Welcome back to Boardwalk! Last time we met, I talked about Jenga, a timeless tower-stacking game. This week I will be diving into the nuts and bolts of a spelling bee’s secret weapon: Scrabble.
Gameplay:
Scrabble is a timeless board game that revolves around players placing letter tiles on a grid to form intricate words that earn them the most points. Players are given seven letter tiles each round to compose their chosen words, and words must be built off of existing ones (except for the starting word, of course). Each letter tile has a number in the bottom right corner, indicating its point value, and when combined to form a word, the total of the points earns a person their score for the round. Additionally, the grid is lined with bonuses, such as Double Word Score and Triple Letter Score, providing players with the chance to move up the ranks. The fun all comes to an end once all tiles are drawn or all players skip their turn twice, leaving the final scores to be calculated by summing up the score of all tiles placed on the grid, then subtracting the value of remaining tiles on each player’s rack.
Strategies:
My take on this game is to build words parallel to each other. By placing a word directly parallel, it can give rise to multiple new words and help you move past your opponents in terms of scoring. Going off that, utilize all those torturous years of grammar lessons when playing. What I essentially mean is to use existing words to create new ones, like by adding an -ing or -ed to a word if you seem to be struggling to come up with new ones. Finally, though you may not expect this, you have to be strategic in the placement of your tiles. Avoid leaving bonuses on the board open for your opponents to steal and force them to make a bad decision.
Variations:
After its invention in 1931, so many fun variations have been released. For starters, there is now an online version that allows you to play on the go. But, in my opinion, the smell of the wooden tiles and the smoothness of the board is something that could never be replaced by your phone. One popular variant is called Clabbers, where players are allowed to place letters in any order on the board, but only if they form a proper anagram. Another fun version is called Take Two, where players race to build their own individual grids; when a player uses all their tiles, they yell “Take Two,” forcing everyone to draw two new tiles from the pool. Well, slow and steady wins the race, right?
Scrabble is practically a vocabulary test on steroids, one that needs to become your go-to on a rainy day. Not only does it make you feel good about yourself, but it also forces you to think outside the box when trying to formulate words. Now don’t worry, I won’t be getting all nerdy on you all, but no matter what, remember to keep scrabbling away.
