From: rgb5@cornell.edu
Date: Wed, 28 Jan 1998 13:29:12 -0500 (EST)
Subject: Getting Slaughtered can be Good for the Soul...
Message-id: <Pine.SOL.3.91.980128121545.1743A-100000@travelers.mail.cornell.edu>

and sometimes even a learning experience.

Harriet has continued the thread of playing up and her not-always- encouraging results. I meant to comment earlier about my experience.

I was playing on the DOOMs for a year before I entered my first tournament and I started with a rating in the 1600s. I played two more tournaments in the intermediate division, winning roughly half my games and keeping my rating virtually unchanged. I was able to play not-infrequent practise games with Paul Epstein and sometimes Rod Nivison, Jim Peters and Steve Grob. I learned a lot in spite of being routinely pummeled at first. Mostly I learned to just relax and enjoy the game. If I couldn't win, I could at least learn new words and spend time with interesting people.

I got an opportunity to play up at the Atlantic City tournament in 1995 when my rating was 1638. That was only my 4th tournament, but I got pretty lucky and beat Joe Edley and several other top players in going 9-3 to raise my rating to 1923! A month later I went 5-1 at West Bloomfield, MI to get to 1938. I was invincible! I was on my way to 2100! No stopping me. Yeah... right.

Turns out I wasn't quite ready for prime time. I was 0-7 in my next tournament. Ouch. 2-5 the next time out. Suddenly I'm down to 1815, but at least my ego was back in check. I just kept studying and playing, managing to keep my rating in the low 1800s for nearly two years. During that time I was very inconsistent from one game to the next. I played some nearly perfect games and made some embarrassingly stupid blunders. I beat national and world champions and lost to some of the most wonderful self- described mediocre players. (I'm proud to be 5-5 against Captain M himself, so I am just as mediocre as anyone I hope!)

Finally in 1997 I seem to have overcome my inconsistency. I'm not sure I understand entirely what I'm doing differently, but I think that mainly I've just made fewer mistakes. I firmly believe that more than half of all tournament games are won by the person who makes fewer mistakes. Avoiding mistakes is mainly a factor of my state of mind. Other than that, I've just continued to study more and more 7lw and 8lw using a program I've written myself. I'm addicted to it. I also review the 3 and 4lw with hooks in both the quiz and slide show mode of Lexpert. The night before a tournament, I'll often run through all the 4lw + hooks in a 1 per second blitz. Playing Boggle online has helped too, particularly with 5lw. I haven't actually been playing much apart from tournaments (9 in 1997). Maybe study is more important. It seems to work for me.

I guess my advice to the aspiring expert is to relax. Take your time and be willing to get pummeled repeatedly. Don't get discouraged. If you don't learn to enjoy the game, even when you lose, you'll burn out fast. Study. Study some more. And then even more than that. There are some really great people who play this game and you are no better than any of them. Good luck, but don't count on luck. Don't blame your tiles. Write down your racks and analyze your games after the tournament. If we play, I hope we both have fun. I'll pummel you if I can, but I'll congratulate you if you beat me. Oh, did I mention that you should study?

Rich