Putting my Brain in Overdrive - Words with Friends

I have been playing a lot of Words with Friends.  I have no idea who most of my opponents have been or still are.  I have played against one anonymous person who is very good and seems to follow the same strategy that I do.  We've each won one game.  Another I suspect is a young person, just based on words used and placement.  All in all this is great fun.

There are some frustrating moments.  Seven tiles that are all vowels or all consonants make the game challenging.  But when you have a seven letter word in your hand that you cannot place on the board, you just want to pull your hair out.  I can remember 'polenta', 'wombats', and 'finaled' as words that had no where to go. 

Part of this is a strategy of placing words that cannot be pluralized with an 's'.  Good idea.  Another is playing against someone who, like myself, builds a crossword puzzle with words.  If only 'sa' was acceptable, I could have played polenta yesterday.  Instead, I had to settle for 'plate' in another area of the board, missing both the triple word score and the bonus for using all my tiles.

Not that I do not feel triumph.  As I stated in an earlier post, my old opponent was my mother-in-law.  When we played at my home, we used the Merriam-Webster dictionary that I won in a grade school spelling bee.  When we played at her home in Chicago, we used her dictionary.  I am pretty sure it was an autographed copy from Noah Webster himself.  If not, she must have received her copy when she was born in 1909.

She was constantly challenging my words and usually we could find them in the dictionary.  But one day I placed the word 'coven' down for a triple score and she challenged me.  I told her what it meant and she opened the dictionary.  Lo and behold, the word was not there.  I could not believe it.  I had to settle for the word 'cove' and missed the triple.

I am not sure why that one instance stands out so much in my mind, but it does.  And then yesterday, I was playing against my friend Shelley and after she opened with 'carte', I played 'coven'.  Later I turned 'carte' into 'cartel' and then 'coven' into 'covenant'.

My high score so far has been 516.  I am usually happy to get anhything over 400.  Here is the board when that high game was finished.

Of course, I got off to a good start by placing 'unified' down as my first word.  Getting a double word score and a 35-point bonus is a plus. 

So, I have 11 games in progress.  My mind is spinning with words waiting for my turn to play.  Isn't the internet wonderful!

Another 512 point game: