Revisited – Something to Do

I have no idea what happened earlier to my post’s video.  I think it got lost on FB.  This time I am using the one that was shared to my own timeline, so it is there and should stay there.  We will see.

Anyway, it is still a monumental tribute to playing all your life.  It has certainly changed mine.  It is less than 8 minutes (I checked).  Watch 1 minute and see if you don’t finish it.  Let me know…

Namaste,

Scott

A Word here and there!

Write about what you like and what you do.  That’s been some of the good advice I have seen here on blog posts.  Well, I know that one of the things I really love doing is playing Scrabble.  On Facebook (Zynga) it’s called “Words with Friends” (WWF).  The board is a bit different and the letters may not be the same in number, but the rules are the same.

I try to play between 18-20 games at a time.  20 is the max.  I enjoy playing the difficult players, but I really don’t care if you are good or not, as long as you keep playing and are having fun.  I have noticed, though, that there are several rules strategies that I try hard to play by and, if I stick to them well and get a decent round of letters, I usually win.  So, what I thought I would do is to give you some of those strategies and, perhaps, help you along a bit in learning to play or improving your score.

Out of an average of 20 games, I will win about 15-16.  I, currently, play good players all round, but have 3 players that will beat me about 4 of the 6 games.  I figure that puts me up a bit in the difficulty.  Also, I do not use any side programs and I don’t look at a dictionary while playing.  You can if you want, I just find the challenge better.

Strategy one:  On the first turn, if I go first and cannot either spell a very low 3-4 word score or get at least 16 points, I pass.  I do not like to play a lot of low points right off because it uses the letters I will need soon.

Strategy two:  Always try to make, at least, two words on each turn.  Try to spell your words so that, wherever they connect, changes directions and forms a new word.  That way whatever letter(s) are connecting count double.

Strategy three:  Try to make the connecting letters be higher point letters.  If it’s going to count double, then make it really count.

Strategy four:  When you can, make the connecting spot a double word or, at least, a double or triple letter spot.  OMG!  if you use an “H”(3 points) as  a connector, it is worth 6, but if it is on a double letter spot it is worth 12 and a triple is 18 for one letter.

Strategy five:  Try to make your higher letters count more.  I have had a lot of times when a smaller word gives more points because of which letter is sitting on a double or triple letter space.

Strategy six:  When the game is in the last 25 letters or so and you have a poor selection, think about trading in 3-4 letters.  Losing your turn is bad, but ending up with all consonants near the end of the game can be horrible.

Strategy seven:  Never give up a triple word spot to the opponent.  I have had a lot of times when I have spelled a 3-letter word worth only 9-12 points in order to block my opponent from getting more if they have a better choice.  Just think:  if you spell an 18 point word (pretty good) but leave the triple word spot open to, say, “hug” that’s 24 points for the opponent; you just lost 6 points.

Strategy eight:  Buy a Scrabble dictionary and read it sometimes.  I used to play a game with the students at school in which we took a 12-14 letter word and made as many words out of it as we could; I played, too.  They got pretty good at it and I hated losing, so I memorized a lot of the scrabble dictionary simply by using it over and over.  Not all the words in that will work in WWF, but it’s pretty good.

Strategy nine:  WWF allows you to play letters and “check” to see if it’s a word.  You are playing online, only a few turns a day, so use this.  Check and see for some spots.  You might be surprised at some English words that work.  I think the scrabble dictionary has 200,000 words in it, so…

Strategy ten:  Hold on to the letters like B,C,F,J,Q,X, and Z until you can get a high-point word out of them.  It’s a bit of a gamble, so, if late in the game, maybe go ahead and use them.

Strategy eleven:  Finally, learn weird words.  I will give you a decent list below of words that have really helped me through rough spots.  know your 2-3 letter words (I doubt you know as many as you think you do for this game).

List:   ab, ad, ae, ag, ax, bi, ef, ex, gi, jo, op, oy, pi, qi, um, xi, yo, za

awe, axe, aye, bah, biz, coy, din, fey, jar, jet, joe, kin, lye, ops, qua, rye, urn, vee, zee

Also:  daze, gaze, haze, maze, qaid, aide, quiz

I think if you use this list and the dictionary, you will do fine.  If you want to play and I have a game open, look me up on Facebook and challenge me.  I can’t wait.  Let me know how you do.  A love of words is a great thing to have.  If you don’t, you can develop one.

Namaste,

Scott

If There’s One Thing I Keno…

This post is, in no way, promoting gambling. It is merely for entertainment and informational.

Originally, I wanted to talk to you all today about the lottery in China. My understanding was that it is a once a year lottery and the winner would win one billion yen. So, I looked up “Chinese Lottery”.

I was directed to a couple of sites on Keno. I knew nothing of Keno, so I started reading. Fascinating.

Paraphrasing, it seems that Keno was a gambling game that stemmed from putting sets of characters on a card. There were a thousand of them, originally coming from the poem used to teach young children how to read Chinese.

The game was invented by a leader of a city under attack. He needed more money to fund the army, but people were unwilling. So, he created this “game” and raised enough money on this lottery to fund the army. In fact, this way of raising money was so successful that most of the Great Wall of China was financed this way.

Moving ahead, when the Chinese immigrants came to America and ended up working on the railroad, they played this game. Americans found out and began playing their own version of it. They named it a horse racing game in Nevada to keep out of legal problems with gambling. When those laws changed, the people again changed the name to Keno.

“Off to the races” was a term that came from playing this game under the racing name.
Over the years, the game has changed and become the familiar game of lottery we use today.

I found it fascinating that something played in China in ancient times to raise money for the military is now played by people all over the United States and the money, well, I imagine a lot of it still, indirectly, goes to the military.

I was going to talk about how much money a billion yen was and how well we could live here on that and discuss how we could alter the lottery to, perhaps, help more people, but I got off-track and had more fun with this.

My description is vague in parts. The two articles I read for these are: Here and here. Read them both. It will take a total of around 10 minutes and then you will be an expert on Keno – well, you will know its history! Lol

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Namaste,
Scott