A way with words

Although many associate Scrabble with strength in language, Brian Garnett, senior lecturer in computer science & engineering, argues that a different skill set makes players just as – if not more – competitive.

“Scrabble is a very mathematical and analytical game, with probability and inferences,” he said. “A lot of top players have a strong math and computer background as opposed to a literary background.”

Garnett sees similarities between himself and many of the competitors in the Scrabble community.

“The current world champion, Adam Logan, is a mathematician,” he said. “And a lot of the players you compete against, in general, are from academia.”

One of those competitors is WashU sophomore Cherish Amby-Okolo, a chemistry major and biomedical data science minor who’s quickly climbing the Scrabble standings.

Scrabble itself was invented by unemployed American architect Alfred Mosher Butts during the Great Depression. He aimed to create a game combining skill and chance that shared elements with anagrams and crossword puzzles, popular pastimes in the 1920s. The game quickly found mass popularity and has shown impressive staying power, with more than 150 million sets sold worldwide in 30 languages.

Garnett, who earned a bachelor’s in mathematics at WashU in 2008 and a doctorate at Rutgers University in mathematics in 2016 before returning to WashU as a lecturer in 2019, has been playing Scrabble since he was a child. But it was the modern era of Scrabble that turned his casual interest into a more competitive hobby.

“I started studying the game as an adult, watching games and following players on Twitch,” he said. “And the (Scrabble) app makes it easier to find time, of course.”

Today, Garnett is a member of the North American Scrabble Players Association (NASPA), the nonprofit organization that governs competitive and club Scrabble play in the U.S. and Canada. He’s ranked No. 264 nationally and fifth in the state of Missouri.

NASPA members stream Scrabble content on Twitch, YouTube and other online platforms. In addition to competing, Garnett is a commentator on the Let’s Play Scrabble YouTube channel.

After years of playing and observing the game, he says he’s learned that success in Scrabble is “less about having a strong vocabulary and more about knowing what words are playable.

“Many of the world’s best players speak English as a second language,” he said.

Similarly, he added, New Zealand native Nigel Richards, widely considered to be the world’s top player, has won not only multiple English championships, but those in French and Spanish as well — after studying the respective dictionaries for less than a year.  

Despite the convenience of playing the game on a screen, Garnett says he most enjoys the “strong community aspect” of gathering in person to challenge other Scrabble enthusiasts.

But it’s the element of chance — so important to Butts’ initial concept of the game — that makes it exciting.

“Tournaments are great,” he said. “It’s not like chess, where so much depends strictly on your skill level. You really have a chance to beat anyone, regardless of their experience or background.”

Garnett plays competitively in tournaments throughout the U.S. and Canada, including the Crescent City Cup in New Orleans earlier this month, where he won his division.

He says he’s always looking for opportunities to continue honing his Scrabble skills.

“Every move is a puzzle you need to solve,” he said. “I get a lot of satisfaction out of solving those puzzles and making moves that are tough to find.”

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