Highest Scoring Scrabble Game Ever - in Lexington

If any doubt remained that this Commonwealth is the epicenter of wicked-smahtness, let that doubt be dispelled: A carpenter and a supermarket deli counter employee played a game of Scrabble at the Lexington Scrabble Club on October 12 in which the loser scored 490 points and the winner scored 830. This game broke the record for most total points in an officially sanctioned, competetive game (1,320), most points by one player (830) and most points from a single word (365, for quixotry - which means "quixotism; visionary schemes").

For those unacquainted with Scrabble scoring, let us say this: (This) Bostonist knows a lot of big words and usually beats most people we play - except Mrs. Bostonist - and we have never broken 400 points. Mrs. Bostonist has never broken 400. No one we know has ever broken 400. The previous record for a game was 770. But Michael Cresta of Lexington got 830! That's like a forgettable catcher who batted .216 during the regular season hitting a three-run homer to beat the team with the best record in the National League and carry his mediocre team to the World Series, except much much more difficult.

More importantly, though, we like that the feat was accomplished in a game between a carpenter and a deli counter worker (is there a better word for that? If you work at a deli counter, are you a butcher?). High-fallutin' Scrabble experts theorize that the extra-high score occurred precisely because the players weren't so good. Bostonist prefers to think that practically anyone in Massachusetts is smahta than practically everyone everywhere else.