with all the understanding expected from a Wall Street Journalist. The toy company histories relevent to the development of Scrabble are analyzed thouroughly. There are some interesting politics still relevant; Hasbro has Scrabble rights in the U.S. (and I think in Canada) and Mattel, its archnemesis, owns the rights to Scrabble abroad.
Each chapter is well written and interesting. The arrangement of the chapters, however, is quite perplexing. Chapters are not in chronological order, until the end of the book where there are a series of chapters about Fatsis' own Scrabble experienses. It is very annoying to hear how Fatsis has made a breakthrough in his Scrable playing, and then go back to when he's struggling beforehand. It is silly to hear about the invention of Scrabble, and then go back to the history and repeat the story of it's invention.
How much do you play Scrabble?
Happy reading.
