[skottk]

In a book release event for Stefan Fatsis's book on tournament Scrabble players, Word Freak, the host posed the "megachiropteran" anagram as a trivia question for a book giveaway.

One of the top players in my club _instantly_ replied "cinematographer," and added, "but megachiropteran isn't in the OSPD [Official Scrabble Players' Dictionary], so it doesn't really count."

[hgsgm]

Why do scrabble players care about words that long? Beyond fun trivia.

What's the longest word ever played in an actual game of Scrabble? And though this is hard to get data for, what's the longest word that ever could have been played but missed?

[skottk]

Either just by having developed their brains in a way that word facts just stick, or by constantly seeking out new word facts because that's what they love doing.

I believe that the gentleman in this case instantly saw the word 'cinematographer' hiding in 'megachiropteran' because his brain is a highly trained anagramming machine, and knew that it wasn't allowed because he knew all of the allowed 15-letter words, just in case he might get the opportunity to play one.

High-level players memorize staggering numbers of words. All 2- and 3- letter words is entry-level. All X-J-Q-Z, all Q-without-U, all words you ending in -MAN, all 70+ 7-letter words of the form SATINE+... top-level players know the 4000 4-letter words, the 5000 5's, and way, way more.

This (https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/scrabble-records-highest-sco...) lists cases in which 15-letter words were played by adding prefixes or suffixes to other words.