Insightful. So what's the coach to do: attempt to resurrect a midrange game (seems counter to prevailing trends within the NBA) or more PNR? Or something else. Seems like the passing game got throttled when Steph's shooting was absent.
In case you were feeling good about your brain, a Scrabble update:
Nigel Richards is widely regarded as the greatest English language Scrabble player of all time, with many world championships. He doesn't give interviews, so it's hard to know his motivations, but it appears that in 2015 he got bored, so he spent nine weeks memorizing the FRENCH dictionary and won the French world championship, despite *not speaking French.* He won it again twice later.
And recently, just for funsies, he's back at it. He won the **Spanish** world championship.
Even if we accept that he's got ridiculous memorization skills, he also has otherworldly strategy skills. For example, when his strategic blocking moves are analyzed by computer, they are only identified as the optimal move by the best computers at the highest analysis settings. Every other computer engine doesn't see them.
Tthe Spanish tile set is significantly different from English, so having a sense, for example, of what to plan for when you have an LL tile and the rest are vowels requires more than just word knowledge. Btw it was his first ever Spanish language tournament.
An excellent breakdown by the best Scrabble video maker here:
I remember being bummed when Scrabble moved the to digital age (in the form of Words With Friends e.g.), largely because it eliminated the advantage of having a big vocabulary — and memorizing all the two and three letter words! — by allowing you to try out words endlessly until the game allowed one.
I also assumed the online version would encourage rampant “cheating,” since in the privacy of their own homes anyone in two seconds can just ask whatever website to rearrange their letters into words for them.
But once you establish that those two things are a way of life in the online world, you realize that the biggest part of Scrabble/WWF strategy is not having a good vocabulary, or even a good ability to see anagrams, but knowing how to control certain areas of the board, play defense, and maximally leverage valuable letters. So it doesn’t surprise me that that dude is awesome even in languages he doesn’t speak.
Anyway, WWF is a very different game from classic Scrabble game with strict challenge rules — I loved that in the classic game you actually had to know words, and could also use non-words that *seemed* enough like words to go unchallenged, e,g. But WWF is still pretty fun, imo.
Much of the success in scrabble is built around playing “bingos” meaning all seven letters on a rack, earning a 50 point bonus. There are some 70,000 playable bingos in Spanish, and that’s just 7 letter words. One also has to memorize eight letter words because making a bingo frequently requires attaching it to a letter on the board.
In the computer analysis of the Spanish tournament, not ONCE did Nigel have an opportunity to play a bingo, but miss it. Other players always miss some. Not him.
I’ve played a lot of both on my phone, which is usually non human opponents. I would get crushed at an actual human tournament. What I’ve come to learn from the scrabble videos I’ve watched is that knowing strategic play is a crucial aspect of the game — to the point where it wouldn’t be fun for me because I’m pretty good at words but not good at things like estimating on the fly the likelihood that my opponent has both a z and a y given what has been played and what I hold and what they played last turn; and leveraging that to imagine the likelihood that if I play a certain word, I will be left to draw an undesirable combination m, and so on. It’s very logic based which I’m bad at.
Nigel Richards is better at that kind of thinking than anyone, ever. And then on top of that, he appears to have eidetic memory. Just reads a dictionary like you read a cereal box and doesn’t forget and can use any word or conjugate it appropriately and so on. And he doesn’t own a computer. Other players analyze optimal game play at home as chess players do, reviewing games and learning how to do better. It’s a crucial modern tool for success.
The guy is roughly equivalent to being both chess and scrabble champ. Thing is that the people he’s playing are also elite at these skills. Imagine being incredibly skilled and talented and devoted and speaking Spanish all your life and along comes a guy who can’t even pronounce a Ñ and has been studying the dictionary for a couple months and he crushes you.
Steph was asked the other day if he would rather win a fifth ring or win the Masters. He said something like “both” but if he did both that would be roughly equivalent to what Nigel is doing
Klay waking up today remembering he got benched for Spencer Dinwiddie.
Please remind me of the color coding on the charts!
Also, Dubs' offense seems to struggle when point of attack defense is strong. Spurs were guarding almost to the half-court line.
We have no reliable inside scoring unless it's a wide open dunk/layup. Also no midrange game when they overplay on defending our 3s
Insightful. So what's the coach to do: attempt to resurrect a midrange game (seems counter to prevailing trends within the NBA) or more PNR? Or something else. Seems like the passing game got throttled when Steph's shooting was absent.
In case you were feeling good about your brain, a Scrabble update:
Nigel Richards is widely regarded as the greatest English language Scrabble player of all time, with many world championships. He doesn't give interviews, so it's hard to know his motivations, but it appears that in 2015 he got bored, so he spent nine weeks memorizing the FRENCH dictionary and won the French world championship, despite *not speaking French.* He won it again twice later.
And recently, just for funsies, he's back at it. He won the **Spanish** world championship.
Even if we accept that he's got ridiculous memorization skills, he also has otherworldly strategy skills. For example, when his strategic blocking moves are analyzed by computer, they are only identified as the optimal move by the best computers at the highest analysis settings. Every other computer engine doesn't see them.
Tthe Spanish tile set is significantly different from English, so having a sense, for example, of what to plan for when you have an LL tile and the rest are vowels requires more than just word knowledge. Btw it was his first ever Spanish language tournament.
An excellent breakdown by the best Scrabble video maker here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6RvNxkQ6Bgs
I remember being bummed when Scrabble moved the to digital age (in the form of Words With Friends e.g.), largely because it eliminated the advantage of having a big vocabulary — and memorizing all the two and three letter words! — by allowing you to try out words endlessly until the game allowed one.
I also assumed the online version would encourage rampant “cheating,” since in the privacy of their own homes anyone in two seconds can just ask whatever website to rearrange their letters into words for them.
But once you establish that those two things are a way of life in the online world, you realize that the biggest part of Scrabble/WWF strategy is not having a good vocabulary, or even a good ability to see anagrams, but knowing how to control certain areas of the board, play defense, and maximally leverage valuable letters. So it doesn’t surprise me that that dude is awesome even in languages he doesn’t speak.
Anyway, WWF is a very different game from classic Scrabble game with strict challenge rules — I loved that in the classic game you actually had to know words, and could also use non-words that *seemed* enough like words to go unchallenged, e,g. But WWF is still pretty fun, imo.
Much of the success in scrabble is built around playing “bingos” meaning all seven letters on a rack, earning a 50 point bonus. There are some 70,000 playable bingos in Spanish, and that’s just 7 letter words. One also has to memorize eight letter words because making a bingo frequently requires attaching it to a letter on the board.
In the computer analysis of the Spanish tournament, not ONCE did Nigel have an opportunity to play a bingo, but miss it. Other players always miss some. Not him.
I’ve played a lot of both on my phone, which is usually non human opponents. I would get crushed at an actual human tournament. What I’ve come to learn from the scrabble videos I’ve watched is that knowing strategic play is a crucial aspect of the game — to the point where it wouldn’t be fun for me because I’m pretty good at words but not good at things like estimating on the fly the likelihood that my opponent has both a z and a y given what has been played and what I hold and what they played last turn; and leveraging that to imagine the likelihood that if I play a certain word, I will be left to draw an undesirable combination m, and so on. It’s very logic based which I’m bad at.
Nigel Richards is better at that kind of thinking than anyone, ever. And then on top of that, he appears to have eidetic memory. Just reads a dictionary like you read a cereal box and doesn’t forget and can use any word or conjugate it appropriately and so on. And he doesn’t own a computer. Other players analyze optimal game play at home as chess players do, reviewing games and learning how to do better. It’s a crucial modern tool for success.
The guy is roughly equivalent to being both chess and scrabble champ. Thing is that the people he’s playing are also elite at these skills. Imagine being incredibly skilled and talented and devoted and speaking Spanish all your life and along comes a guy who can’t even pronounce a Ñ and has been studying the dictionary for a couple months and he crushes you.
Steph was asked the other day if he would rather win a fifth ring or win the Masters. He said something like “both” but if he did both that would be roughly equivalent to what Nigel is doing
Wemby: 3 blocks, or maybe 2 blocks and one goal tend, but no, I'm not bitter.
Agreed that this felt like a schedule loss. Now just make sure the Dubs return the favor to the Nets tomorrow.
Also one uncalled off-hand hack foul on one of the other blocks. I fully embrace my bitterness.
Just wish the Dubs would have given Steph and Dray the night off
I had thought that too. I see given they are playing less minutes and that they are hungry for wins why they didn’t. I am sure Steve regrets it too