The Secrets of Scrabble - Essay Example

Scrabble College Affiliation Fatsis (2001) is a great who has a capability to evaluate the mechanism of obsession. In his quest to unravel the secrets of Scrabble, he realizes that he himself has become obsessed with the game. He goes on to state that, for gamers who take Scrabble seriously they are people who are all round. However, this contradicts the gamers he writes about. He centers on a number of gamers who play at the very top level, gamers who take Scrabble as an intense sport that is their main purpose for living. This essay focuses on three characters that play Scrabble in the book World Freak: Heartbreak, Triumph, Genius, and Obsession in the world of Competitive Scrabble Players. Matt Graham is a thirty two year old. He works in the comedy industry where he is a standup comedian. His mode of dressing of dressing is actually shabby. As Fatsis (2001) states, he wears flannel shirts that he does not button over old T-shirts. The jeans that he puts on are torn and do not fit him well. When he speaks, he speaks so fast that it seems his mind is running ahead of his thoughts. Matt is an individual who does not care much about his health. This is showed by the amount of pills that he takes each day. He has a five by seven card which he has divided into two columns. In one column, he has written the names of twenty pills which he takes in the morning on an empty. In the other column, he has written seventeen more that he has to take with breakfast. He does not care of the warnings indicated on the labels. Rather, he claims that they turn him around more than anything. He also has a damaged knee which pains him much but he refuses to see an orthopedist to check out the issue. This supports the point that he does not care much about his health (Fatsis, 2011). According to Fatsis (2001), Matt is affected by insomnia. It is indicated that he does not sleep much. Especially on the night before the day when Matt shall play a best of five games against an opponent to find out the world Scrabble champion. The eating habits of Matt are quite out of order. On this particular morning, Matt does not eat much. Matt also chooses not to relax as opposed to the notion that a moment of relaxation and reflection before a very important game is needed. It seems that Matt has very peculiar ways of going about his time and actions before the finals. This peculiar ways may be as a result of the consumption of pills. It is suggested that if Matt is tested for drugs, then he would actually be banned for life. But Matt is lucky as drugs are not tested in Scrabble. It also seems that Matt has a thing for pornography. There are copies of pornographic magazines and cassette tapes that are about pornography. Matt also seems to like music as there are a copy of volume ten of the super hits of the seventies. Matt is also a guy who likes his family as a fading photograph of his grandmother illustrates. Superstitions are a norm to Matt as he believes in objects that bring him luck. This is shown by a mouse pad that has Shar-Pei kind of shape which Matt claims brings him luck (Fatsis, 2001). Fatsis (2001) notes that, many gamers unlike Matt study obsessively about the game. Joel Sherman is a character who labels himself a professional Scrabble gamer. He is thirty five years of age and he takes the game seriously. To him, it is a source of livelihood. Joel is a world champion who claims that Scrabble is a game that certifies the reason why he exists. No wonder Joel calls himself a professional as it is the only purposeful thing he does. This is supported by the statement that Joel has not worked in years. The reason for this is because he is a marching Merck Manual’s value of physical disorder. He is not secretive as he tells about his life. He states that he chose to terminate his job as he was not able to continue maintain his job physically. Joel is plagued by a range of disorders, with allergies to certain foods, asthma, intolerance to lactose, a postnasal leak, a trend of belching without control, and the most infamous as Fatsis (2001) puts it is a sensitive gut which has earned him the name G.I. Joel for gastrointestinal. This nickname resonates well with the movie G.I. Joe. Joel also does not own a home as he still lives with his brother and father. Joel is really a world champion who as it seems is a hard nut to crack. Matt has this inner thing to want to beat Joel so badly in the game that proves that Joel is really good in the game. Joel is a man who easily loses his calm and has a low self esteem. This is shown by the way he exclaims as he plays against Matt. Joel exclaims that Matt has everything. He also does not mind been vulgar in the words he uses by uttering obscene utterances. Joel is also a character who is full of remorse and does not take failure and loses well. They really get up to him emotionally in a negative manner. After losing the game to Matt, Joel is filled with grief and remorse. He speaks out to himself as he kneels lingering over his board saying, I could have done this instead of that, binged instead of playing UDO (Fatsis, 2001). He is utterly upset over his loss and terms the loss as bad and disgraceful. It shows how much Scrabble means to him while at the same time showing his weaknesses in the game and in his character. He is really suffering. Joel turns out to be a person who not only plays Scrabble, but also seeks fame. He likes to take photo shoots for magazines such as Sports illustrated posing seductively. As Fatsis (2001) states, he likes showing off his unconventional behaviors. Joe Edley strikes out as a pretty confident person. He is plays Matt in the twentieth game. It is stated that Matt has never beaten Joe in a tournament. While Joe is jeered by Matt’s compatriot, he does not take the jeers into consideration at all. In fact he states of the record he has against Matt. Joe is also quite mischievous as Matt blames Joe of coffee housing to get an advantage over him. Joe is a person who challenges his opponents. He challenges the moves they make during the game. This shows that Joe is courageous. Matt goes on to describe Joe as a player who makes the rules and who violates the rules of etiquette as he does not shut his mouth. This means he talks a lot during the game. I suppose to distract his opponent which is a mischievous way of getting the upper hand against an opponent. As Matt admits, it made him more conservative in the way he played the game resulting in the defeat. Joe has an outstanding presence. During the game with Matt, Joe unnerves Matt just by his presence. His concentration during the game is outstanding. It seems that once Joe focuses on something, he does so with all of his senses (Fatsis, 2001). His stares at the game boards, his breathes deeply and hardly shuts and eyelid. It is a sign of a player who is immensely dedicated to the game, a player to whom the game means everything (Fatsis, 2001). This indicates one of the reasons why Joe is a three time national champion. A champion who used up five good years housed up under a tree. He is described as a person who has learnt the art of calmness. He has learnt to psychologically prepare himself for the games as he always meditates before any game. He also practices tai chi chuan games before any game. This is an expression of a well calculated habit that helps him prepare for contests. Joel likes to travel. He travels with animals that are stuffed, a tank of oxygen and a duffel bag that is stuffed with smart drugs. For what reason, only Joe knows. Joe is a person who takes defeats well. This is expressed by the hand shake that he gives Matt despite the fact that he has not qualified for the final. It is a show of sportsmanship virtues. It is a sign of acceptance in spite of the results not going as he would have wanted them to (Fatsis, 2001). The three characters show that people who play Scrabble are not as all round as Fatsis (2001) would like readers to believe. In fact, they are persons who have certain abnormalities in their characters. They have deficits in their normality of living life. May be it is because Scrabble is a game that demands a lot of attention. It is game that requires a great deal of the mind before and during the time of playing as expressed by the three characters. Hence, this may result in the altering of the psychology and characters of gamers. It requires a lot of time which means that most gamers only have time for the game. References Fatsis, S. (2001). Word Freak: Heartbreak, Triumph, Genius, and Obsession in the World of Competitive Scrabble Players. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Read More