Scrabble II highlights: DISPORTED TURTLES...
Donald Sauter
night, Wednesday, December 2, 2009, at the Dover Scrabble Club
(Delaware).
We averaged 29.6 Points Per Turn as a group. In one game the imp of
the perverse *almost* had me play EQUATOR on triple-word score and
ending a space short of the next triple-word score. It would have
been a blast to see what the next person with an S could do with that
opportunity. But I wimped out and played QUARTER in a safe place
instead. I also was too chicken to attach OFFERED on an existing RE
to hit 3w-score with REOFFERED. Dang, blew an easy nine.
Tile oddities: One game had 9D and 5F. I remember it well; two times
I had 2D and 2F in my rack. (Guess where OFFERED came from. An open
A would have given me AFFORDED.) One game had 2J, 2Q, no X, no blank,
and 15O. Another game had 13R and 8S. Every game is fresh and
different!
Scrabble II is the purest Scrabble being played on earth. A few,
small, natural rule fixes keep players gunning for the longest words.
It rescues the game from the same, tired, old, connect-the-dot plays
of baby Scrabble words. Scrabble II does not allow for phony words.
In our club, we use a conventional dictionary, the American Heritage.
Scrabble II is more intelligent, challenging, and sophisticated than
modern American tournament-style Scrabble in every way. Heck, over 40%
of the oddball plays on championship boards wouldn't even be allowed
in our club. See:
http://www.geocities.com/donaldsauter/national-scrabble-championship-2009.htm
ALL I'M ASKING FOR . . .
1. Give it a try!
2. Give it a try and report back!
3. Too stuck in your ways to try it? Send me photos or screen shots
of a batch of your best tournament-style, baby-word Scrabble games and
I'll make you famous with a web page like the one above for the
National Scrabble Champions!
4. A quality Scrabble II program placed prominently on the internet.
I'll pay reasonable programming costs!
5. A dear, old benefactor to bankroll a Scrabble II tournament with
the largest ever cash prizes for a Scrabble tournament, which would
still amount to chicken feed!
Here's what we played last night in 4 games:
*** 9-letter Words ***
DISPORTED
*** 8-letter Words ***
BRACKENS
FACTORED
NARROWED
SCANNING
TUNNELED
TWITCHED
*** 7-letter Words ***
BOUNDER
COMBERS
CORDING
COURTED
GRAVELY
HECKLES
INQUIRY (Note: not QI)
JOURNAL
MEADOWS
OFFERED
PROBING
QUARTER (Note: not QI)
RELEASE
SWATTED
TURMOIL
TURTLES
UNTRIED
VARIANT
*** 6-letter Words ***
ABORTS
BLAMES
CEMENT
CLONER
EJECTS
FLORET
GARGLE
JOCKEY
JOTTED
LOUVER
MARBLE
PITIED
QUOTED (Note: not QI)
RETIRE
ROUGHS
SPLEEN
TRAINS
TWINGE
*** 5-letter Words ***
AGAVE
AMISS
BATHE
BRAVE
EVERY
LIFER
LURID
MANIA
NIECE
OOZED
QUAIL (Note: not QI)
SAVED
SCOPE
SCRAM
SHOVE
SPOOR
WHINY
*** Selected 4-letter Words ***
AWAY
BEAU
BEEF
BIAS
DITZ
DYER
EPIC
LOCO
ROUE
*** Just these 3-letter Words ***
ADO BUY EYE FIB FOX HAY HAY JIG JOY OAF OFF OFF OHO PUP RAG REC THE
VEX ZED
*** Just these 2-letter Words ***
AH AY ED EH EN ER ME OR OS PA RE SH SO TI TO UM US YE YO
You, too, can set your Scrabble board ablaze with REAL WORDS found in
a REAL DICTIONARY, and used by REAL PEOPLE:
http://www.geocities.com/donaldsauter/scrabble.htm
Donald Sauter