Hard-core Scrabble for a good cause

Toronto Sun: Hard-core Scrabble for a good cause
With somewhat less fanfare than the debut of the Jeopardy supercomputer Watson, Canadian actor R.H. Thomson defeated a world-class Scrabble program at the Performing Arts Lodge.

We were playing a four-handed game a week ago against the Quackle program (which has defeated world champions), and the admitted Scrabble underachiever Thomson had been set up and then told what to play by Robin Pollock Daniel, the erstwhile top-ranked woman player in North America.

Her word, “manhater,” allowed Thomson to play all his tiles with the word “calottes” — ending the game and giving Thomson 125 points on one turn, counting all the tiles he scored off of us.

With that, he edged Quackle 194-182.

“That feels good! I love it!,” Thomson enthused about his assisted win.

“Now you know why Scotia Bank always picks me to play at their table,” Pollock Daniel says.

Picking her comes with a price at Scrabble With The Stars, the annual Performing Arts Lodge fundraising gala that takes place Monday at the Arcadian Court on Bay. Pollock Daniel and world champ Joel Wapnick typically attract auction bids of $1,000 and up to be “table cheats” at the event.

It’s all for a good cause, funding for the Toronto Performing Arts Lodge on Esplanade, a celebrated retirement residence for Canadian actors, musicians, artists, etc., who typically don’t reach retirement age with the most comprehensive pension plan.

And the cause itself is enough to drag out a coterie of Canadian stars annually to flaunt their vocabulary. Besides Thomson, this year’s Scrabble stars include Colin Mochrie, Deb McGrath, Graham Greene, Gordon Pinsent, Dave Broadfoot, Dinah Christie and hosts Jeanne Beker and Barry Flatman.

“I don’t have a word head,” says Thomson, “so once a year I suffer great humiliation for a great cause. Here, in the arts, the sunset of your career is usually a terrible time. You don’t make any money in theatre, so what are you going to retire on?

“A lot of my old friends live (at PAL). It’s a wonderful way for the community to pull together and respect itself.” It’s also a wonderful way to enrich your word power. From the first turn, when Quackle (with the help of operator Tony Leah and his granddaughter Lauren) put down the word “fibrin” (a fibrous protein) and Pollock Daniel followed with “capiz” (a type of mollusk), causing Thomson to pronounce, “I hate this game!” it was a trip down the rabbit hole of words allowed by the Scrabble dictionary. Words popped up like “glout” and “nares” — not all of which the champions could define. “It’s not important,” Pollock Daniel says.

“Whenever anyone asks me what a word means, I just say it’s a European shrub.” Odddities like “za” (surfer-dude colloquialism for pizza) are accepted by the Scrabble Dictionary (a wholly-owned property of Hasbro). As for religious observances, “Kwanzaa” is now acceptable, but not “Eid” (as I found out when I tried to play it).

And given that there is no Canadian edition, the word “inukshuk” (standing stones) is outrageously not accepted.

And then there’s “bingo,” which refers to using all seven letters for a 50-point bonus. As in, “You’re not even giving me a place to stick the bingo,” as Pollock Daniel complained to Leah.

“I have no free will here, I am doing as directed by Quackle,” Leah replied.

“Scrabble involves looking many moves ahead,” Robin Pollock explained. “It also involves blaming many moves back.” But blame will be at a minimum at Scrabble With The Stars. The cause — the comfort of our aging stars — is king, and any word is acceptable as long as it’s on a cheque.