Executive Summary:

I enumerate exactly zero reasons why I'm pro unity.

I merely address what seems to be a leitmotiv in the voices of the antis. I probably could have written this in response to any number of letters, but happened to open Gene's at just the right time to respond. I bear no grudge for what appears to be a collective misunderstanding. I just want to get the facts down for examination.

On Thu, 11 May 2000, Gene Tyszka wrote:

 My vote is gonna be NO. Why? Because the pro SOWPODS advocates on CGP have
 created the impression that the change tends to be more self serving for
 experts as opposed for the greater benefit of all SCRABBLE players (which
 includes all non-experts).

(reasons why experts are in it for the money want SOWPODS)

Well, this is off by about 180 degrees. Here are two scenarios for the North American Open:

1) OSPD - I'm one of the clear favorites. In all honesty, I'm one of the handful of people who can win it. The field is winnowed by the fact that most world-class players don't play that lexicon. I know this lexicon very, very well.

2) SOWPODS - All the world-class players play this lexicon, save a few Americans. There are many, many people who know this better than me. I'm one of maybe 40 people who could win the $25,000, but definitely in the bottom half, and most of my chances are a function of my ability to play the game itself rather than my inadequate knowledge of the lex.

If I was motivated by self-interest, I would want to make the big money American tournaments(that is, the only big tourneys I attend; conversion is not necessarily a function of globetrotting resources as has been asserted) governed by a lexicon that excludes the maximum number of world-class players. That lexicon is OSPD. The notion that a conversion to SOWPODS would actually _increase_ my chances of winning said tournaments if farcical. The, say, 1800s who would be "leveraged out" weren't going to win anyway. All this will do for me is to drastically _decrease_ my expected take home for the big money tourneys.

Perhaps the counterargument is that a change would increase my expectation in the low-roller weekend tourneys, but last time I checked I was doing pretty well in those anyways, and even then as a component of the total money to be won in Scrabble, it doesn't make much of an impact. It takes a lot of $250s to make $25,000. I'll leave the proof to the mathematicians of cgp.

And if I really cared about money, I'd quit Scrabble, not work my ass off for 5 years trying to improve the experience of the game. One good day of poker can be worth more than all that Gibson has made in a lifetime of Scrabble. And even without that out, there's a lot more $ being a world-class software engineer than being a world-class Scrabbler. I'm NOT saying I regret any of my choices. I AM SAYING that the "we're only in it for the money" is complete bullshit.

So please don't say that experts who want SOWPODS are being serving. While ascribing nefarious motivations to your opposites in a debate is a time-honored tactic, its application here is easily refutable and absurd.

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