The Scrabble Scandal and Poker Parallels
The story of the cheating incident this week at the 2012 National Scrabble Championship is fascinating on its own. But for those of us involved with poker, it perhaps resonates even more strongly thanks to several parallels with incidents from poker's past.
There was an interesting story this week regarding a cheating scandal -- not in poker, but in Scrabble, the board game in which players use lettered tiles to spell words on a 15-by-15 grid. The story is quite intriguing in its own right, but perhaps especially so for the several ways it brings to mind stories of cheating that form part of poker's colorful history.
The incident took place at the National Scrabble Championship which has been around since the late 1970s, having become an annual event just a few years ago. This year's tournament staged by the North American Scrabble Players Association (NASPA) was held this week in Orlando, Florida, with Nigel Richards winning his fourth championship (and third straight). The 45-year-old New Zealander had to play more than 30 matches on his way to overcoming a field of 339 players to claim the $10,000 first prize.
Of course, it was the story of a cheating attempt at this year's championship that helped bring the competition a larger audience this time around. According to John D. Williams, Jr., the executive director of the National Scrabble Association, it was the first time a cheater has been caught at a national Scrabble competition since he assumed his role back in the late 1980s.
The cheating and ejection occurred late in the competition, as explained by Jen Doll who reported on the incident for The Atlantic Wire. The culprit was just 13 years old, thus making him one of the youngest competitors in the top division (Division 1). There were 28 rounds prior to the finals, with the cheating incident having been found out and dealt with during Round 24.
Doll spoke with the cheater's opponent, Art Moore, who ended up reporting him. According to Moore, he and his opponent were clearing the board from the previous match, placing the tiles into the bag from which they would then draw them out during their game. Moore noticed his opponent pick up the two blank tiles along with others, then release all but those two into the bag before dropping his hand below the table. In Scrabble, blank tiles are especially valuable. They are kind of like wild cards in poker insofar as they can be played as any of the 26 letters, thereby considerably helping a player form words with the other letters in a player's rack.
In fact, the player had been suspected of cheating in the past, with his high achievements at such a young age drawing further suspicion. Thus was Moore was paying close attention to his opponent's behavior, being on the lookout to see if he would try to cheat in their match. Moore waited until they were finished putting the piles in the bag, then called over the director. The bag was emptied and it was discovered the two blank tiles were missing. Then a player at a neighboring table saw the cheater drop the blank tiles on the floor, and soon after the player was ejected.
Doll goes on to describe how a player who had suspected the boy of cheating in the past then went around to all of his opponents during this year's competition to quiz them about their matches with him. He discovered that in those previous matches the cheater "had somehow managed to draw 'close to 90 percent of the blanks,' which is very nearly impossible." In other words, it sounds as though the cheater's ploy of saving out the blanks to use during the matches might have been successful numerous times before he was caught -- both in this year's competition and perhaps in other tournaments, too.
Doll explains how the subject of cheating has been hotly debated in the Scrabble world over recent years, with many serious players unsatisfied with how NASPA officials have addressed it. Interestingly, even though the player had been a suspected cheater for quite some time, it took other players catching him in the act and drawing attention to it before he was finally caught.
As I say, the story is fascinating on its own -- see Doll's article, "Inside Scrabble's Cheating Scandal," for more. But for those of us involved with poker, it perhaps resonates even more strongly thanks to several parallels with incidents from poker's past.
Tile in the Pocket, Card up the Sleeve
One connection I think most of us immediately drew when hearing the story was how pocketing tiles in Scrabble reminded us of the proverbial card-up-one's-sleeve method of cheating in poker.
Just last week I was watching the 1959 western Rio Bravo starring John Wayne, Dean Martin, and Ricky Nelson in which there appears a side plot involving someone being suspected of cheating at poker. Sure enough, when the player is confronted it is discovered he has three aces up his sleeve, having held them out presumably to reintroduce them into his hand at an opportune time.
It does seem a tad more brazen, however, to try to secure the blank tiles before starting a heads-up Scrabble match as opposed to grabbing an ace or three along the way in a full-ring poker game. (It's worth noting the offender's young age when contemplating the decision-making that took place.)
Other Methods
The article also talks about other forms of cheating that can happen in Scrabble, with each perhaps evoking parallels to forms of cheating in poker. When taking tiles out of the bag, a player might overdraw (i.e., take more than allotted), not unlike a player dealing an extra card to himself. Doll mentions "banking points" as another form of cheating, which would involve adding points to one's total when not deserved, something that resembles trying to pull extra chips into one's stack without being detected.
Doll tells of one other form of cheating in Scrabble that no longer occurs, something called "brailling" which would involve a player feeling the tiles inside the bag and searching for the smooth (blank) one before selecting. (Scrabble tiles used in competition are now all smooth, i.e., none feature indented letters.) Such recalls once-used methods of altering cards by cutting them different sizes or etching the backs so a player dealing could know by touch the cards he'd deal to an opponent.
Too Good To Be True
Another parallel might be drawn from the whole sequence of suspicion, observation, and capture resulting in the discovery of the cheating. I'm reminded of a late-19th century reading assignment I give in my "Poker in American Film and Culture" class, an excerpt from John Blackbridge's book The Complete Poker Player. There Blackbridge describes tactics used by "card-sharpers" to cheat -- much more prevalent then than today -- and how "honest card players (should be) very wary of any man who habitually wins."
Such was the case with the young player at this year's Scrabble competition, who in fact played and cashed in the 2011 competition where he achieved eye-popping results as a 12-year-old and thus aroused suspicion. Blackbridge also talks about the difficulty in exposing cheaters -- i.e., catching them in the act -- something also apparently faced by those at the Scrabble tournaments.
Community Watch
Finally, one other parallel might be drawn from the way the Scrabble players ultimately found it necessary to self-police their game, something we've seen happen as well with online poker cheating scandals at Absolute Poker, UltimateBet, and elsewhere. At this week's Scrabble tournament, that quick survey of players after the disqualification and discovery that the cheater had "drawn" the blank tiles more often than probability would dictate recalls similar number-crunching performed by those analyzing the play of "POTRIPPER" and other "super users."
Just as we've seen happen in the poker world, those in the relatively tight-knit competitive Scrabble community are hoping this incident will ultimately prove useful when it comes to improving the integrity of their game.
(By the way, that photo of a Scrabble board appearing up top was sent to me a while back by poker author Paul "Dr. Pauly" McGuire, author of Lost Vegas, after he had played a certain slang word for detective.)