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Rules, Tips and Advice for playing Scrabble

Scrabble.com is a gateway page to the Hasbro and Mattel websites which both have lots of tips and advice for playing scrabble and also, most importantly, give the rules of the game.
www.scrabble.com
SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear is not affiliated with Hasbro.

Down Lexico Way
by Graham Brown

No Butts

IT was 1931, Poughkeepsie, New York, USA, and architect Alfred Mosher Butts had just lost his job. There was little work to be found designing buildings. In fact, there was little work at all. So he elected to devise a new board game based on words. Lexico was to be renamed four times over the next 17 years . "New Anagrams", "Alph" , "Criss-Cross" and "Criss-Crosswords". He eventually sold the game to James Brunot who changed the name to "Scrabble" and trademarked it in 1948. Since then millions of sets have been sold worldwide.
And what about Alfred? Well, he didn't get rich from Scrabble, but he did become re-employed as an architect and lived a long and happy life, dying in 1993 at the age of 93.

Into the Net

I began my search for Scrabble on the Net at www.scrabble.com. The tips section begins with the 120 officially sanctioned "Two Letter Words". The reason for learning these? . "They are useful to create parallel plays or for squeezing in a good play on a blocked board" They are also very useful for simply showing off! You can, for example, venture OO with aplomb. And how about AA, AE, AI, AX, AY, BA, BO, CH, DA, DI, EA, EE, FY, GI, GU, ID, IO, JO, KA, KO, KY, LI, MU, NA, NE, NU, NY, OB, OD, OE, OI, OM, OS, OU, OY, PH, PI, QI, SI, TE, UT, WO, XI, XU, YU, and ZO! Then there are "Hooks". These are letters that can be placed on the front or rear of a word to make a new word. So your opponent's carefully laid NAB turns into NABK (a prickly shrub) as they frantically try to reach a triple word square via your FRY or attempt to embellish your SUCH (both words being on the unhookable list!). The official Scrabble website www.scrabble.com has something for everyone and even includes some excellent shockwave games including an inspired mix of Scrabble and Space Invaders.

Playing online

I had been trying for some time to find a free scrabble playing program. Bob 's site provided the answer. Once Networdz was downloaded, Marilyn (my non-silicon scrabble consultant) was soon losing regularly to words such as "nidering" "feazed" "neap" and the interesting "barhop". I should add though, that running FOUL along VANMAN helped her finally claim victory for the human race, chalking up points with fa, on um and la. A fine case of "squeezing in a good play on a blocked board". Play the silicon scrabblemeister only if you feel brave, on form, bright as a button and lucky.

Not feeling any of those, I decided to try my luck playing against carbon based life. Within 15 minutes on Bob's site I had an enjoyable game against the polite but deadly American "sniper139" but got picked off word by word. However, it was great fun and you can play up to 3 people at the same time. 

For Networdz and other online Scrabble websites see our main Scrabble Page

Speedy's story

Bob (Speedy) told me the story of his site. "I couldn't believe all the hoops that people needed to go through just to play a game of Scrabble. It took hours to figure out so I decided to try to make it easier for everyone. The first thing I did was get a hold of the official dictionary used in tournament play. That was my biggest complaint about Networdz at the time. The installation program completely installs and configures all aspects of the game. What used to take an hour, could now be done with a simple double-click. People who knew nothing about computers were playing in a matter of 10-15 minutes."

The one thing that I am most proud of is that you will NEVER see an advertisement for anything on my webpages. I have had tons of offers from game companies, online gaming businesses and such to advertise on my site, but I just can't do it. I wanted to create a place where Scrabble players can go to play other people, get information and feel like they are in a "Real Persons" website..... not some impersonal money making operation.

Hopefully I have created such a place. Everyday I get about 10-30 quick little message from people saying a quick "thanks". It doesn't sound like a big deal in the big scheme of things, but in the world of the Internet most people don't send little "thank-you" messages. So, when I get these messages, I know that they wouldn't have taken the time to write to me unless I really did make a small difference. And that's worth more then any ad banner could ever pay me."

Speedy's site, in a sea of getrichinaminute.com sites, is refreshing. As ultra-cool as inventing a world famous board game in the depths of the Great Depression. So if you enjoy scrabble, you may not be able to email Mr Butts anymore but why not send a quick thankyou to Speedy. And if all those High-Tec shares should come crashing down, don't sit around moping over that lost £100. Turn the certificate over, get a pen and use it for something useful - create a Parlour Game.

If you have a website on scrabble you would like featured then please email me  

For loads more places to play scrabble online see our main Scrabble page