SCRABBLE - The Last Word Newsletter

D W E E B O V I S I O NHow I started DweebovisionI was inspired to create Dweebovision after watching poker tutorial videos. The poker videos were areally effective learning tool which consolidated my book learning and were great fun to watch. Thepoker videos I enjoyed most were those that featured commentary during live play.No such videos existed for SCRABBLE so I decided to make some. My first videos were created in2007 but I could not find a website to host them. (YouTube had a 10-minute limit on videos until2011). In 2012 I revisited the idea of SCRABBLE tutorial videos and Dweebovision was born.Content of Dweebovision videosMy main aim in Dweebovision videos is to articulate my thought processes when consideringmoves. This really emphasises the importance of score and rack leave in move evaluation anddemonstrates how these factors are used in practice to select the best move.Another major feature of live ingame commentary is that it captures the emotion and drama of thegame which makes it so compelling for us as players. Since the games are only 20 minutes foreach player, many games feature moves made under time pressure. This is exciting to watch andalso instructive in how to play under these conditions.Every game I play on the Internet Scrabble Club is videoed and put out on Dweebovision regardlessof whether I win or lose or how well I play. I think this makes the videos more exciting for the viewerbecause they know I have not simply cherrypicked games where I do well.One further feature of my videos is that most of them include an immediate postgame analysis usingISC’s “history” feature. This instantly identifies missed bingos and also enables me to highlightsuboptimal moves. I think this is really useful because it shows how hard it is to play a perfect gameand encourages you to learn from your mistakes rather than be discouraged by them.SCRABBLE on the InternetSCRABBLE currently has a low profile on the Internet. This presents a huge opportunity whichshould be developed by the SCRABBLE community. The two areas most noticeable by their nearabsence are tutorial videos, like Dweebovision, and live coverage, with commentary, of SCRABBLEtournaments.The importance of SCRABBLE raising its Internet profile is that the Internet is the first place manypeople go for information. If people are interested in tournament SCRABBLE they want to see whatit’s like (videos of SCRABBLE tournaments with commentary) and what it takes to compete(SCRABBLE tutorial videos). 49