Hey Guys! I'm Mack Meller, the 2024 North American Scrabble Champion and #1 ranked player in North America. I played my first tournament at 10 years old and have continued to enjoy the game since for its strategic complexity, excitement, and great community of players.
My main goal with this channel is to grow the game overall and, in particular, to help people improve and find joy in playing. My content includes instructional videos, crazy in-game positions, and cool variants, among lots of other fun things.
Check out my website at mackmeller.com for more info about me. I do private Scrabble lessons (including with kids -- it's a great way to improve vocabulary and math skills), as well as group presentations, so please reach out if at all interested or with any other questions or feedback!
1:09:46 Thought I had seen COATIEST* before, so I was expecting that (I believe it was mentioned as a phony before). If that were good and you had played it, I believe you'd be U-stuck! (after he blocks UN/NU)
Intro: “Hey guys, and welcome to my twenty-first recorded Best of 11 Blitz Scrabble Battle against fellow top player Joey Mallick. I have definitely won the last couple of these that have gone up on my channel, so Joey is certainly going to be due and eager for a win. Question is: will he be able to get it? I’m certainly going to have something to say about that, we’ll see what the tile gods have to say, we’ll see how we both play today. Should be fun, let’s go ahead and jump right in!”
Yeah that's definitely a missed opportunity, similar to the suggestion of AL in the same spot below -- the drawback is BeginnerBot is certainly capable of finding stuff like H(EL)L if it has it which would score well while also leaving me with drek. Of course there's no guarantee the bot actually does it even if it has it, so probably worth the risk given the upside
This is the correct play against higher rated players, right? High volatility favors the weaker player who is expected to lose anyway, because it gives relatively high winning chances with a simple S/? draw in this case.
Cool games! 🥶No hot sauce RNG this time. Here's some ideas: 1. Play exactly one more tile than your previous move, or exchange/pass. The latter counts as playing 0 tiles, so you need to play a single tile the next move :) 2. All tiles played in a move must have the same face value. (Hmm, I'd believe this is too hard, so maybe you can relax it to something like the face values can differ by at most one, so you can play your 1/2 pointers together or 4/5 pointers together but not 8 and 10 in the same move) 3. You have to make at least 3 words in each turn, or exchange/pass. (In contrast to no overlaps, we want overlaps now!)
The thought actually crossed my mind too! But I think it still offers enough flexibility (e.g. as an S for a hook, or to help play/set up power tiles) that it does retain some value
Mack Meller Play a game where you play according to the order of games. If it's an odd rated game, IE game 1, then you play an odd number of tiles,. and must score oddly. The hooks must amount to an odd score. When exchanging, your tile value must amount to an odd number in point value. Your cumulative score can be even at any point except after turn 1. But you must end with an odd score. The rules are reversed for the next game. Even only. IE you cannot play QI for 11, or ZEBO* for 15/25/whatever. Exceptions are that you're allowed to play 8s/10s/12s as bingos in odd games, and 7s and 9s/11s in even games. If the AI creates a hook that forms words with the opposite number of letters, you must exchange at least 3 tiles.
Good video, Mack. The one completely misleading part is emphasizing that Josh is "7-1" with the strategy. That incorrectly assumes a neutral start, which by definition of starting with a bingo was not; he held a large point lead, and often plus a tempo in most situations where opp doesn't have a comeback bingo, or a strong s or other hook on his opening bingo. In addition, Josh is rated over 2000 or 2050, or whatever for a reason, so giving an elite player a bingo lead early on will dramatically increase his W %. So with most of these players Josh is statistically an overdog even with a neutral start. That being said, I agree with the worm / Dennis Rodman analogy. While doing these types of openings does create unwanted volatility, it can also change the opponent's style of play, and since these positions aren't seen too often, may unnerve some opponents. What I would have been more interested in hearing from you in the video would be the best strategy to counteract the bingo before triple placements. I suspect the correct strategy from an 1800s hackish perspective is to recognize that, barring special end of tournament spread situations, volatility only helps the player trailing. The player trailing should just carry on with their best play and build toward bingoing and drawing 7 tiles to maximize their opportunities at blanks or an S, or exchanging below marignal racks to also enhance S ? draws. In other words, even with a weak S or blank like Ron had, playing elsewhere seems preferable (XI) to strengthen their blank for the H15 spot. As a footnote, as fun (or reckless depending on your perspective) these openers are, if they were in a finals match like Josh had vs a Joey Mallick type seasoned player, I seriously doubt he would use the aggressive opening placements, and would opt for more traditional placements. The financial incentive for most players, coupled with the historical shot at a National title, would bring almost anyone to their senses to maximize W % when it mattered the most: under the bright lights and on the big stage.
One challenge that might be fun (although I have no concept of how difficult or constraining it would actually be) is that at least one tile in your play must touch a tile in BeginnerBot's previous play in some way, and if for some reason there are no legal moves, you're forced to pass.
I'm not sure it's "natural" to be as worried as you were about FORESAW. I do agree that after AMIGO it seems likely that he left the X as part of his leave.
I've tried this against low ELO players online, pretty fun actually, harder than it sounds bc the board can get congested but I did manage to beat somebody doing it
3:30 The genius move here is figuring out some sequence of two tile plays that allows you to end with a two tile triple-triple on row 1. Also, I don't think beginner bot bot bases its plays on words that are "common" or not, it just tries to achieve a "par" score every game. That's why you see things like "Master (460 point average)" when selecting the bot level. Personally, I decided there wasn't much point in playing anything other than Master after Intermediate bot bingoed against me with CONTROVERT.
Ooh, that's clever, though also very risky -- BeginnerBot is probably capable of finding stuff like H(AL)L/HIRE for 40+, or playing stuff hooking AL, which would score well and foil my plan (and leave me down a lot and with drek)
@@mackmeller ah yeah that’s right. I was thinking if it didn’t have the L you’d be in good shape. AD and WADE is kinda in the same vein. I was thinking it would only try to play left to right with ALL or ADD/ADO. But yeah it would almost certainly find the ?IRE hooks since those are so common.
Bingo or nothing seems interesting enough i'd watch a short series for lol. Challenges that can showcase specific kinds of word sets maybe interesting: minimum 3 vowels, duplicate letters only, maximum tile value restrictions.
These videos are fun! Some ideas I'm thinking of on the fly: 1. On every turn, you're forced to either play a word within 10 points of whatever BeginnerBot plays, or score 0 (exc or pass). If you go first, you must score 0. 2. No word restrictions, but you are not allowed to use any E's. You must keep every E that you draw from the bag on your rack. If your rack has 7 E's, or if there are no tiles left in the bag, or if there are no more E's unseen, you must play through the rest of the game without exchanging. 3. Generate three random 7-letter words from the dictionary. No restrictions, but if you do not play one of these words during the game, you automatically lose. 4. On every turn, you are only allowed to either score a prime number of points, or score 0.
All of these sound fun, thanks! The math nerd in me especially wants to try 4, though I think it'll result in a fairly easy win (it'll be somewhat annoying in that I often can't make plays covering TWS squares and stuff, but many overlaps will still work and a lot of bingos too since the +50 can turn a non-prime into a prime)
Didn't check the date on this video and was screaming for you to play PWNS with KENOTRONS instead of POW. Guessing it wasn't yet valid, especially based on the fact it didn't show up in the analysis.
You should try a game vs. beginner bot where the rule is that you cannot place any tiles on any bonus squares (this would make bingos extremely difficult to play)
Ooh that's a cool idea! I honestly think that'll be a struggle to win, like you said bingoing is really hard and if I can't bingo I can't really score anything with that restriction
