Scrabble on the TeraScale

There is also a lack of useful statistics for Scrabble players. James Cherry, author of an on-line Scrabble computer, simulated 5000 games and presented a body of statistics on it such as means, modes and standard deviations of winning game scores, aggregate game scores, highest scoring moves, number of bingoes per game, number of moves per game, and others. Statistics invaluable to wordgame programmers involve probabilities such as how often words are played. For example, the word QAT is played, on average, in 1 in 5 games using the Official Scrabble Players Dictionary. While a sample set of 4000 games can provide some clues into typical gameplay, samples of millions or hundreds of millions are required to achieve asymptotic results and to pan out any irregularities in the data. 1.3 Considerations To liken Scrabble to a science, one needs to define precise rules of gameplay. First and foremost, a standard lexicon needs to be defined. In the United States, the Official Scrabble Players Dictionary or OSPD is used, whereas much of the world uses the Official Scrabble Words or OSW. The combination of these lists, coined SOWPODS, is used for World-Championship play. Secondly, tournament Scrabble is played one-on-one. Thirdly, each player has 25 minutes to make all his or her moves. The remaining set of rules differs on style of play. These rules include constructs for challenging words off the board, exchanging tiles, passing, and various other aspects important in computer play. It is assumed the reader knows the basic abovementioned rules.