The one problem with playing people at Scrabble on line is that you don't know if they are cheating. Obviously as you can't see them you have no idea if they have a dictionary, or worse some kind of anagram machine helping them come up with their words.
I am actually not that bothered if people aren't too blatant about it (though it seems a shame not to play the game properly) because being a good Scrabble player is as much about placement of a word and rack management (getting rid of difficult letters on a go, rather than going for the highest scorer in order to increase your chances of using all 7 letters) and so I find I can beat some of the cheats just by playing better.
But it's annoying when the other person doesn't even make an attempt to disguise what they are doing and plays a succession of unlikely, but allowed words that belie the rating they have been given (you get a four digit rating based which goes up if you win games and down if you lose- the higher the rating of the person you are playing the more points you win or the less you lose).
Yesterday there was such a blatant cheater that I just had to laugh. He had a rating of around about 1000 which is lower than mine and not bad, but not great, but was coming up with weird and wonderful 7 letter words, all of which amazingly turned out to be real when challenged. He didn't make one single bad choice. Weird that. Satisfyingly I still beat him through skill and a bit of luck (my first go "squealer" went through two double word scores and I had been dealt both the blanks).
Today there was a borderline case. Someone with a lower rating than me (and I've played people in the 1500s and you expect them to have a more extensive knowledge) started the game by playing "maydays". Now it's possible that you might take a chance on that, but it was quite a difficult spot as one of the Ys was a blank. I was suspicious.
My opponent played a few more words that I'd never heard of, that seemed a bit risky, but all of them proved to be correct when challenged. Again slightly suspect. Then just as I had closed the gap, they played "Spooney", which I would contend is not a very likely word to know and would best be described as a bit of a risk. But I challenged it knowing what the answer would be. Of course it was allowed.
"I'd appreciate you not using a dictionary or anagram machine" I messaged my opponent, "Or that at the very least you did so less obviously".
I was told not to be stupid and the suggestion was made that I was a bad loser, but it wasn't that at all. I'm getting beaten quite a bit because there are some good players at this website and anyway there's a lot of luck in the game, but it just seemed unlikely that someone with such a low rating would get such unlikely words.
There was the chance that they had picked them up in play, so maybe I was being unfair, as I now know these words and would play them, but the skill seemed to outweigh the rating, so I think I was probably right. If not I am sorry for being so churlish and suspicious.
It is tragic how far I have been sucked into this world already, but hopefully it will all be good material for the sit-com that is already formulating in my Scrabble-addled brain.
Having said that, later I was playing someone with a 1500 rating (who I had played before and beaten, but through lucky letters rather than skill) and was trailing by some distance due to his knowing words like eponioa (which probably isn't the actual word, but it was something along those lines - it's not that easy to remember stuff just cos someone else has played it) and I took a punt on playing "jinglet" which I felt I might have seen somewhere before, but was really clutching at straws, and it turned out to be OK. I doubt either of us will forget that one in a hurry. He still ended up winning though.
Congratulations on reaching the end of what must be one of the dullest warming ups ever.
