Announcing the CSW Newcomer Prize for this summer's Word Cup
Note from the Word Cup directing team: This new prize fund is all Lola's doing - she deserves 100% of the credit here. She came up with the idea, she donated the money, and she's putting in the work to publicize it and bring in new CSW players. She has our blessing, and our thanks!
-Pete, Rob, and Evans
Are you a Scrabbler looking for a way to revitalize your game? Or perhaps you're completely new to the game and haven't quite decided which lexicon to choose? Are you thinking about playing Word Cup in Albuquerque this summer? If so, I'd like to offer you a bribe... er, opportunity.
But first, why do I love Collins?
It expands your vocabulary and knowledge of the world around you. The CSW dictionary includes a wealth of words from English speaking cultures all around the world. I can't count the number of Wikipedia holes I've fallen into while studying Collins.
Transitioning to CSW provides tons of new scoring opportunities in games. More 2- and 3-letter words open up spots that would be blocked in an NWL game. Average scores are consequently higher.
CSW is used by Scrabble players worldwide. By switching to CSW, you're not just learning a new set of words - you're joining a global community of awesome humans and opening up opportunities for international play.
All 3 North American Scrabble associations use the same CSW dictionary, allowing you to play more tournaments without worrying about which words are or aren't good for a particular tourney.
For many years, Collins has been the playground of top experts hoping to compete at Worlds and other international tournaments, but this is changing rapidly. More and more beginners and intermediate players, like me, are choosing Collins, which means more tournaments have a second division, as Word Cup does.
Though I'm not going to be able to make it to Word Cup this year myself, to make the switch even more enticing to others, I'm offering a special prize fund exclusively for players who choose CSW Division 2 at the upcoming Word Cup tournament for their first Collins outing. This is your chance not only to showcase your skills but to be rewarded for embracing the challenge of switching dictionaries.
To qualify for these prizes, you just need to be qualified for CoCo Newcomer Discounts, which are available to all players playing in their first CSW Scrabble tournament. The newcomer placing highest in Division 2 at Word Cup will win $200, the next player will win $100, and the third best gets $50.
If you accept my challenge, there are a lot of ways to prepare. Here are a few of my favorites:
Check out the CoCo's cheat sheets. There are two versions: one for switchers that is color-coded to call out words not in NWL, and one for brand new Scrabblers.
Play CSW on Woogles against the bots until you feel comfortable. There are bots of every level, so you can start with BeginnerBot and work your way up.
Learn your short words. I've built 3 little arcade games so far for teaching short words, available at StudyCade. Let's Roll helps study all the valid 2s, in a way that emphasizes spotting parallel plays. Tower of Threes lets you find all the threes in a rack, and Hyperspace Hooks lets you study hook words – 2-letter words that can be extended to make 3's, as well as 3's to 4's and 4's to 5's.
Xerafin. Xerafin allows experienced players to upload a cardbox, but if you're new, it's even better. It will automatically add words as you go, in an order optimized for how useful they'll be.
Learn with others, including virtually on Twitch. Nitya Chagti has set up a 24-hour stream of Charles Reinke's fun social study game, Infiniwords, with the top 2,000 bingos and all of the 3- to 5-letter JQXZ words. Come learn with us!
This is more than just a dictionary choice - it's a movement toward broadening the horizons of the Scrabble community and unifying our community globally. Whether you're a longtime player or have never played a tournament, choosing the CSW dictionary is a step toward challenging yourself, enhancing your gameplay, and being part of a global community.
Happy Scrabbling!