Okay, Let's Back-Up

I play competitive Scrabble. Not very well, but I play. Like many people, I played growing up, but I really started playing in January 2002, when I went to a tournament in Reno and got my ass handed to me. I had even studied some word lists and had played in a few clubs before that first tourney, but I still went 3-16 in Reno.

Tournament Scrabble is just like the Scrabble you played growing up but with better words, better strategy, better opponents, a clock (my aunt Marcia played so slow), and, ideally, no chit-chat (see Etiquette post). You have 25-minutes to play your part of the game and you can use any word you know, even if you don't know its definition. See, IT'S A WORD GAME, NOT A DEFINITION GAME. Most people start playing Tournament Scrabble when everyone in their immediate family will no longer play "living-room" Scrabble with them.