I once prided myself on not being into those time wasters commonly referred to as "games." The sight of slobbish, extended-adolescence men playing X-Box on the couch (think Shaun of the Dead's Ed), park-bench pensioners pencilling in crossword puzzles, office drones transfixed by solitaire, or plain old board (bored?) games struck me as brain dead past times. Read a book. Go to the gym. Paint your house. Do something to redeem the time rather than simply pass the time. Alas, my recent Scrabble addiction places me in the ranks of the living dead.

Hi, I'm Dan, and I'm a Scrabbleholic. It's been four hours since my last game. This past week, boasting three bingos--Scrabble lingo for exhausting all seven tiles in a turn--I scored 513. I am ashamed that I am proud of my accomplishment.

Curious to see how my all-time high ranked with the all-time high, I discovered that that the greatest Scrabble game ever played was fought out in Lexington, Massachusetts, which borders the town in which I grew up. Playing in a Unitarian church (how Lexington!), carpenter Michael Cresta scored 830 points. Wayne Yorra, who, like Randy the Ram, works the deli counter in a local supermarket, posted 490 points (just 23 points less than my high). In addition to scoring the most points in a sanctioned Scrabble contest, Cresta notched the highest scoring Scrabble move ever, a 365-point bingo on the word "quixotry," and combined with Yorra for the greatest number of points in a single game (1320). Not a record, but quite impressive nonetheless, is the fact that Cresta began with a 169-0 deficit. Quitters never win and winners never quit.

More amazing to me than the Scrabbletastic players are the Scrabbominable player haters who note that neither Cresta nor Yorra was "an expert-level player," and that each player's mistakes allowed the other to capitalize mightily. As Stefan Fatsis wrote at Slate a few weeks after 2006's record-breaking game, "Cresta-Yorra was a fluke." Citing a MIT professor's examination of the game, Fatsis lamely points out that "Cresta and Yorra had better [potential] moves on 14 of their 22 nonbingo turns." So what? Nobody has made better moves in a game. We know this because nobody has scored higher.

"The wrong moves produced history," Fastis contends. "But is that enough? If 830--or any record--happens as a result of boneheaded play, tactical ignorance, or the pursuit of a good time, should it count? Or should records be reserved for those who have earned the right to set them, and who set them in expert fashion?" Did the Mighty Casey strike out, or did the pitcher strike out the Mighty Casey?

Save the asterisks for Barry Bonds. Michael Cresta's amazing feat says as much about him as it does about Scrabble snobs. Don't hate the player. Hate the game. And if you hate the game, don't play the game--which gives me an idea: enter a Scrabble recovery program and get a life.

Now you just need to start playing scrabble on your computer and you could officially call yourself a gamer.

I find more enjoyment in Scrabble in coming up with the smallest little known words I can find. (mainly because my knowledge of the $12 words is a bit lacking), words like adz.

I neglected to say that I play on my computer. The two record-setting players competed on a traditional board.

I neglected to say that I play on my computer.

Do you play as an orc or a night elf?

Hey are we still at war? I havent seen a war protest in like mmmm 6 months. Just ask'n

Not all games are created equal, and they are not all time-wasters.

In playing scrabble, you are not just amusing yourself, but giving your brain a work-out. It's definitely different from Grand Theft Auto.

The same could be said of chess or sudoku.

Also, there is another word for time-wasters. They are sometimes called "hobbies". It's ok to have them if they don't take over your life.

welcome to the dark side, dan.

The Scrabble snobs remind of those like David Brooks who worship at the altar of the valedictocracy. As Lewis Lapham pointed out in his amazing Achievetrons article, the best and brightest don't often make the best and brightest decisions that lead to the best and brightest outcomes.

"Instead of showing himself partial to “closet radicals” who might pose some sort of deep downfield threat to the status quo, Obama was choosing wisely from the high-end, happy few, dispensing with “the romantic and failed notion” that individuals never before seen on the White House lawn could provide the “maturity” needed “in a time of war and economic crisis.” David Brooks assured his readers in the New York Times that the incoming apparat, its members “twice as smart as the poor reporters who have to cover them,” embodied “the best of the Washington insiders.” “Achievetrons . . . who got double 800s on their SATs,” said Brooks, taking pains to list the schools from which they had received diplomas (Columbia, Harvard, Wellesley, Harvard Law, Stanford, Yale Law, Princeton, etc.) attesting to the worth of their wise counsel. Karl Rove, former advance man for President George W. Bush, informed the Wall Street Journal that Tim Geithner (Dartmouth, Johns Hopkins) as secretary of the Treasury and Larry Summers (M.I.T., Harvard) as director of the National Economic Council were “solid picks,” both investments rated “reassuring” and “market-oriented.”" - Lapham from his Achievetrons article, March 2009

Ok, so it's not a totally valid ana1ogy, but I'd much rather have an ethical compassionate leader at the helm than a genius. Virtue more often than not trumps intellect.

Not like anyone here will care, but that was from a May 2009 Harper's article, not March.