There is no OO in Scrabble

Our family has always enjoyed playing Scrabble (the name Scrabble is a trademark of Hasbro, Inc. in the United States and Canada and of Mattel elsewhere). My grandmother was the champion player - probably at least partially due to the fact that no one would challenge her. "An 'oo' is a Hawaiian bird", she'd insist. It isn't, but who is going to argue with the family matriarch?

She passed on in her 90's, so we haven't seen "'oo'" on a Scrabble board since then, but we all kept on playing. We are all lovers of words. We're not the snobby kind who will cuttingly correct you if you misuse "whom" or dangle a participle, but we like words and we love Scrabble.

Recently we all discovered Facebook Scrabble. That has changed everything. Where we used to play a few times a year, we now can play whenever we want. Our oldest daughter and I play several games every week - sometimes several games per day.

Understand that none of us are superb players. I'm the best in our family, but my Internet score is usually hovering in the low 1400's. My highest scoring word ever was OXIDIZE for 134 points and my best score ever is just 492. Any really serious player can wipe me off the board any day of the week.

I say I am the best in our family, but it's really a squeaker against my wife. Yes, overall I win against her most of the time, but I usually only win by a few points, often snatching victory at the last minute, frustrating her greatly. On the other hand, when she beats me, it's usually a rout: she pins me early on and keeps me on the ropes the whole game. In one memorable game I had three Bingos early on. A Bingo is where you play all seven of your letters and score an extra fifty points because of that. I had those three, which wouldn't be unusual for a real pro but definitely is at our level. My wife had no Bingos in that game, but nonetheless she still managed to beat me and not by just squeaking ahead - it was by a healthy amount!

So I may be the best in raw statistics, but she's a hard fighter and I just have to give her credit.

Internet Scrabble is great. You can make one move per week or spend hours playing every day. More importantly, you can play more than one game at once: I can have a game with my wife, one with each of our daughters, and one with the four of us together. I can spend as much or as little time playing as I like - and so can everyone else. As I mentioned above, our oldest daughter and I play constantly; the rest of the family has spurts of playing and then letting it go for days or sometimes even weeks.

I have also played with strangers. In one of my first games with a stranger, I was shocked to see "NGWEE" appear. That word is the Nigerian unit of currency, but you knew that, didn't you? I'm sure you also know that "AA" is a dry form of lava and that "AI" is a sloth and all of those are acceptable in Facebook Scrabble!

We'd never allow those words in our old family games. We would not allow "si" or other foreign origin words either, but a lot of those are fine in Internet Scrabble and as the dictionary is built right into the game, it is easy to check words. This feature lets bad spellers enjoy the game more, but we never allowed a dictionary when my grandmother was alive!

Also, if you had a Q and no U, you were stuck - there was no QI or QAT or QANAT in our games. Isn't that why a Q is worth 10 points? If all it takes is an I to play it, it shouldn't be worth much more than H, should it?

No sense arguing, though, it is what it is.

Another issue when playing with strangers is the availability of on-line word solvers. You punch in your letters and these things spit back all the possible words. That is frowned upon, but there is nothing to prevent it. On the other hand, there is a fair amount of strategy and plain old luck to Scrabble, so the cheaters aren't guaranteed a win. Finally, if you really feel someone must be using an anagram program, you can fight back by doing the same yourself. I'd rather just not play with people who seem to be doing that. Of course it could be that they are just great players and really know all those words - it's hard to tell on-line.

The "Teacher"

In the iPad and iPhone Scrabble versions, there is a "teacher" icon who frowns at you if you make a less than optimal play. If you then click on that icon, it will show you how you could have done better. I often ignore that because most of the time I have never heard of the words it would suggest. It also has no concept of strategy: scoring an extra 8 points and leaving an opportunity for a high scoring triple is not a play I'd ever make, but that teacher suggests that sort of play often.

Most of the big frowns I get come when I miss a Bingo. If the word is something I didn't know, I don't feel upset, but when I miss something obvious I wish I had spent more time shuffling the letters around!

I wish that there were a way to disable that. It often suggests things that you can easily do on your next turn, providing an advantage you would not otherwise have.

The iPad version I use now has a "Pass and Play" mode that I really dislike. At first glance it seems great: you choose the number of players and just pass the iPad to the person who is next. Great, but unfortunately they also added a "Best Word" icon that does just what it says : it automatically plays the highest scoring word! Where is the fun and skill in that? There is no way to disable it either.

Well, I have to go. I'm in a game with my daughter and it's my turn.

Tips

I'm not the best player in the world, but I do have a few tips on how to improve your Scrabble game.  No, it's not memorizing a lot of words!

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