It's time again for the ABC Wednesday entry, where I try and cover some of the basics of competitive scrabble, while somehow trying to relate it to the current letter of the week... here we go again!
The challenge I'm referring to here is not the noun defined as"difficulty in an undertaking that is stimulating to one engaged in it." Though, that is a good description of a good competitive scrabble game. To challenge, in competitive scrabble, means that you are questioning the validity of your opponent's last play. In North American scrabble, if you are correct (and the word is not valid), then the other player removes their tiles and loses their turn. On the other hand, if you are incorrect (and the word IS valid), then you lose your turn.
Though this is really the rule in regular 'living room' scrabble, few people play this way (probably because it would end in an argument over whether or not the word is really a word). Of course, there is an official 'tournament word list' that is used so that everyone is on the same page.
The addition of the possibility of playing phony words really ups the stakes and keeps you on your toes. Often times, people will play a word that they themselves are not 100% sure of- it's part of the risk. Other times, players will intentionally play all their tiles and make a phony word just to rack up points, especially if they think their opponent is unlikely to challenge. And there are even other times where a player will play a word in an effort to get their opponent to turn it into a phony (usually by adding an 'S' to it), so they can challenge and gain an extra turn. Lastly, it's an often followed practice to play the more unusual word (if the option is there) in an effort to draw a challenge, for example, playing 'STYGIAN'(which means gloomy) instead of 'STAYING'.
OK, so now it's time for a quiz: which of the following words are acceptable in the current scrabble dictionary, and which aren't?
-QWERTYS
-DENOTER
-TEXTING
-ETESIAN
-OUGUIYA
-MOLTAGE
-KYLIKES
-GOMERIL
-FLINTER
-OUTYELP
I'll post the answers in a comment later.
6 comments:
I really don't know, I am already happy with the English I know, lol ! It's not my mother tongue !
Gattina
ABC Team
I like playing scrabble but these words are not common to me.
Visiting you from ABC Wednesday. I followed your blog too. I hope you can do the same and please visit my entry too.
C is for Crab Legs
Hi, Jeff. I can think of two additional (and somewhat unusual) reasons to phoney. (1) Some high-rated players, when playing someone rated significantly lower than they are, will start off the game (in the first or second turn) with a deliberate "test" phoney -- something as nutty as VITUR or PYCHA against a beginner or something more subtle against an 1100-1500 player -- something like VITROUS. If the lower-rated player lets it go (because they are intimidated by their opponent's rating), the higher-rated player has learned a lesson and thinks "I can probably get away with just about anything. Next time I have a terrible rack I can just play off the junk and keep going." If the lower-rated player challenges and wins the challenge, then they will probably get a false sense of confidence -- and future legitimate plays by the expert will ALSO be challenged -- and those challenges will be lost. Simply put, it's a way for the higher-rated player to knock their opponent off balance and take out some of the luck factor. If they are going to implement this strategy, it's critical to start very early in the game. If they wait until they're down by 100-150 points (thanks to their opponent's getting great tiles), it's going to be too late. This strategy is used mostly during open tournaments when experts are often paired with beginners in the early rounds. It's not pretty, but it's effective.
And finally, of course -- there's that VITROUS play. If you open with VITROUS and get away with it, great: you've bingoed. If, however, your opponent challenges it off, that's probably great, too. Because if they play a word with a vowel, you will bingo. VITROUS + A, E, I, O, or U = a bingo. If you think you're opponent is wise to that, you may want to play "VITUR" instead (!).
- Mike
I've played living-room or kitchen-table Scrabble all my life and, while I knew the meaning of "challenge" and I know qwerty can be used as an adjective to describe a typewriter keyboard (as opposed to, say, a linotype keyboard) I have never seen it pluralized.
Most of the words (or non-words) listed here are unfamiliar to me.
Of course, if "text" is now accepted as a verb in English, "texting" would have to be acceptable as well, but you can't "text" me your opinion on this because I demanded my provider remove "texting" from my cellular phone because I was receiving unsolicited text messages from strangers. Now I only receive unsolicited text messages from my service provider. Aarrgghh.
-- K
Kay, Alberta, Canada
An Unfittie's Guide to Adventurous Travel
Don't know, but I'd buy it if someone used OUTYELP.
Ok, folks, here are the answers (and thanks to Mike for the additional commentary):
QWERTYS is good
DENOTER* is not (ERODENT is the correct word; denoter* is a 'popular' phony.)
TEXTING* is not (thought it will probably by in the next scrabble dictionary)
ETESIAN is good (in fact, this is possibly one of the most probable 7 letter words.)
OUGUIYA is a monetary unit of Mauritania (I included this just because it's one of the most ridiculous looking scrabble words that I know)
MOLTAGE* is not (I included this because the aforementioned Mike played it against me this week)
KYLIKES is the plural of KYLIX, a drinking vessel. The anagram is SKYLIKE.
GOMERIL is another spelling of GOMERAL (a fool)
FLINTER* is another popular phony.
OUTYELP is good; I chose it just because it's a strange looking 'out' word.
You'll notice that I've used the asterisk to denote words that aren't good, this is the usual way phonies are indicated. Thanks for reading!
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