 Word Freak
A cache by Fish Soup Hidden: 5/22/2006
Size:  (Small) Difficulty:  Terrain:  (1 is easiest, 5 is hardest)
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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 to 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
indepedent 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:
- Maximum score for 2000 champion = AB
- Maximum score for 2002 champion = CD
- Maximum score for 2004 champion = EF
- Maximum 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, which is a small metal tin suitable for small trade
items only, is located at 47 AD.BOP and 122 KG.JLN.
You can check your answers for this puzzle on
Geochecker.com.
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3 user(s) watching this cache.
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