GCW6HY Word Freak (Unknown Cache) in Washington, United States created by Fish Soup

This cache has been archived.

Fish Soup: This one has had a good run, but I've had to replace too many times already. The final location is a little too public.

GCW6HY ▼

A cache by Fish Soup Message this owner

Hidden : 5/22/2006

Difficulty:

Terrain:

Size: Size: micro (micro)

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Geocache Description:

This puzzle requires some knowledge of Scrabble scoring. The coordinates above are not for the cache, but will put you in Seattle Center where the cache is located.

Another cache in my board game series, which consists of:
Boggle Academy
Battle Stations
Word Freak
Chance Encounter
Gammon Gambit
Domino Delight

The title of this cache refers to a book written by Stephen Fatsis Word Freak: Heartbreak, Triumph, Genius and Obsession in the World of Competitive Scrabble Players. The title says it all. This book was also made into a very good documentary a couple years ago. I recommend both book and movie for those who have any interest in Scrabble and/or would like to learn more about some rather obsessive individuals.

As you may or may not know, Scrabble is very much a competitive game, with national and international championships. The National Scrabble Championship is the largest Scrabble competition in the United States. It is normally held every two years. In 2006, it was renamed the US Scrabble Championship.

Your challenge for this puzzle is to learn a bit about recent champions and then play some Scrabble. From your successful plays, the coordinates will emerge. By the way, two of the recent national champions were featured prominently in Word Freak. Now for some more details.

The four most recent national champions were crowned in 2000, 2002, 2004, and 2005. The last name of each champion can be found on the tile racks below - one name per rack. Some names may be less than 7 letters, leaving some extra letters on the rack. Your challenge is to place the last name from each rack onto the existing Scrabble board shown below. The name must be placed as a single word, not split up into multiple words, or supplemented by other letters. If you need a little help reading the bonus squares on the board, you should know that triple word squares are burgundy color, double word scores are orange, triple letter scores are dark blue, and double letter scores are light blue. You must place each name legally, forming one or more other words in addition to the last name. Of course, proper names aren't normally allowed in Scrabble, but I'm making an exception for this puzzle. All other words you form must be legal Scrabble words, as defined in the Official Scrabble Players Dictionary (Third Edition). Actually, you probably won't need the dictionary. The other words formed by your Scrabble plays aren't especially unusual. Not only must you place each name on the board, but you must find the highest scoring total for all four plays, using standard Scrabble rules for scoring. Each play is independent of the other three plays (i.e., the letters on the rack don't interact with each other once placed on the board), but you can only use a particular triple word square on the board for one of the names. Keep in mind the maximum possible score for a particular name might not give you the maximum total for all four plays combined.

Once you have played each name (removing letters after each play), you'll have four scores, one for each name. Those scores should be represented by letters, as follows:

score for 2000 champion = AB
score for 2002 champion = CD
score for 2004 champion = EF
score for 2005 champion = GHI

In addition:

A - B = J
H + I = K
B + K = L
F - E = M
L + M = N
F - C = O
A + B = P

The cache is located at 47 AD.BOP and 122 KG.JLN.

You can check your answers for this puzzle on Geochecker.com.

Additional Hints (Decrypt)

Haqre ovt ebpx ng gbc bs jnyy, ab arrq gb yrnir gur cnirzrag

Decryption Key

A|B|C|D|E|F|G|H|I|J|K|L|M
-------------------------
N|O|P|Q|R|S|T|U|V|W|X|Y|Z

(letter above equals below, and vice versa)

This cache has been archived.

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Word Freak Mystery Cache

This cache has been archived.

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