Easing the transition into CSW Scrabble tournaments
When you take a moment to gaze out at the upcoming CoCo tournament calendar, you'll notice that the spring and summer months of 2025 are jam packed with events in new and interesting cities. We've got tournaments coming up in Providence, RI; Rome, GA; Colorado Springs, CO; and in a new development that's come about in just the last few days, now Bellingham, WA as well.
On one hand: This is exciting! All of these places are completely uncharted territory for us. And they're not exactly what you'd call traditional hotbeds of CSW Scrabble - which means we get to break new ground and establish a foothold in a new community.
On the other hand: This is scary! All of these places are completely uncharted territory for us. And they're not exactly what you'd call traditional hotbeds of CSW Scrabble - which means we face the daunting challenge of breaking new ground and establishing a foothold in a new community.
It's always a little challenging trying to get Scrabble tournaments going in a new local community where the scene isn't already bustling. It takes real grassroots work - you've got to find people, engage with them, entice them to try a tournament, and get them to keep coming back. All of that is a tall order to begin with, and I'd say it's about doubly so when it comes to Collins. If you're trying to bring in new tournament players, CSW probably isn't the lexicon they learned when they first picked up the game - and as for experienced players, if they've been playing the American-only lexicon for a while, Collins is going to come off looking unfamiliar and perhaps, frankly, just plain weird.
This is a complaint that I hear a lot when I talk to directors about growing the Collins community. One director, who's active in one of the aforementioned new CoCo cities, told me he has local players who complain to him: "In Collins, you can play any set of consonants and vowels, and it's a word - yuck!"
Now, of course this statement is false - by my calculation, the total number of ways to make any set of consonants and vowels up to 15 letters is approximately 1.74 sextillion, and even in Collins, only about 280,000 of them are words. And yet, and yet... persuading people to embrace Collins is one of the great challenges we face as a community, and that the CoCo faces as an organization. Whether you're bringing in entirely new Scrabble players or trying to woo them over from the other lexicon, it's never easy.
There are definitely some ways to ease that transition, though.
A little encouragement: First and foremost, new CSW players simply need to be reassured that they can do this. All the new words to learn may seem daunting at first, but anyone can get started, as long as they take it one baby step at a time. Start with the twos, get a little practice with them, and go from there. A little encouragement can go a long way.
The right learning tools: Just putting a cheat sheet in a new CSW player's hands can be a huge first step. Give them a quick 1-page guide on the most important words to start learning, and the impact just might be twofold - one, they'll have the word knowledge they need to start playing CSW games right away, and two, you just might pique their interest and get them motivated to learn more.
Coaching from more experienced players: If you're someone who's got a little more CSW play under your belt, you can help newer players along by working with them a little bit. And it can be something as simple as: Get together, play a couple games with them, and offer a couple pointers here and there. That's a fun afternoon for everyone.
Accentuating the fun parts of CSW! There's plenty to enjoy about learning the Collins lexicon. For starters, there's just the basic fact that more twos and threes mean your bingos will play more often. On top of that, there's the fun longer words! The first time someone plays a silly Collinsy thing like SJOE or YRNEH, or learns a ridiculous long word like FARNARKEL or CHIQUICHIQUI, it tends to bring a rush of excitement with it. New players should be encouraged to ride that feeling as far as it'll take them.
A little help from the CoCo: It's also important to note that we offer tons and tons of resources to help new CSW players get settled in. When it comes to learning the game, our website is loaded with links to everything from word lists to Scrabble software tools to strategy guidebooks. And, from a financial standpoint, we offer Newcomer Discounts and other forms of assistance to help make tournaments more accessible.
In any event, bringing new people into Collins Scrabble is the name of the game here. Whether you're finding players at your local library, on your college campus, in your friend group, or by reaching out to players who use the other lexicon, it all counts, and it all helps build a bigger, stronger CSW player community.
This is the stuff that really matters. It's not easy, but collectively, we have the tools at our disposal to tackle it. So let's all do our part and tackle it together.