Some unbelievable, silly, and surprising nonwords that have appeared (and remained) on Scrabble boards at tournaments! Starring top experts Matthew Tunnicliffe, Josh Sokol, and Jackson Smylie
hey hey hey, in that final game, 21 of my 192 points were gotten using valid words! Thanks for the memories, had almost forgotten about some of those games :) Keep up the awesome content
@@Ascension721 Your comment reminded me of a time once someone challenged WAS since they were like "WA isn't a good two, so you can't pluralize it, challenge!" So you just never know...
What I'm learning from this series of videos is that memorizing loads of words isn't actually that necessary, as if something at least sounds like it could be a real word, most people won't challenge it.
Correction: even if you're someone infamous for playing fake words, and even if you play something that barely looks like a real word (looking at you, 'tuniki'...), you'll probably still not get challenged. That leads me to wonder how often someone's challenged one of Matthew Tunnicliffe's words and it turned out to be real.
@@JorWat25 It's definitely happened a good amount. That's one upside of playing a lot of phonies -- people will tend to challenge you more if you get that reputation, which means you'll get more free turns off of challenges of your valid words.
I just assumed that most people knew that the more vulgar curse words aren't valid in scrabble. After my mom challenged off my high scoring f-bomb I naturally looked up the rest of them, as a super mature 13 year old, back in the day.
I think the most ridiculous one I ever let go was when I was 7 and let a phony 2 go. My opponent played JOKE covering a triple for 49 points and also made EP in the process. The worst part was I noticed 3 turns later and then was angry at myself. I've also accidentally played ZO (in a TWL game) and that was allowed to stay.
@@mackmeller That's actually hilarious. I think it's just something you don't even really think to look for since it's definitely not a word knowledge error. At that kind of level you just really don't expect a phony 2 because everyone knows the 2's. I think Jesse Day once described playing a phony 2 at the top level as the equivalent of going to work and forgetting to put shoes on, and tbh that's probably accurate. I once accidentally played WA and that got challenged off immediately. Also saw someone apparently get mad at their horrific rack and proceeded to bingo from an A by playing AQIIIIAA. They hooked the Q onto the end of the word SORE as well making SOREQ. That's personally the funniest play I've seen in my life (I challenged it obviously but it was still funny.)
1:43 the thing is, even if it doesn't resemble any specific actual word, it reaaaally sounds like a Scrabble word. Interestingly, VESPA* and SEGWAY* are both valid in the German word list
7:09 - if anyone's reading the commentary, I *think* the "valid anagram" Josh is referring to is OLEUM, but while Collins has a fast way to check if something is valid, I'm not sure of such a source for TWL...
Yep it's OLEUM -- the tool I use for quick lookups is ULU (Ultimate Lookup Utility), it's a phone app: apps.apple.com/us/app/ulu-ultimate-lookup-utility/id1281832323
Regarding ghurrian: Hurrian (without the G) is the singular of Hurrians an ancient people from Syria, as well as the name of their language. Not a scrabble word, as it counts as a proper name (I assume), but still.
@pixi9278 Yes indeed! Good spot there. That was exactly why I played HELLBOOT*. When studying words, I must have guessed that HELLBOOT* was valid when prompted with the letters BEHLLOOT, which instead anagrams into the word BOLTHOLE. It's tricky to remember what was the wrong answer versus what was the right one when it comes to word study!
@@axcertypo I have this same problem with ALOQSTU. My brain instantly defaults to QUALOTS* because QUALOT* is a berry in the gen 3 pokemon games. I actually have to take a second before realizing the valid play is LOQUATS.
BULLSHIT, BATSHIT, APESHIT, HORSESHIT are valid words, so that adds more plausibility to the word. The 123 point play of QUINiNe may also have been a reason, but even if challenged, there were several bingos through the A of FAENA
Very true. Given that he should absolutely challenge if he knows DOGSHIT* is invalid, but if he's unsure it makes total sense to allow it given QUININE scores like 40 more where he played it as opposed to with MOAN.
The real point of not challenging is not opening up the possibility of losing his turn and getting his new QUININE spot blocked. In the other two scenarios (not challenging and challenging successfully) there is a guarantee of a spot for QUININE.
Pretty sure VESPA is allowed in SOWPODS or whatever they call it now. Don't know about NUBILER, but I know NUBILOUS is allowed. I forgot what it means, but it has nothing to do with "nubile".
VELITE* may have been me, lol... I recently (unintentionally) played that against Josh Sokol while he was streaming. VELITES and VERITE are good, which was the source of the confusion
Technically, nothing. Though deliberately planning this would be considered collusion which is a form of cheating, and I think if a game ended with a score of like 938-926 and most of the words were absurdities such as QWAVOXUH and ZYLEKGY there would be reasonable suspicion to charge the players with collusion. Can't say I've ever heard of something like this happening in a tournament but I imagine that's how it would be handled.
This is so stupid. If you know you are going to win on your next turn, why would you ever challenge? The opponent can play whatever garbage "word" they want, and get away with it. They only do it to increase their spread, because they know they won't be challenged. It is as close to cheating as it gets, and it should not be allowed.
I feel bad, since you seem to be among a minority that doesn't enjoy this aspect of competitive Scrabble. Trying to find ways to swindle games or minimize losses is an incredibly important part of competing in tournaments. Maybe one day, total points differential (spread) will no longer be used as a tiebreaker, or challenges won't carry with them such a severe penalty, but until then, let's bask in the creativity and hilarity of phonying on purpose :)
@@dontcaremateI understand the sentiment though, particularly the situation when the outcome is already determined (the phony is not enough to change the victor, only the margin) and the other person has far more to lose by challenging than they have to gain. Win vs loss matters more than margin when it comes to standings, especially if you're not competing for the top of the leaderboard. So if you're a top player going against just another person in the field, you're basically getting something for free from someone maybe not as invested in tiebreakers. It's basically an autoprofit spot late in the game. The other person calculates they can win without challenging so doesn't bother. It's the other top players who aren't taking advantage of these spots that lose out, and whether or not that makes sense, you probably have your own opinion
