# Friend writes like a child, plays Scrabulous like a genius - how is he cheating?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/friend-writes-like-a-child-plays-scrabulous-like-a-genius-how-is-he-cheating/430618>\
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Created:** [December 19, 2007, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/friend-writes-like-a-child-plays-scrabulous-like-a-genius-how-is-he-cheating/430618 "2007-12-19T20:55:41Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![Stanislaus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stanislaus/32/3391_2.png) [@Stanislaus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stanislaus)\
**Post date:** [December 20, 2007, 11:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/friend-writes-like-a-child-plays-scrabulous-like-a-genius-how-is-he-cheating/430618/21 "2007-12-20T11:20:05Z")

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[QUOTE=jjimm]  
Sorry, I missed this first time around. From this, I have ERA and RENAL which might be the best I can get.

I’d like to assure everyone that this is the only time I’ve ever cheated at this game.  
[/QUOTE]

Ah, but it’s a slippery slope - and one that comes to a miserable end, as described by the always readable [Charlie Brooker](http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,2142452,00.html)

> [@](#):
>
> Then I discovered [scrabblesolver.co.uk](http://scrabblesolver.co.uk)…I’d scan the list and pick a suggestion I might have conceivably come up with myself. This was now the only genuine skill I was exercising - choosing a plausible lie. But what the heck? I won every time.
> 
> But then my opponents started catching up, placing …words only a computer might know.
> 
> Then it hit me: They were using Scrabble Solver, too. We’d rendered ourselves obsolete. It was 100% uncensored computer-on-computer action, with two meat puppets pulling the levers, fooling no one but themselves…what had started as a fun diversion had become an arduous job in which I received regular instructions (the layout of the board), inputted them into the system (Scrabble Solver) and then fed the results back into the machine, ready for regurgitation. It was duller than working in a call centre, and I wasn’t even getting paid. I couldn’t even enjoy the dull thrill of a pathetic, ill-gotten, vicarious win any more, because with cheats prospering on every side, the outcome was entirely arbitrary.

Don’t be dragged into the madness.

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**Author:** ![Maastricht](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a88e57/32.png) [@Maastricht](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maastricht)\
**Post date:** [December 20, 2007, 11:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/friend-writes-like-a-child-plays-scrabulous-like-a-genius-how-is-he-cheating/430618/22 "2007-12-20T11:42:20Z")

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Wait… the OP is taklin about playing Scrabble through a computer, right? None of the programs menitoned would work in a setting where the OP and his friend sat at a table with a cardboard game in front of them.

I play Scrabble like that, and the only method I’ve come up with in that setting is randomly rearranging my letters on the little wooden thingy untill a promising word leaps into sight.

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