A finished board
How strong is your word game? Did you know that there are 2,60,000 legal words allowed under British Scrabble rules or that you can make 124 permissible two-letter words containing every letter in the alphabet (except V)?
This Saturday, brush up on the dictionary and attend the third series of the Scrabble Championship at Doolally. Each week, different taprooms in the city play host to a scrabble competition. This week, it is Colaba. “It started with a chess championship that we decided to conduct across our taprooms. In no time, we had over 50 people signing up to play chess. We realised that people enjoy playing games competitively and decided to introduce Scrabble competitions too,” says Tresha Guha, brand manager, Doolally. “Scrabble was chosen over other board games because it is simple.”
A game in progress
Andheri resident Arvind Sethurayar won the championship organised at the suburb’s outlet in March; it was the first tournament. The sales and marketing professional has been playing Scrabble through his student years. “I was happy to see tournaments conducted here. It is great that a community is forming, which means more challenges and tournaments,” he says. Sethurayar played and won four games and although he doesn’t remember his final tally, it was a close game. His strategy: try and get rid of the Q’s early on and keep blank tiles for a possible seven-letter word.
The past few championships have seen many bingos (using all seven letters at one time), unusual words like gobi, long words like fractioned and modernity, and two and three letter words like za, qi, oi and emo. For Sethurayar, the most challenging part was staying up to date with new words added to the dictionary.
The championships have an arbiter or referee to handle disputes, arguments and make sure people don’t take this or themselves too seriously. He acts like a live scrabble dictionary (Collins Dictionary is used for reference) and steers the game while ensuring everyone has a good time. “To take the edge off the competition, we ensure participants win while completing little challenges too – longest word, shortest word with most points and bingo. This gives competitors a chance to win, even if they may lose the overall game,” adds Guha.
There is no age limit and younger enthusiasts (below 21) can participate but only if accompanied by a parent. Winners bag a Breakfast of Champions voucher for two, and beer vouchers.
On: May 6, 12 pm to 1 pm
At: Ground floor, plot 75/77, Park House, Nathalal Parikh Marg, Colaba.
Log on to: doolally.in
Cost: Rs 250 a head (includes beer or house fries and two games minimum)
Scrabble trivia
- Scrabble was invented by architect Alfred Mosher Butts in 1933. To determine how many tiles there should be and the points each letter should be worth, he calculated letter frequency using the front page of The New York Times.
- He named his game Lexico, and later Criss-Cross Words. His friend and eventual business partner, James Brunot, came up with the name Scrabble in the late 1930s.
- The highest number of points that can be scored on the first go is 128 – with ‘muzjiks’ (it means Russian peasants).
- The highest score for one game is 1049 by Philip Appleby from Lymington in 1989.
- In French Scrabble, there are five tiles that are worth 10 points – K, W, X, Y, and Z.
- The English Scrabble board has 100 tiles; the Italian and Portuguese ones have the most – 120 tiles.