SCRABBLE IN THE ELECTRONIC WORLD

On my i-pad I have been playing Solitary off and on ever since I had it. (it was one of the few free games offered).  Then, just a day or so ago I learned that the game Scrabble is also free.

I clicked and signed up for it.  When setting up the game the system asked me a series of questions about what my opponent should be like, which I more or less checked what I thought was the default, I didn't care about what my opponent was like.  It was just a way for me to tune up my word skills.

The system didn't seem to register what I told it so we went  over the whole process and again.

Then I played my "imaginary" opponent.  He/she mopped the floor with me.  While playing I noticed at times I had to wait an  hour or so untl he/she made the next move.  Then I noticed that his breaks were irregular in time lenghts.  Like one time he/she missing over 30 minutes, and when it got late he/she took the whole night off.

Then I realized my invisible opponent wasn't imaginary afterall.  It breathed, took shits, took eating breaks and went to bed - sort of early too - then I wondered if I was his or her mother made him/her take a bath, say its prayers and go to bed.

But that is not all, each time I started over again and requesting a new opponent I got an additional opponent.  Before it was over with I had four opponent and I was playing a seperate Scrabble game with each one and each were taking its turn mopping the floor with me.

Imagine, me playing four separate games with four separate computer minds.  Of course, I am losing each game but that is beside the point.

I think it was the late Bobby Fischer (1943-2008), the genius chess player, who played over a dozen games of chess by systematically going around the room making one move at a time then move to the next opponent. 

I think when I move on to the great beyond I am going to try to look up Bobby and we can talk about multi-tasking many game opponents at the same time and have a good chuckle over it, I hear he had a great wit.

Bobby Fischer