Mind Sports: Scrabble

What is Scrabble?
 A word game in which two to four players score points by placing tiles
 It is a mind game that requires wide vocabulary
 The tiles must form words which, in crossword fashion, flow left to right in
rows or downwards in columns

History

 There were many victims of America's Great Depression in 1929.

 1933 - an architect named Alfred Mosher Butts from Poughkeepsie, New
York, invented a game that would lift the spirits of millions.
 Analyzing popular games, he found they fell into three different categories:
number games, move games, and word games.
 He noted, "...there is one thing that keeps word games from being as popular
as card games: they have no score."
 Attempting to combine the thrill of chance and skill, Butts entwined the
elements of anagrams and the classic crossword puzzle into a scoring word
game first called LEXIKO.
 early 1930s and 1940s - refined and became CRISS CROSS WORDS.
 Nevertheless, established game manufacturers unanimously slammed the
door on Butts' invention.
 Butts met James Brunot, a game-loving entrepreneur. Together they refined
the rules and design and then, most importantly, came up with the name
SCRABBLE
 1948 - the SCRABBLE Brand Crossword Game was trademarked.
 1949 - Brunot made 2,400 sets and lost $450. Nevertheless, the SCRABBLE
game gained slow but steady popularity among a handful of consumers.
 early 1950s - the president of MACY'S discovered the game. Within a year,
the SCRABBLE game was a 'must-have' hit, to the point that SCRABBLE
games were being rationed to stores around the country.
 1952 - the Brunots licensed Selchow & Righter Company, a well-known game
manufacturer, to market and distribute the games in the United States and
Canada.
 But some say that It was first sold in Great Britain in 1954.
 Selchow & Righter stepped up production to meet the overwhelming demand
for the SCRABBLE game. In 1972, Selchow & Righter purchased the
trademark from Brunot.
 Tournaments have been held in the United States since 1973.
 By 1986, Selchow & Righter was sold to COLECO Industries, who had
become famous as the manufacturers of the Cabbage Patch Dolls.
 Yet three years later, COLECO declared bankruptcy, and its primary assets -
most notably the SCRABBLE game and PARCHEESI - were purchased by
Hasbro, Inc.
 In 2005 Scrabulous, an unauthorized online version of Scrabble, was
released, and two years later it debuted on the social-networking
site Facebook
 late 2008, Hasbro also made the official Scrabble game available through
Facebook.
 Today the SCRABBLE game is found in three of every five American homes,
ranging from a Junior edition to an Electronic Scoring edition with many
versions in between including: standard, deluxe, and travel-sized games.

Equipment

 Scrabble board
- It consists of a 15 x 15 grid of squares, on each of which a tile can be placed.
The board consists of some premium squares which multiplies the points
scored.

 Tiles
- Wooden or plastic tiles usually having 19 x 19 mm dimension with 4 mm
thickness are used in scrabbles. The game consists of 100 tiles in which 98
are marked with a letter, and two blank tiles are there which can be used in
place of any letter.

 Rack
- This is where chosen letters are placed, and where words are formed before
entering it to the board.

 Paper and pencil

Tile Values

VALUE LETTERS
0 Points Blank tile
1 Point A, E, I, L, N, O, R, S, T and U
2 Points D and G
3 Points B, C, M and P
4 Points F, H, V, W and Y
5 Points K
8 Points J and X
10 Points Q and Z

Mechanics

1. The first player combines two or more of his or her letters to form a word and
places it on the board to read either across or down with one letter on the
center square. Diagonal words are not allowed.
2. Complete your turn by counting and announcing your score for that turn. Then
draw as many new letters as you played; always keep seven letters on your
rack, as long as there are enough tiles left in the bag.
3. Play passes to the left. The second player, and then each in turn, adds one or
more letters to those already played to form new words. All letters played on a
turn must be placed in one row across or down the board, to form at least one
complete word. If, at the same time, they touch others letters in adjacent rows,
those must also form complete words, crossword fashion, with all such letters.
The player gets full credit for all words formed or modified on his or her turn.
4. New words may be formed by: Adding one or more letters to a word or letters
already on the board. Placing a word at right angles to a word already on the
board. The new word must use one of the letters already on the board or must
add a letter to it. Placing a complete word parallel to a word already played so
that adjacent letters also form complete words. No tile may be shifted or
replaced after it has been played and scored.
5. Blanks: The two blank tiles may be used as any letters. When playing a blank,
you must state which letter it represents. It remains that letter for the rest of
the game.
6. You may use a turn to exchange all, some, or none of the letters. To do this,
place your discarded letter(s) facedown. Draw the same number of letters
from the pool, then mix your discarded letter(s) into the pool. This ends your
turn.
7. Any play may be challenged before the next player starts a turn. If the play
challenged is unacceptable, the challenged player takes back his or her tiles
and loses that turn. If the play challenged is acceptable, the challenger loses
his or her next turn. Consult the dictionary for challenges only. All words made
in one play are challenged simultaneously. If any word is unacceptable, then
the entire play is unacceptable. Only one turn is lost on any challenge.
8. The game ends when all letters have been drawn and one player uses his or
her last letter; or when all possible plays have been made.

Setup

 You should have a game board, 100 letter tiles, a letter bag, and four racks.
 Before the game begins, all players should agree upon the dictionary that they
will use, in case of a challenge. All words labelled as a part of speech
(including those listed of foreign origin, and as archaic, obsolete, colloquial,
slang, etc.) are permitted with the exception of the following: words always
capitalized, abbreviations, prefixes and suffixes standing alone, words
requiring a hyphen or an apostrophe.
 Place all letters in the pouch, or face down beside the board, and mix them
up. Draw for first play. The player with the letter closest to "A" plays first. A
blank tile beats any letter. Return the letters to the pool and remix. All players
draw seven new letters and place them on their racks.

Scoring
  Use a score pad or piece of paper to keep a tally of each player's score,
entering it after each turn. The score value of each letter is indicated by a
number at the bottom of the tile. The score value of a blank is zero.
 The score for each turn is the sum of the letter values in each word(s) formed
or modified on that turn, plus the additional points obtained from placing
letters on Premium Squares.
 Premium Letter Squares: A light blue square doubles the score of a letter
placed on it; a dark blue square triples the letter score.
 Premium Word Squares: The score for an entire word is doubled when one of
its letters is placed on a pink square: it is tripled when one of its letters is
placed on a red square. Include premiums for double or triple letter values, if
any, before doubling or tripling the word score. If a word is formed that covers
two premium word squares, the score is doubled and then re-doubled, or
tripled and then re-tripled. NOTE: the center square is a pink square, which
doubles the score for the first word.
 Letter and word premiums count only on the turn in which they are played. On
later turns, letters already played on premium squares count at face value.
 When a blank tile is played on a pink or red square, the value of the word is
doubled or tripled, even though the blank itself has no score value.
 When two or more words are formed in the same play, each is scored. The
common letter is counted (with full premium value, if any) for each word.
 BINGO! If you play seven tiles on a turn, it's a Bingo. You score a premium of
50 points after totaling your score for the turn.
 Unplayed Letters: When the game ends, each player's score is reduced by
the sum of his or her unplayed letters. In addition, if a player has used all of
his or her letters, the sum of the other players' unplayed letters is added to
that player's score.
 The player with the highest final score wins the game. In case of a tie, the
player with the highest score before adding or deducting unplayed letters
wins.

Famous People
International:

 Peter Morris (1991) has the honor of being the first person to win the World
Scrabble Championship (WSC). Peter was born in England, but he later became
a U.S. citizen. He returned to England n 1991 to play in and win the tournament.

 Mark Nyman is also from England. Unlike Peter Morris, Mark Nyman has lived in
England his entire life. Mark also differs from Peter by being a full-time Scrabble
player. In addition to winning the 1993 WSC, Mark also holds the distinction of
winning more major UK Scrabble tournaments than any other player. He has
over 20 wins to his name, according to the Association of British Scrabble
Players.
 Wellington Jighere is a professional Scrabble player from Nigeria. Jighere
became the first player from Africa to win the WSC when he took first place in
2015. His 2015 win was his third of four appearances at the Scrabble
 championship tournament. Jighere finished third in 2007, 11th in 2009 and fourth
in 2017. He quit playing professional Scrabble in December 2020. 

Local:

 Reigning Philippine champion Mohammad Bin Abdul Suma, a 25-year-old

man, won the fifth leg of the National Scrabble Championship at the Rural
Bankers Association of the Philippines in 2011.
 Lawrence Dave Candia – has won the National Open scrabble fest,
highschool division, in 2016. Also, won in first Philippine-Pakistan Online
Scrabble Showdown in 2020 as first place.
 Alexis Joyosa, a Department of Education employee, Also, won in first
Philippine-Pakistan Online Scrabble Showdown in 2020 as second place.

References:

 https://www.britannica.com/sports/Scrabble
 https://scrabble.hasbro.com/en-us/history
 https://sportsmatik.com/sports-corner/sports-know-how/scrabble/equipage?
tab=equipage-equipment&
 https://www.slideshare.net/Lealhei/all-about-scrabble
 https://wordfinder.yourdictionary.com/blog/scrabble-championship-winners-
and-famous-facts/
 https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1111883
 https://www.philstar.com/the-freeman/cebu-sports/2016/03/30/1567881/rio-
rules-first-national-open-scrabblefest
 https://rbap.org/mohammad-bin-abdul/