tubechallenge.com

I quite like the idea of some of the shorter challenges, like the tube section of the Nordic Combined from the Winter Olympics. This gave me the idea of the 'Scrabble Scramble':

From a pre-selected starting station (or maybe even drawn at random on the day), the competitors have one hour to collect as many points as possible. As the name suggests, points are gained according to the scrabble value of a station's name (BANK = 10pts, OXFORD CIRCUS = 27pts). Points are awarded based on the stations visited, and the winner is the competitor with the most points after an hour's challenging.

I've pondered over some extra rules too:

-> The 10th station visited gains a 'Double Word Score', and the 20th gains a 'Triple Word Score' (self explanatory)
-> In accordance with the normal rules of Scrabble, each station must link to the previous one via a shared letter. i.e. Travelling eastbound on the Central Line, your scoring stations would be St. Paul's, Bank, Liverpool Street, Bethnal Green. Although not being able to score a station would probably be a rare occurrence.

Thoughts?

A quick worked example:

If you start at Aldgate East and spend your hour travelling Westbound to Ealing Broadway, then Eastbound on the Central towards Epping, you score 716pts, with a DWS for St. James's Park, a TWS for Stamford Brook, and a QWS (Quad Word Score - if you somehow hit 30 stations) for White City.

I presume there will mathematically be a 'best route'. Is there any way to avoid this, or perhaps making it much harder to find? Or perhaps it wouldn't be a suitable challenge to get a record for, and instead should be a directly competitive event? If the second was the case then a random starting station would help the matter considerably.

An interesting thought for a challenge.

The top scoring stations would be

39 - Shepherds Bush Market
35 - Dagenham Heathway
34 - Highbury and Islington
32 - Chiswick Park / High Street Kensington
31 - Fulham Broadway / Northwick Park / Totteridge and Whetstone / Walthamstow Central
30 - Kings Cross St Pancras / Harrow and Wealdstone / Piccadilly Circus / Willesden Junction
29 - Bromley-by-Bow / Chalfont and Latimer / Hyde Park Corner / Kensington Olympia

and the lowest
8 - Neasden / Pinner
7 - Arsenal / Oval
6 - Angel / Euston

tractakid wrote:I presume there will mathematically be a 'best route'. Is there any way to avoid this, or perhaps making it much harder to find? Or perhaps it wouldn't be a suitable challenge to get a record for, and instead should be a directly competitive event? If the second was the case then a random starting station would help the matter considerably.

An interesting thought for a challenge.

With the random nature of the starting station (especially if it was drawn on the day), it would be extremely difficult to come up with a 'best route' for all circumstances. As well as that, there's quite an element of strategy to it. Do you go for as many stations as possible (as my example did), or do you make changes and try to hit high-scoring stations (especially for 10th/20th/30th stations).

Much like the R15 it's hard to say that there would be a record for the challenge, because there's no fixed set of stations to visit. As well as this, seeing as there's a time limit, it's hard to say that for a particular start there is one 'best route' seeing as strategy and service conditions will all affect a final score.

You can score the same word in multiple instances in Scrabble. Is it permissable to visit a station twice, and count it both times?

It is possible to make multiple words at once in Scrabble. Is there any way to replicate this using interchanges?

How do on-foot (or bus or NR etc) transfers work? Treat each tube station as if they were successive?

tractakid wrote:You can score the same word in multiple instances in Scrabble. Is it permissable to visit a station twice, and count it both times?

It is possible to make multiple words at once in Scrabble. Is there any way to replicate this using interchanges?

How do on-foot (or bus or NR etc) transfers work? Treat each tube station as if they were successive?

I'm not trying to completely replicate Scrabble, it was just the basis for my thinking. I think that allowing multiple visits would just create a loophole for abuse (shuttling back and forth between KXSP and H&I, for example). Out of network changes would work as per usual (arriving or departing by tube equals a visit).

If you're not trying to replicate scrabble, then I don't see the purpose in the 'share a letter' rule. Seems a bit random and pointless.

I'm just loathe to allow multiple visits (whatever the means). If multiple visits were to be allowed, it would just result in everyone making a dash for the central area and doing their own 'set piece' route around the high-scoring central stations.

Say, for example, you allowed one visit for each line at a station, one could theoretically perform a 'set piece' from Baker Street taking in most central interchange stations 2/3/4 times, for a score of at least 600pts.

Yeah, I agree with the ruling. I still don't see the point of the 'share a letter', I think the scoring system is enough to make it unique and interesting. I don't think the share rule would affect how people play the challenge, so I would say remove it.

I like the idea of letter sharing. Though since common letters like "e", "t", "a" etc appear in most tube station names, I don't that will cause too much of a problem.

What about scoring double for an inter-station change, and triple for a station to station run?

Interchanges should be double letter score for the most valuable letter.

I have to say, this is one of the more original ideas for a new challenge, especially when there's not much left to do now.

Sounds like a decent idea.

I like it