It's SUPER SCRABBLE!

Blog Name: Scrabble on the Brain
Blog URL: http://goingtouseallseven.blogspot.com/
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Blog Summary: All you need are the right tiles at the right time
This blog has been active since: May, 2007
Post: It's a bird, it's a plane...it's SUPER SCRABBLE! / February 2, 2009


It's a bird, it's a plane...

it's SUPER SCRABBLE!


I haven't really played any "isc.ro" Scrabble-- though I have a userid now and at Larry Sherman's suggestion, have been watching some of the "expert level" player games. He said it will show me how to manage my board better, and I think it's been helping. Although Phil still calls opening-up-the-triple-line-so-that-your-opponent scores-twice-as-much-as-you-did-using-your-power-tiles, "pulling a Dawn." Sad face.

Thus, the only online Scrabble I play is against my friends on facebook. But, as I've written before, the facebook "Beta Scrabble" SUCKS. You can't play phonies, no swear words or other "offensive terms" are valid, it's super slow and...um...did I mention you can't play phonies? Bah. SO instead, I've been playing a thing called "Wordscraper."

It is Scrabble on illegal Mexican steroids. They have double word/triple word/quadruple word score boxes that are within four squares of one another, so you can double/triple/quadruple, for like 200 points on one play: I got 169 points against Ugarrrles when I played quinoa(which I was pronouncing "quin-oh-ah," until my adopted mom chastised me at dinner and said "it's pronounced Keen-WAUGH, dear." Mah bad.

Ugarrrles and I, who met playing No Limit Hold 'em poker, now refer to wordscraper as "omaha" for the crazy number of combinations. You get eight tiles, the board is almost twice as large and the tile distribution is nutty (three whys, five (or six grrrr) essses.
Anyway, tonight I was introduced to the Real world version of "wordscraper" -- it's called SUPER SCRABBLE. The board is huge, there are TWO HUNDRED Tiles (two kues, four blanks, etc.)


I'm visiting my adopted mom in Utah, and she has a mini Scrabble club going here. So you draw twelve tiles --any word using seven or more of your letters is a bingo, blanks can be reused, if you exchange it for the letter that it represents and then use that blank during the turn in which you exchanged for it. I was so out of my element the first time we played, I couldn't figure out how to value things -- do you bingo, or go for the five letter word triple/triple (which is possible for the Triple Word Squares were five spaces apart.

It was weird, I bingoed three or four times, but lost because my adopted mother, who I've been teaching, triple/quadrupled with the bingo anointers and then won by the tiles in my rack. Oh, they also play with four people.

So I came in second out of four in that game. A woman then left, so I played "the fourth" in two games simulatenously. By then I had the hang of it AND Crushed all the games. I scored 802 points! Which was almost double my closest opponent (a super competitive Asian woman, who hates when I play with them because she usually always wins.)
I got to bingo with "outfoxes!"

I kind of like playing these games, because it's helping me work on seeing eights and getting the hang of playing through letters. I found "corniest" and "menacers" today -- playing through an i an a cee, respectively. Everyone was amazed that I could play two games simultaneously AND bingo on pretty much each turn. I'd just shrug and say I was drawing lucky. Oh I found bicycle on my rack too -- using no blanks! Hee hee.