The GOAT of Scrabble

The term "GOAT" (Greatest Of All Time) originated as a self-description by Muhammad Ali and has since fueled many a sports debate, particularly in professional basketball (LeBron James vs Michael Jordan) and football (Tom Brady vs Joe Montana, until Brady pulled away by amassing a total of seven championships late in his career).

Nigel Richards (Brady/PA/Zuma Press/WSJ)

There is no controversy, however, about the GOAT of Scrabble: [bold added]

Nigel Richards is the reigning world champion of Scrabble in Spanish. Just don’t ask him to order a coffee in Madrid. The 57-year-old New Zealander doesn’t speak a lick of Spanish.

During the deciding match in November’s Spanish World Scrabble Championship in Granada, Spain, Richards racked up triple-word scores with ENRUGASE (“to wrinkle up”) and ENHOTOS (an archaic word for “familiarity”), before clinching victory with TRINIDAD and SABURROSA (an obscure word that describes the coated residue of the tongue).

Not that Richards knew the meaning of any of those words.

One Spanish TV broadcaster called his win the “ultimate humiliation.” The global Scrabble community wasn’t so surprised. Richards had done this before—in French.

When he won that language’s Scrabble world championship in 2015 and again in 2018, he could greet his opponents with bonjour but couldn’t say much else.

What Richards lacks in linguistic ability he more than makes up for with an encyclopedic memory and an unrivaled ability to decode patterns, according to friends and opponents.

“He memorizes words as soon as he reads them once,” said Hector Klie, who has represented the U.S. in Scrabble since 2003 and competes in Spanish. “He doesn’t know whether a word is a verb, noun, adjective or any other grammatical form that would typically help native speakers learn words more easily. For him, all words are equal in his memory, and he doesn’t need to know their meaning.”

Richards is also the undisputed GOAT in English-language Scrabble, having won five world titles. He is currently ranked No. 1 by the World English-language Scrabble Player’s Association.

“We are witnessing someone who could be compared to, or even surpass in intellectual capacity, figures like Bobby Fischer, Garry Kasparov or Magnus Carlsen in chess,” said Klie, the Spanish World Championship runner-up in 2004.

The parallel to Nigel Richards that comes to mind is the large language models (LLMs) that are used in artificial intelligence. LLMs don't "know" anything in a traditional epistemological sense but are able to give the appearance of knowing by examining billions of pieces of information on the internet, recognizing patterns, and regurgitating answers that follow those patterns.

Of course, this means that someday a computer will beat Nigel Richards at Scrabble.

Bottom Story of the Day

Magnus Carlsen's illegal pants (x/twitter)

One of the best chess players in the world was banned from a tournament for refusing to switch out his pair of jeans:

five-time world champion Magnus Carlsen arrived at the upscale Cipriani Wall Street, host of this year’s World Rapid Chess Championship, wearing something organizers considered utterly inappropriate. He was sporting a pair of jeans.

To FIDE, the game’s world governing body, this was as unacceptable as moving a pawn three spaces.

Denim, FIDE said, is “explicitly prohibited under longstanding regulations for this event” and promptly fined Carlsen, one of the greatest chess players of all time, $200 for his infraction. When the chief arbiter requested that Carlsen change his clothes, he declined to do so. And as a result, the 34-year-old grandmaster from Norway wasn’t assigned a match in the following round. It was chess’s equivalent of a one-game suspension.

Carlsen responded by quitting the tournament altogether—and then pulling out of the World Blitz Chess Championship, too.

“At that point, it became a bit of a matter of principle for me,” he said in an interview on his Take Take Take chess platform. “I’m too old at this point to care too much.”

Carlsen added that he’d been returning from a lunch meeting and barely had time to go back to his room, where he put on a shirt and jacket. He even threw on a different, dressier pair of shoes. But once the arbiter warned him about changing his trousers, Carlsen decided he’d had enough. Instead of arguing about pants, he figured he might as well spend his New Year’s somewhere warmer than freezing New York.

There are some people who are bigger than their sport. Tiger Woods, at his peak, was bigger than golf. Magnus Carlsen is bigger than chess. FIDE would be wise to consider that power dynamic when it seeks to assert its authority over a trivial matter like wearing blue jeans.

John Madden (1936-2021)

The 1970's was a miserable decade--runaway inflation, gas lines, Watergate, the fall of Saigon--but at least Bay Area sports fans could find solace in their Oakland teams.

Charles Finley moved the Athletics from Kansas City and won three straight World Series from 1972 to 1974. Both owner and players broke the mold with "Charley O the mule, orange baseballs, mustachioed players, the designated hitter and designated runners."

The Golden State Warriors, led by Hall of Famer Rick Barry, were the surprise winner of the 1975 NBA championship. They dominated the 1975-1976 season, only to fall in the Western Conference finals to the Phoenix Suns.

Both the A's and Warriors were fan favorites--let's not talk about the mediocre 49ers and Giants, who rarely made the playoffs--but by the beginning of the 1970's football was already the most popular sport in America, and the top echelon of the National Football League included the Oakland Raiders.

Celebrating the 1977 Super Bowl Win

Led by its brilliant owner Al Davis, the Raiders were a team of castoffs, misfits, and rejects. John Madden, who died yesterday, molded this unconventional roster into a championship contender and became the most successful coach in Raiders history.

Just 32 when he became the Raiders’ head coach, Madden, who quickly became known for his sideline outbursts and unruly hair, led his team to the playoffs eight times in 10 seasons and compiled a .759 winning percentage (103-32-7) that still ranks as the highest of any coach with at least 100 victories.

Every January, while it was cold and raining outside, we could count on Raider football to entertain us on weekends.

During the '70's the Raiders had to go up against a historically great dynasty, the 4-time-champion Pittsburgh Steelers, as well as the Miami Dolphins, who in 1972 became and still are the only undefeated team in NFL history. Given the competition, John Madden's record was remarkable.

Tom Landry

Prowling the sidelines with his portly frame and expansive gestures, John Madden was the opposite of Tom Landry, the buttoned-down coach of the "America's team" Cowboys.

Madden's game-planning and Hall-of-Fame players made Raiders-Steelers must-see TV. The playoff game between the teams in December, 1972, was decided by the Immaculate Reception, perhaps the most famous play in NFL history. I remember watching that game on a tiny low-res TV screen in Hawaii and thought that Terry Bradshaw's 4th-quarter 4th-down pass was knocked down and the Raiders had won. Then the fuzzy TV showed a Steeler (Franco Harris) racing toward the end zone for a Steeler touchdown and victory.

Huh? What just happened? Similar to the 1969 moon landing, you could hardly see it and you couldn't replay it.

We were sad to see John Madden retire from coaching in 1978, but even in those days it was understood that he was headed for a stress-induced heart attack if he continued.

Again, much to everyone's surprise, he became the most popular TV football analyst of all time and put his name on one of the most popular sports videogames of all time.

I don't know when it was that politicians sought to become a person "you would like to have a beer with," but they should just say "I want to be like John Madden." R.I.P., coach.

All That Remains

(Chron photo)

When we saw the pictures of the Saturday morning fire at Fisherman's Wharf, we feared the worst. Some of our favorite San Francisco stops are Scoma's Restaurant on Pier 47 and Musée Mécanique on Pier 45. The fire was at Pier 45.

The damage was confined to Shed C, which contained $5 million of fishing gear. The local fishing industry suffered the brunt of the damage due to the loss of an estimated 7,000 crab traps, 2,000 shrimp traps and 500 black cod traps.

When Fisherman's Wharf opens up again, we'll return. It will be up to us locals to keep the businesses afloat until the tourists come back.

The Musée Mécanique machines are all that remains of Playland-at-the-Beach

Playtime Will Be Over Soon

City Hall on Wednesday evening

Their numbers have shrunk--it's no longer new and exciting, and gatherings of strangers are now frowned upon—but the desire of dedicated Pokémon Go aficionados to capture Raid bosses surpasses concerns for one's health.

There haven't been any reported cases of the coronavirus in our city of 30,000, but that's likely to change in view of nearby outbreaks. Then playtime will truly be over.

Pickle Time

The lowly pickle has long been an amusing condiment--the object of late-night craving by pregnant women, the subject of jokes derived from its shape, and, next to onions, the item most often requested to be left off the sandwich. But the zeitgeist is signaling that it just may be the pickle's time.

Pickle Juice Drinkers Are Coming Out of the Closet

PJ-lover Katie Cerniglia (WSJ photo)

People who privately partake of pickle juice are finding it easier to go public, thanks to endurance sports. Athletes have discovered its electrolyte-replenishing qualities...Devotees say they like pickles but like the juice even more because it satisfies a salt craving they can’t quite explain. Some gulp with pickles still in the jar, irking nondrinkers.

Pickle-Ball is Popular Among the Medicare Set

Pickle-ball (NPR image)

Pickle-ball is traditionally played on a badminton-sized court with special Pickle-ball paddles, made of wood or high-tech aerospace materials. The ball used is similar to a wiffle ball, but slightly smaller. The lower net and wiffle ball allow the game to be accessible to people of all ages and abilities

According to the USA Pickleball Association, more than 100,000 people play the sport on at least 5,000 courts nationwide, and membership in the organization increased more than sixfold from 2006 to 2010.

Though it’s played by people of many ages, it’s especially popular among the elderly. An Orlando, Fla., retirement community opened with more than 100 pickleball courts, anticipating the demand.

Pickle Depreciation Rules
As hundreds of $billions of aircraft, ships, and other transportation equipment are financed each year, understanding the "Pickle" tax-depreciation rules for cross-border leases (e.g., U.S. owner leases an airplane to a Chinese carrier) is of paramount importance.

Ignoring all things "pickle" may come back to bite you.

The Old Ways Are New Again

Star Trek: Ascendancy - a new, old-school game.

Several millennial family members are late-arriving fans of table games. Your humble blogger--an avid game-player (e.g., bridge, chess, Scrabble, cribbage, mahjong) in his youth because, if truth be told, there were no electronic options---responds favorably to invitations to join in.

There are health advantages--socializing can ward off dementia and handling cards or game pieces maintains fine-motor dexterity--but more importantly it's an in-person way of spending time with family and friends. Also, as the Wall Street Journal advises, it's a way for seniors to have fun.

older adults have more time to have fun—7½ hours of leisure a day compared with 35-to-44-year-olds, who have only around 4 hours, according to a 2016 study by Merrill Lynch and Age Wave...

many adults forget how to have fun. They’ve spent the past 40 years showing up for work every day, paying off mortgages, getting kids through school and taking care of aging parents. Having fun and being spontaneous —a key element of fun and play—gets lost. It’s considered nonproductive, which makes some people feel guilty.

Fun is important at every age but can be even more beneficial as we grow older. The very things associated with it—laughter, levity, enjoyment, diversion—can act as antidotes to stress, depression, and anxiety. It often involves being with others, and social connections are linked to better cognitive health in later life and lower likelihood of developing dementia.

In Star Trek: Ascendancy, however, I may have bitten off more than I could chew. ST:A has instructions that are more voluminous than Monopoly, bridge, or chess. (A well-designed game, IMHO, has simple rules but may take years to master; a good example is Texas Hold'em.) The seemingly arbitrary rules reminded me of "Fizzbin", a game discussed by Captain Kirk in a 1968 Star Trek episode.

The millennials had blank looks when I mentioned Fizzbin, so it was time to pass on this important cultural reference to the next generation. Take that, Angry Birds.

Older Demographic

Forget 3-D. Give the codgers their side-scrolling narrative.

When my reflexes were quicker, I was pretty good at the arcade. Now the games I play on various devices are more thoughtful than twitchy. The vast majority continue to be produced for younger folk, but I seem to be in the target audience for a game that will be released next week, Old Man's Journey:

A lighthouse like a fairy tale tower jutting from the flank of a colorful cottage, a train chugging past Arcadian fields framed by faraway peaks, a hot air balloon that lifts an aged man whose hoary beard parallels the considerable slope of his belly. This is Old Man's Journey, a contemplative adventure for PC, iOS and Android.

I'm tempted to buy it, not for the gameplay, but to show support for games that cater to an older demographic. But it doesn't sound like a barrel of laughs:

"A final chance to seek amends and find your heart, once lost at sea."

The challenges appear to be largely puzzle driven, though nothing too intense, per the game's Steam page, which notes that the studio's focus is more on the protagonist's late-stage story, which explores "heartache, regret and hope through the old man's eyes."

Well, at least if the player dies, he gets to start all over (right?)

Amy Vanderbilt and Emily Post are Long Gone

"PokeStop nearby" does not refer to the restaurant in Waipahu.

I love poke, the seasoned raw fish dish beloved by Islanders and increasing numbers of Mainlanders. There are now restaurants that specialize in poke, for example Pokeatery, Poki Bowl, and PokeStop.

However, be careful when typing the name of the latter on Yelp, the popular restaurant and services rating site. What pops up may not be just fish.

Yelp now has a filter that shows whether a PokéStop (a place where Pokémon Go players can get rewards) is near a business.

Gone are the days when eating establishments frowned on telephones, paper and pen, or even talking business at the tables. Today restaurants are actively courting patrons who furiously flick their thumbs across tiny screens, trying to snare imaginary monsters.

Yelp is just responding to market demand. As for the patrons, they are far, far away from their frowning grandmothers, so what's the problem?

Still Not Turning It On

We've been marveling at the rapid adoption of Pokémon Go but have not played the game because of privacy issues. WSJ tech reporter Joanna Stern says that we should set those concerns aside: [bold added]

We’re standing at a defining moment in the history of technology...

If you’ve been fighting to ignore this phenomenon, you should check it out, too. Not just because you may get to know new places or people, or because you may enjoy the charming absurdity of little monsters dancing on your desk. It’s time to witness the power of augmented reality, which connects us to others and our environment in a way no technology has before.

Pokémon Go makes its players go outside, meet other players in person, and walk more (to "hatch" eggs). Even if we're already socially and physically active, Ms. Stern argues that experiencing augmented reality (AR) is another reason to play.

Just like many of us can't imagine a world without smartphones, I suppose in a few years we won't be able to live without AR glasses that explain the history of what we're looking at or superimpose a person's personal data over his image.

Nevertheless, Pokémon Go will have to wait. I've got a pile of books to finish, financial records to organize, and clutter to clear. And miles to go before I sleep....

A Concern I Didn't Use to Share

Pokémon Gym at the local church:
One way to attract the younger crowd.

The younger members of our household have been playing Pokémon Go since it was released on July 6th. Estimates of the number of players run about 20 million, the fastest rate of acceptance of any game in history---and it has yet to be distributed in Asia.

Like many tech inventions, a simple description makes it hard to see what the fuss is all about:

Pokémon Go is a smartphone game that blends the real and digital worlds, tasking players with exploring their neighborhoods to find creatures and treasure for in-game use....

Go is almost boringly simple: Once you encounter a Pokémon in the wild, Go switches into “capture mode,” where users flick Pokeballs at the creature until they nab it.

Staring at the smartphone instead of Cupid's Span (Chronicle)

As might be expected, when millions of shut-ins get out and "go," there are consequences, good, bad, and weird. From the Chronicle alone, a few headlines from the past week:

Animal shelters stand to benefit from rabid Pokémon Go gaming.

The SF Zoo finds three Pokémon Go gyms on property, rolls with it

4,500 say they'll hunt Pokémon together on the streets of San Francisco

‘Pokémon Go’ users help cops arrest attempted-murder suspect

Players get hurt hunting for ‘Pokémon Go’ monsters

Your humble blogger did download Pokémon Go but hasn't activated it due to privacy issues.

No game is that important---to be sure, a concern I would not have shared 30 years ago.

Everything We Do Can Be Rationalized

(Image from Aurous Health Care)

In my youth videogames were a distraction from accomplishing goals like career advancement, building family relationships, and staying in shape. Now that I'm a senior citizen I'm encouraged to play videogames to keep my brain healthy [bold added]

As reported in the journal Nature in 2013, the Gazzaley lab [at UCSF] trained 60- to 85-year-old subjects on a game called NeuroRacer. The multitask version involves simulated driving along a winding road while quickly pressing keys or a game controller to respond to a green sign when it appears on the roadside. [snip]

After 12 hours of training spread evenly over a month, multitasking subjects were about twice as efficient at shifting attention as when they started, a huge improvement by any standard. Remarkably, their new scores were comparable to those of 20-year-olds not trained on NeuroRacer. The subjects still tested positive six months later.

Playing videogames appears to have joined a host of other activities (coffee, golf, sex, sleep, partying, alcohol) that in excess were regarded as selfish indulgences when young but are now viewed favorably when done by seniors.

Kids, we're doing it for our health, which in turn keeps us from being a burden to our family and to society. So really, we're thinking of you. V-rrr-oom!

Commencement Speech Bingo

Wired filled out the squares on a Bingo card with the top 24 clichés from 2013's graduation speeches. If you make a game of it at this year's ceremonies, perhaps your attention won't wander...

The most popular variation is drunk bingo, in which players down a shot of a favorite alcoholic beverage if a square's words are uttered. Think of it as an early start to the post-commencement celebration.

Even the late Steve Jobs, in the most famous commencement speech of the past ten years, could not be wholly original. From his 2005 address to Stanford graduates:

So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

Happy listening, graduates. Good luck, and never stop learning.

Not Well or Wisely

WSJ tech columnist Farhad Manjoo predicts that jobs will be transformed into games where winning "players" are promoted or at least get to keep their jobs.

"Gamification"...refers to transferring the features that motivate players in videogames—achievement levels, say, or a constantly running score—into nongame settings. Gamification systems are possible because much of what we do in the workplace is conducted through software that can track our productivity, constantly measure our value and apply incentives that prod us to do better.

Games have long been a metaphor for work, or even life, but Mr. Manjoo seems to believe that the term will soon be applied literally. However, it strikes this observer that adoption will proceed at about the same pace as artificial intelligence and robotification, that is, more slowly than enthusiasts think.

There's no question that hardware speeds and data storage have improved at exponential rates. The limitation is in the software. Traditional management tasks of defining and measuring job success and then constructing incentives to reward positive behaviors are hard enough. Designing a game that incorporates those elements and is fun to boot will probably work in simpler jobs that don't change much, but will be very difficult in complex jobs such as teaching, law, medicine, and computer programming, all of whose rote tasks have already been made easier by technology.

Gamification may be inevitable, but I have my doubts whether it will be done well or wisely.

Twin of Doom

Separated by decades: the Fantastic Four villain
Doctor Doom (left) and the Worker of Secrets (above)

When I need a diversion, I've been punching up one of the free games that I downloaded a month ago from Apple. One favorite way of letting off steam is Infinity Blade 2, a sword-fighting game with gorgeous graphics, wondrous weaponry, and fearsome foes. If frantic forefinger- or thumb-swiping helps to ward off senescence, then I'm decades away from having to be put in a home.

I can't say much, though, for the plot of Infinity Blade 2. The game's objective is to free the "Worker of Secrets" from a magical prison. When we see the Worker at the beginning of the game, his appearance should set off alarm bells. He looks like the twin of Doctor Doom, the comic-book villain created 51 years ago by Stan Lee. (Doctor Doom was one of the inspirations for Darth Vader, by the way.) And if his appearance weren't confirmation enough, when the hero-protagonist meets him near the end of the game the Worker speaks with excellent diction in an English accent, the true signs of evil in our age.

Realization comes at the end

Oh, well, no one plays this game because it's a brain-teaser. © 2013 Stephen Yuen

Education Bubble(heads)

A new app shows how to play and win the college game. It's all about throwing awesome parties and wearing the hottest clothes.

No job prospects and a hundred thousand dollars in debt? Just press "restart" and try again.  Who said the app was real life?

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Morgen, Morgen, Nur Nicht Heute

203 pts, a personal record.

I didn't think I would ever score
A word higher than 194

T'wasn't brilliance or persistence tough
But a desire to avoid attacking the pile of stuff
To do during this time of the year.

Procrastination afflicts me with regret, fear
And other negative emotion
I just wish that work I would revere
As much as my Scrabble and game-app devotion.

Blind Spot

Like millions ( a billion?) of other time-wasting smartphone users, I click over to Angry Birds when bored or in need of a distraction. I finished the game but found it difficult to score the maximum three stars on one of the easier levels.

The player must knock over the stone tower, which is intermittently successful if one shoots at the tower roof. But the score was frustratingly low despite hundreds of attempts over a period of months.

I started firing birds in all directions and found that a couple of shots by the yellow triangular bird would demolish a small stone near the base. The whole edifice came tumbling down, and the elusive three stars were the reward.

The small satisfaction received from beating the level was dispelled by the knowledge that I had a blind spot to a solution that was obvious in retrospect.  How many blind spots do I have in matters more important than a videogame?

Antiquer Learning

In the midst of doing tedious work like our personal tax return (tedium is non-existent when doing our clients' returns, of course), I take a break by picking up the iPad and poking at one of the many game apps on that device. One of my recent favorites is the pay version ($9.99) of Scrabble.

I played the Scrabble board game until high school--and I thought I was fairly competent--until I played it on the iPad. Because the game processes quickly---word look-ups and computerized-opponents' moves occur instantaneously---one shortly learns all the permitted two-letter words.

In real life I never encountered a word that crossed two double-word squares (tile multiplier equals four). On the iPad I did even better: a couple of weeks ago I scored a times-nine word that covered two triple-word squares. In addition using all seven tiles in the rack merited the 50-point bonus. The 194-point total (16 x 9 + 50) was the highest I'd ever seen.

Sometimes antiques can learn new tricks.

Strange Times

"Thirteen wonders" hand

These are strange times. The national conversation this week is about an event that we were taught could never happen--a default by the U.S. Treasury on its obligations.

And last week I won a 13 Wonders limit hand in mah jongg, something that I've never done in over 40 years of playing the game.

At the opening I started with ten of the fourteen tiles necessary to complete the hand. It only took five draws for me to win. "I never thought I'd live to see it"---been saying that quite often lately.