Hey guys! This is as of today my most watched video by far, thanks for all the support! I do need to emphasize one thing that's arisen from all the comments -- please refrain from accusing Matthew of cheating or saying he's cheating by using this phonying tactic. As the tournament rules stand, there is nothing illegal or unethical about it, and Matthew is well respected as a competitor and for his creativity as a player. There are plenty of valid arguments for why this might seem undesirable or why the challenge system should be changed, and it's great to see people discussing this. But it's not fair to Matthew, or to any player who's used this tactic before (which includes myself, as well as many other top players and good friends of mine), to say this is cheating, because as the facts stand it's simply not. I really don't want to start deleting comments, but I'll have to out of respect for Matthew if this continues, so please let's keep the discussion going but without the mentions of cheating. Thanks guys!
Title game for this one was on point. OUTRAGEOUS was your best choice so far for the obligatory all caps word. Also helped that the topic is lit. Regarding the cheating thing, I don't think people outside of tournament scenes (for any game) realize just how loaded that word is. It's a big deal though. Definitely not synonymous with "thing I personally find distasteful."
Oh it definitely happens, believe me... not a good way to make friends but can be a very effective tactic when executed properly. Another good one is playing a valid word that doesn't take an S, your opponent challenges and loses a turn, then later puts an S on it and you challenge it off.
@@klawiehr Yeah completely agree, and I've certainly done it in tournaments though I play relatively few phonies compared to some other top players. I just wouldn't do that to, say, a newer player at club who's still getting into the game. Edit: to be clear I mean the part of playing an intentional phony then challenging off the hook. The valid word that doesn't take an S is completely different in my opinion.
Imagine how invincible nigel would be if he played like this. Nobody would dare challenge something he puts down, (hiarnets), at least initially, and he could turn potentially unwinnable games into winnable ones. It would also mean people would trust his actually valid words less, and be more likely to give him extra turns, thus he would win by more spread, too.
Will Anderson's video of the Jem Burch - Chloe Fatsis game when they were both still high schoolers has both players use that tactic. Early in the game Jem played the phony of DUSTARD (highly plausible, because MUSTARD, CUSTARD, BUSTARD and DASTARD are all valid) and later, Chloe played REDISCERN (somehow not a valid word even though RESEE, RELOOK, REVIEW, RESTUDY, RESURVEY, REEXAMINE, REOBSERVE, REINSPECT, REIDENTIFY and RECONSIDER are all valid words.)
Wow, that giepa play sure was impressive. I wish we had a word for intentionally-played nonwords done for a strategic reason but which also don't even look like real words... Maybe we should start calling those giepas :3
Great video thanks. Tunnicliffe seems very talented at utilising this area of the ruleset and I'm glad I got to appreciate it. I've especially never considered the concept of playing a phony in order to punish a subsequent pluralisation/other hook, as in the second example showcased. I do have a question, if you have the answer. My opponent plays a word to finish the game, and I challenge it. It's in the dictionary, so I should be punished somehow for my challenge, but my "next turn" not existing means the regular penalty can't apply. What happens in this situation?
Yeah there's no penalty for challenging the final word, so in general if you have even the slightest doubt about it being valid you should challenge. Of course people aren't going to challenge the word DOG on the outplay, but you very often see people challenging things that they're 99.9% sure of but have a sliver of a doubt. There's absolutely nothing wrong or unethical there. Interestingly, the international/Collins dictionary plays with a 5-point challenge rule, so if you challenge unsuccessfully you lose 5 points but not your turn. Normally a turn is way worse to lose than 5 points, but the exception is the outplay. In that game, challenging the outplay unsuccessfully results in the same 5-point penalty as any other play, so it's not a "free challenge" as it is in the North American game.
i dont follow scrabble very closely, but this is so interesting! allowing phonies genuinely seems like one of the coolest aspects of the game, yet the funny thing is i probably wouldnt realize if i were spectating a professional game, hahah
Ha! Would also be interesting to hear how he pronounces them to see if it aligns with mine... Reminds of a time Jackson Smylie (another top player) got away with the phony of MISTRIES*. I was sitting next to it and after the game pronounced it as MIS-TRIES, as in the present tense of a verb meaning to try something incorrectly. But he was pronouncing it "MIS-TREES" and claiming it was a fake alternate spelling of MYSTERIES! We'll never know (unless, of course, they somehow add it to the dictionary...)
Yep looks like it would win by 1 -- good call. So slight inaccuracy on my part when I said Peter needs to play with QUIRED to win. In any case though, very hard for Peter to figure this out with confidence with just a few seconds on the clock.
Do you think it would benefit the game if all tournaments imposed smaller penalties for lost challenges? (Like 10 points instead of a full turn) As people have pointed out, phonies add an entertaining twist to the game, but it can also feel rather dirty. I can imagine even pro players having conflicting opinions about this practice
Yeah, your hunch is correct -- there is a wide range of opinions on this among competitive players. It's actually very relevant as the international dictionary uses a 5 or 10-point penalty, so it's basically the exact hypothetical you posed. Basically the main arguments in favor of the lost-turn rule are: (1) it rewards players who put in the work to develop more breadth and confidence in their word knowledge, (2) that's how the box rules were originally written, so given tournaments haven't really changed anything else from the box rules it makes sense to stick to that, (3) the phonying element of the game adds a cool layer of strategy and makes Scrabble sort of like poker in that bluffing is a viable approach, and (4) as this video shows, having phonies makes for some really awesome and hilarious stories. The main arguments in favor of a milder point penalty are: (1) it's more welcoming to newer players as it discourages more experienced players from "bullying" them by playing tons of phonies the newer player might be afraid to challenge, and also encourages the newer players to not be afraid to challenge, and (2) some players view phonying as a detrimental part of the game, and while it's not impossible to get away with a phony in 5- or 10-point challenge, it's a lot harder. I may have missed some more points on both sides but this is the gist of it. Personally I prefer the lost-turn penalty, but I do get why some disagree.
It's a necessary rule, but playing an invalid word *intentionally* does not seem to be in the spirit of the game - the rule wasn't created to promote bluffing, it was just the only fair way to deal with imperfect vocabularies and disagreements. I'd consider it unsportsmanlike, trying to win when you couldn't win as the game is intended. BTW my game is pool and I gamble almost daily and usually win. I don't do anything unsportsmanlike, and I don't need to, and I wouldn't want to win that way. Sportsmanship is the most important thing.
I think it is a shitty way of playing, artificially boosting your spread points when you are loosing. On the next to last turn, you can play whatever garbage made-up word you like, as long as it doesn't put you in the lead of the game. If your opponent wins with their next play anyway, why would they ever challenge the word? He is simply taking advantage of that. If I know that I win on my next turn, I wouldn't care one bit if my opponent just played the "word" QAJIZWENX for god knows how many points. I would just play and win. It doesn't help me any to challenge it. But he just cheated himself to higher spread points. And yes, I will call it cheating, because you can actually have your friends help you getting higher spread points by not challenging words, as long as they still win. It is an ugly form of kingmaking, and it shouldn't be possible in a tournament.
It's the same thing if you tried stalling your opponent's time by playing a phoney when they are at seconds before timeout. It IS technically legal but not ethical. However it's the nature of the game, and you gotta admit as funny as it sounds it's the only way to win. In tournaments, everyone's goal is the same - to win. If you lose, minimise the spread, and that's what Matthew did exactly here. Spread in tournaments are essential to determine who's 1 and 2.
@@harraz7632 That seems very different to me. The person who you're taking advantage of could just challenge you in that case, so it is in some sense their fault if they don't. In these other cases, you're gaining advantage over other random people in the pool, not your opponent, but they can't challenge you to stop that, and your opponent has little incentive to because they'll win anyway.
Of course if there was deliberate collusion there it would be cheating and 100% wrong, but that's not the case here -- in these samples the opponent didn't challenge but there are also many examples (involving Tunnicliffe as well as others who've tried to exploit the same tactic) where the opponent did challenge. If the opponent is 100% confident it's not a word then they're going to challenge because they'll save a ton of spread, and if that happens Tunnicliffe is actually losing spread as opposed to playing a valid word, so this tactic certainly isn't without risk and certainly isn't guaranteed to work. For instance in a tournament I'm quite confident I would've challenged every single one of these phonies, other than maybe SPAMELLIAS as I haven't studied 10s, since the odds of the ~50-100 saved spread points mattering are greater than the odds of me having some crazy slip up and TETIART* or GIEPA* actually being a word. There have been national championships decided by under 20 spread points, and I recently finished 2nd in a tournament by 13 spread points, so believe me, it happens.
I think we should blame the rules for creating this incentive to cheat. Thankfully in the UK we don't have the "miss a turn" rule, so we don't have any Tunnicliffes.
Cheating would be breaking the rules of play. Playing phony words is legal in the ruleset, so calling it cheating is not accurate. I know what you are trying to say though. For me, personally, the realisation that phony words are playable at the tournament level is part of what got me watching competitive Scrabble. I'm glad it's a thing because the game feels much more colourful for it, at least as a spectator. The bluffing aspect adds a completely new dimension of play to the game. Also, if your opponent has not done their homework, then the ruleset punishes that, encouraging players to study the dictionary more acutely. And, if phonies were illegal, how would the ruleset adjust to accommodate this? Would players simply be allowed to have a dictionary handy at all times? If not, then what happens if a phony *does* get placed on the field? Does every game, down to the local tournament level, suddenly need a third party with a dictionary at all times to adjudicate every word played? That simply doesn't seem feasible, or at least not realistic. In my opinion, it seems that phonies are allowed out of necessity first and foremost, and the competitive weaponisation of the rule and subsequent "colour" (as I have called it) is a delectable bonus aspect. This is all the perspective of someone very new to this area of competition so please feel free to correct my thinking where it's needed.
@@SwateOpal Not OP, but there is a simple way to drastically reduce phony words. If a challenge is successful, then the player who played a phony word automatically loses. This is already implemented in other competitive board games such as chess and sometimes Go. I'm not saying that this would be a good change. Whoever came up with the rules of competitive play must have thought about it, but it was an active choice to allow phony words as part of the gamesmanship of competitions.
@@pianoforte611 I mean, if you can define phony words in a linguistically rigourous sense, I think many linguists would want to talk with you :P The hurdle to overcome to ban all phony words would be to expect all players to be familiar with the scrabble dictionary in particular, as there are many real english words that are not in the scrabble dictionary, and would thus also be 'phony', as well as infinite recombinations of prefixes, suffixes, rerooting, compound words, portmanteaus, pluralizations, and other such which would make immediate sense to a listener, and thus linguistically be a real english word even if it had never previously been written down anywhere. It is entirely possible to lay down a real word that is simply not in the scrabble dictionary, and if there was an auto-lose-on-challenge rule, I imagine the conversation would be about how calling out words that are only technically not in the scrabble rulebook is unfair! (I'm not very good at scrabble, and many of the words that ever occur to me are technical terms from whatever field I've been studying recently. For some examples not in the scrabble dictionary, "masuration", related to mensuration (which IS in the dictionary), deals with the measurement of volumes from face measurements. "Peason", a name for a type of British food from the 1500's. "Hamiltonian", which is less surprising given that it's derived from a proper name, an important operator in quantum mechanics. "Eigenstates" might be a better example of a non-playable word from quantum physics. "Hermitian", describing a symmetric matrix. (Ah, my mind is on linear algebra now). But under current rules that only either leaves me unable to come up with something from the letters on my rack, or just losing a turn if I somehow have the right letters to play them! Which is quite acceptable) This is a substantially larger hurdle than expecting players to know which chess moves are legal, or which go moves are legal. And since the english language is constantly evolving, that would be a continual hurdle. What you really want is a "with good intentions" rule, but just you try moderating that at a tournament! If someone swears that they believed giepa is a real word, what method that always only takes a reasonable amount of time at a tournament would you use to judge whether that person is being honest there? Even letter soup is not a good tell, as both cwm and phpht, for example, are playable words in scrabble, and if you've ever studied or read middle english then you know there's much worse letter soup that could plausibly still be said to be in modern english.
@@SwateOpal Yep, this sums it up really well. There is a mode called "void" challenge available on Woogles and other online platforms where the computer doesn't allow you to play words that aren't valid. Words With Friends uses this as well. A nice thing about this is that it's a bit more friendly for newer players or can be a nice way to make things a little less lopsided if an experienced tournament player is playing a casual player. But as you mentioned this would be 100% impractical in tournaments, unless they started using an online interface (which, at least at the moment, is out of the question as there isn't a good way to prevent cheating). I guess you could have people play in person but using tablets connected to an interface instead of a physical board, but I think that takes so much of the fun and uniqueness of in-person play away, and I'm confident the vast majority of tournament players would agree. And I completely agree that phonies make the game more interesting and funny. As with all things in Scrabble that can work against you, they can also work in your favor, even when not done intentionally -- there have been many times I've played something I thought was a word but isn't, and my opponent didn't challenge. Plus, last but not least, if not for phonies, we'd never have that amazing Seinfeld episode where QUONE was played at Kramer's insistence and Jerry challenged it off: ruclips.net/video/fzPy8kSn7o0/видео.html
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Hey guys! This is as of today my most watched video by far, thanks for all the support!
I do need to emphasize one thing that's arisen from all the comments -- please refrain from accusing Matthew of cheating or saying he's cheating by using this phonying tactic. As the tournament rules stand, there is nothing illegal or unethical about it, and Matthew is well respected as a competitor and for his creativity as a player.
There are plenty of valid arguments for why this might seem undesirable or why the challenge system should be changed, and it's great to see people discussing this. But it's not fair to Matthew, or to any player who's used this tactic before (which includes myself, as well as many other top players and good friends of mine), to say this is cheating, because as the facts stand it's simply not.
I really don't want to start deleting comments, but I'll have to out of respect for Matthew if this continues, so please let's keep the discussion going but without the mentions of cheating. Thanks guys!
Title game for this one was on point. OUTRAGEOUS was your best choice so far for the obligatory all caps word. Also helped that the topic is lit.
Regarding the cheating thing, I don't think people outside of tournament scenes (for any game) realize just how loaded that word is. It's a big deal though. Definitely not synonymous with "thing I personally find distasteful."
ARMYCLAW, DAKSA
Wow, imagine playing a phony word then calling a phony when your opponent plays off of it.
Oh it definitely happens, believe me... not a good way to make friends but can be a very effective tactic when executed properly. Another good one is playing a valid word that doesn't take an S, your opponent challenges and loses a turn, then later puts an S on it and you challenge it off.
Personally I have no moral objection to it, nor is there a rule against it. That would just be a word knowledge mistake on your opponent’s part.
@@klawiehr Yeah completely agree, and I've certainly done it in tournaments though I play relatively few phonies compared to some other top players. I just wouldn't do that to, say, a newer player at club who's still getting into the game.
Edit: to be clear I mean the part of playing an intentional phony then challenging off the hook. The valid word that doesn't take an S is completely different in my opinion.
@@mackmeller someone challenged me for hooking their phony i would want to be their friend IMMEDIATELY haha
@@undergroundmonorail 😂
Imagine how invincible nigel would be if he played like this. Nobody would dare challenge something he puts down, (hiarnets), at least initially, and he could turn potentially unwinnable games into winnable ones.
It would also mean people would trust his actually valid words less, and be more likely to give him extra turns, thus he would win by more spread, too.
Rumor has it Matthew once extended CLIFF on the board and made a bingo of TUNNICLIFFES
He played "tuniki", not "tunnicliffes"
@@glowstonelovepad9294 nice bulbasaur pfp
Tarpanier is the pioneer who created tarps. That's a fact (maybe)
When I thought they couldn't get any worse.... SPAMELLIAS
Spamellias are camellia trees that send email spam.
The real question is if there has been an attempt to put Kwyjibo on the board
I thought of that and looked for it but yet to find it! QUONE (from Seinfeld) would also be pretty cool and much more doable
The idea of phonying makes this game so much more interesting to watch and adds more strategy
For EFFS SAKE TETIART ain’t a word!😀
Best comment on this video yet by far 🤣
There is certainly a talent to coming up with plausible phonies.
Will Anderson's video of the Jem Burch - Chloe Fatsis game when they were both still high schoolers has both players use that tactic. Early in the game Jem played the phony of DUSTARD (highly plausible, because MUSTARD, CUSTARD, BUSTARD and DASTARD are all valid) and later, Chloe played REDISCERN (somehow not a valid word even though RESEE, RELOOK, REVIEW, RESTUDY, RESURVEY, REEXAMINE, REOBSERVE, REINSPECT, REIDENTIFY and RECONSIDER are all valid words.)
Bro why does this sound like he’s explaining a position in chess it’s uncanny how similar it sounds
scrabble is the words version of chess
THE -ROOOOOOOOOO- K
@@brockpiano I'd like to challenge that spelling.
Wow, that giepa play sure was impressive. I wish we had a word for intentionally-played nonwords done for a strategic reason but which also don't even look like real words...
Maybe we should start calling those giepas :3
Definitely call them giepas. the word rolls off the tongue and it isn't being used for anything else.
It's called 'shithousery'.
The hilarious thing is, if we call them giepas, GIEPA may become a valid word.
@@pialbagiepaing giepaed giepas?
Wild that you mentioned someone I know in this video.
I remember meeting Juraj at the Calgary Chess Club before he got into Scrabble.
Giepa. Noun. That's a nice giepa you have.
TETIART not only blocks (EFF)S+SAKE, but also opens S(T)AKE. So it's now two valid outplays next to the invalid (TETIART)S+SAKE.
Great video thanks. Tunnicliffe seems very talented at utilising this area of the ruleset and I'm glad I got to appreciate it. I've especially never considered the concept of playing a phony in order to punish a subsequent pluralisation/other hook, as in the second example showcased.
I do have a question, if you have the answer. My opponent plays a word to finish the game, and I challenge it. It's in the dictionary, so I should be punished somehow for my challenge, but my "next turn" not existing means the regular penalty can't apply. What happens in this situation?
yes, seems like you should always challenge the final word
Yeah there's no penalty for challenging the final word, so in general if you have even the slightest doubt about it being valid you should challenge. Of course people aren't going to challenge the word DOG on the outplay, but you very often see people challenging things that they're 99.9% sure of but have a sliver of a doubt. There's absolutely nothing wrong or unethical there.
Interestingly, the international/Collins dictionary plays with a 5-point challenge rule, so if you challenge unsuccessfully you lose 5 points but not your turn. Normally a turn is way worse to lose than 5 points, but the exception is the outplay. In that game, challenging the outplay unsuccessfully results in the same 5-point penalty as any other play, so it's not a "free challenge" as it is in the North American game.
Spemallia
Great video Mack!
lol, these bogus words are great. Love the bluffing part of scrabble.
I don’t know why this ended up in my suggestions but I’m glad it did.
i dont follow scrabble very closely, but this is so interesting! allowing phonies genuinely seems like one of the coolest aspects of the game, yet the funny thing is i probably wouldnt realize if i were spectating a professional game, hahah
I love this video!!!
With top players not studying 9s and 10s. I wonder if someone has ever played a word they thought was a phony but happened to actually be valid
A phony is just a word your opponent hasn’t met yet. :P
I’m starting to think the 5-point rule for bad challenges is more fair than the turn loss rule… hmm
Giepa!
9:00 I haven't even considered spread points!
ooh very creative
That was fun! They should add these phonies to the dictionary ... have to ask Tunnicliffe what they mean
Ha! Would also be interesting to hear how he pronounces them to see if it aligns with mine...
Reminds of a time Jackson Smylie (another top player) got away with the phony of MISTRIES*. I was sitting next to it and after the game pronounced it as MIS-TRIES, as in the present tense of a verb meaning to try something incorrectly. But he was pronouncing it "MIS-TREES" and claiming it was a fake alternate spelling of MYSTERIES! We'll never know (unless, of course, they somehow add it to the dictionary...)
@@mackmeller Recently, I wrote a piece of music and got stuck on what to name it. I eventually settled on the name “Le Tarpanier”.
I’m still stuck on effs sake.
What about REDO alongisde ALE/PAD/IO?
Wouldn't playing RED in the upper left win?
Yep looks like it would win by 1 -- good call. So slight inaccuracy on my part when I said Peter needs to play with QUIRED to win. In any case though, very hard for Peter to figure this out with confidence with just a few seconds on the clock.
What about PANIER at D15? 10:40
cool
spamellias does seem like a word tho lol
It should be a word. :-)
Play PARRINE!!!
Do you think it would benefit the game if all tournaments imposed smaller penalties for lost challenges? (Like 10 points instead of a full turn)
As people have pointed out, phonies add an entertaining twist to the game, but it can also feel rather dirty. I can imagine even pro players having conflicting opinions about this practice
Yeah, your hunch is correct -- there is a wide range of opinions on this among competitive players. It's actually very relevant as the international dictionary uses a 5 or 10-point penalty, so it's basically the exact hypothetical you posed.
Basically the main arguments in favor of the lost-turn rule are: (1) it rewards players who put in the work to develop more breadth and confidence in their word knowledge, (2) that's how the box rules were originally written, so given tournaments haven't really changed anything else from the box rules it makes sense to stick to that, (3) the phonying element of the game adds a cool layer of strategy and makes Scrabble sort of like poker in that bluffing is a viable approach, and (4) as this video shows, having phonies makes for some really awesome and hilarious stories.
The main arguments in favor of a milder point penalty are: (1) it's more welcoming to newer players as it discourages more experienced players from "bullying" them by playing tons of phonies the newer player might be afraid to challenge, and also encourages the newer players to not be afraid to challenge, and (2) some players view phonying as a detrimental part of the game, and while it's not impossible to get away with a phony in 5- or 10-point challenge, it's a lot harder.
I may have missed some more points on both sides but this is the gist of it. Personally I prefer the lost-turn penalty, but I do get why some disagree.
@@mackmeller Thanks for replying. It's very insightful!
What’s with the soyjak thumbnail 💀
'em on the 'og
It's a necessary rule, but playing an invalid word *intentionally* does not seem to be in the spirit of the game - the rule wasn't created to promote bluffing, it was just the only fair way to deal with imperfect vocabularies and disagreements. I'd consider it unsportsmanlike, trying to win when you couldn't win as the game is intended.
BTW my game is pool and I gamble almost daily and usually win. I don't do anything unsportsmanlike, and I don't need to, and I wouldn't want to win that way. Sportsmanship is the most important thing.
These rules are so stupid tho
I think it is a shitty way of playing, artificially boosting your spread points when you are loosing. On the next to last turn, you can play whatever garbage made-up word you like, as long as it doesn't put you in the lead of the game. If your opponent wins with their next play anyway, why would they ever challenge the word? He is simply taking advantage of that. If I know that I win on my next turn, I wouldn't care one bit if my opponent just played the "word" QAJIZWENX for god knows how many points. I would just play and win. It doesn't help me any to challenge it. But he just cheated himself to higher spread points. And yes, I will call it cheating, because you can actually have your friends help you getting higher spread points by not challenging words, as long as they still win. It is an ugly form of kingmaking, and it shouldn't be possible in a tournament.
Yeah, but it's really funny.
It's the same thing if you tried stalling your opponent's time by playing a phoney when they are at seconds before timeout. It IS technically legal but not ethical. However it's the nature of the game, and you gotta admit as funny as it sounds it's the only way to win. In tournaments, everyone's goal is the same - to win. If you lose, minimise the spread, and that's what Matthew did exactly here. Spread in tournaments are essential to determine who's 1 and 2.
@@harraz7632 That seems very different to me. The person who you're taking advantage of could just challenge you in that case, so it is in some sense their fault if they don't. In these other cases, you're gaining advantage over other random people in the pool, not your opponent, but they can't challenge you to stop that, and your opponent has little incentive to because they'll win anyway.
Of course if there was deliberate collusion there it would be cheating and 100% wrong, but that's not the case here -- in these samples the opponent didn't challenge but there are also many examples (involving Tunnicliffe as well as others who've tried to exploit the same tactic) where the opponent did challenge. If the opponent is 100% confident it's not a word then they're going to challenge because they'll save a ton of spread, and if that happens Tunnicliffe is actually losing spread as opposed to playing a valid word, so this tactic certainly isn't without risk and certainly isn't guaranteed to work. For instance in a tournament I'm quite confident I would've challenged every single one of these phonies, other than maybe SPAMELLIAS as I haven't studied 10s, since the odds of the ~50-100 saved spread points mattering are greater than the odds of me having some crazy slip up and TETIART* or GIEPA* actually being a word. There have been national championships decided by under 20 spread points, and I recently finished 2nd in a tournament by 13 spread points, so believe me, it happens.
I think we should blame the rules for creating this incentive to cheat. Thankfully in the UK we don't have the "miss a turn" rule, so we don't have any Tunnicliffes.
It kinda sucks that cheating is an accepted part of tournament play.
Cheating would be breaking the rules of play. Playing phony words is legal in the ruleset, so calling it cheating is not accurate.
I know what you are trying to say though. For me, personally, the realisation that phony words are playable at the tournament level is part of what got me watching competitive Scrabble. I'm glad it's a thing because the game feels much more colourful for it, at least as a spectator.
The bluffing aspect adds a completely new dimension of play to the game. Also, if your opponent has not done their homework, then the ruleset punishes that, encouraging players to study the dictionary more acutely.
And, if phonies were illegal, how would the ruleset adjust to accommodate this? Would players simply be allowed to have a dictionary handy at all times? If not, then what happens if a phony *does* get placed on the field? Does every game, down to the local tournament level, suddenly need a third party with a dictionary at all times to adjudicate every word played? That simply doesn't seem feasible, or at least not realistic.
In my opinion, it seems that phonies are allowed out of necessity first and foremost, and the competitive weaponisation of the rule and subsequent "colour" (as I have called it) is a delectable bonus aspect.
This is all the perspective of someone very new to this area of competition so please feel free to correct my thinking where it's needed.
@@SwateOpal Not OP, but there is a simple way to drastically reduce phony words. If a challenge is successful, then the player who played a phony word automatically loses. This is already implemented in other competitive board games such as chess and sometimes Go. I'm not saying that this would be a good change. Whoever came up with the rules of competitive play must have thought about it, but it was an active choice to allow phony words as part of the gamesmanship of competitions.
@@pianoforte611 I mean, if you can define phony words in a linguistically rigourous sense, I think many linguists would want to talk with you :P
The hurdle to overcome to ban all phony words would be to expect all players to be familiar with the scrabble dictionary in particular, as there are many real english words that are not in the scrabble dictionary, and would thus also be 'phony', as well as infinite recombinations of prefixes, suffixes, rerooting, compound words, portmanteaus, pluralizations, and other such which would make immediate sense to a listener, and thus linguistically be a real english word even if it had never previously been written down anywhere.
It is entirely possible to lay down a real word that is simply not in the scrabble dictionary, and if there was an auto-lose-on-challenge rule, I imagine the conversation would be about how calling out words that are only technically not in the scrabble rulebook is unfair!
(I'm not very good at scrabble, and many of the words that ever occur to me are technical terms from whatever field I've been studying recently. For some examples not in the scrabble dictionary, "masuration", related to mensuration (which IS in the dictionary), deals with the measurement of volumes from face measurements. "Peason", a name for a type of British food from the 1500's. "Hamiltonian", which is less surprising given that it's derived from a proper name, an important operator in quantum mechanics. "Eigenstates" might be a better example of a non-playable word from quantum physics. "Hermitian", describing a symmetric matrix. (Ah, my mind is on linear algebra now). But under current rules that only either leaves me unable to come up with something from the letters on my rack, or just losing a turn if I somehow have the right letters to play them! Which is quite acceptable)
This is a substantially larger hurdle than expecting players to know which chess moves are legal, or which go moves are legal.
And since the english language is constantly evolving, that would be a continual hurdle.
What you really want is a "with good intentions" rule, but just you try moderating that at a tournament! If someone swears that they believed giepa is a real word, what method that always only takes a reasonable amount of time at a tournament would you use to judge whether that person is being honest there? Even letter soup is not a good tell, as both cwm and phpht, for example, are playable words in scrabble, and if you've ever studied or read middle english then you know there's much worse letter soup that could plausibly still be said to be in modern english.
counterpoint. being able to play phonies is funny
@@SwateOpal Yep, this sums it up really well. There is a mode called "void" challenge available on Woogles and other online platforms where the computer doesn't allow you to play words that aren't valid. Words With Friends uses this as well. A nice thing about this is that it's a bit more friendly for newer players or can be a nice way to make things a little less lopsided if an experienced tournament player is playing a casual player.
But as you mentioned this would be 100% impractical in tournaments, unless they started using an online interface (which, at least at the moment, is out of the question as there isn't a good way to prevent cheating). I guess you could have people play in person but using tablets connected to an interface instead of a physical board, but I think that takes so much of the fun and uniqueness of in-person play away, and I'm confident the vast majority of tournament players would agree.
And I completely agree that phonies make the game more interesting and funny. As with all things in Scrabble that can work against you, they can also work in your favor, even when not done intentionally -- there have been many times I've played something I thought was a word but isn't, and my opponent didn't challenge.
Plus, last but not least, if not for phonies, we'd never have that amazing Seinfeld episode where QUONE was played at Kramer's insistence and Jerry challenged it off: ruclips.net/video/fzPy8kSn7o0/видео.html
Giepa!
Jeep!
Giepas criepas.