Scrabble

I have found a new Scrabble club which is vastly different to the one I played at last year. Last years one was one of a large club with many activities but it was only the Scrabble part of it which attracted me. The ladies I played with were very nice but it was oh so slow. Sometimes I almost fell asleep with the boredom of it! The new one is a whole different ball game, very serious and well organised. At last years club we played "normal" scrabble but at the new club we play duplicate Scrabble which is very popular in most French speaking countries. It is all very sophisticated with letters and top scoring words coming from a pre-set game on the computer.A duplicate set includes two boards: one regular board of the type we are familiar with, and another board on which to place all the letters face-up in an easy to use order (instead of a bag). Each player sits at a table by himself with his own board. There are no racks. Each tile has four pegs descending from its corners to anchor them in each of the boards, which are perforated with appropriate holes to in order to hold the tiles steady

An arbiter takes the first 7 letters from the computer and announces them and hangs them on a big board which is suspended at the front of the room; the players draw the same seven tiles and the arbiter starts the clock. After the allotted time period, (I think it is 2 minutes) the arbiter stops the clock and the players must submit their solutions to the arbiter.The highest scoring word (known as the top) is announced and place on the display board by the arbiter, and the players do the same. At the end of the game, the arbiter announces the top - the total score of all the moves, which is the theoretical high score which cannot be beaten. The winner of the game can be expressed in three different ways. Points scored, points dropped compared to the top, or percentage.

Rules of duplicate:

• The highest scoring word must be placed on the board after each move. However if there is more than one word which have the same score, the arbiter chooses the word which is most apt for opening the board up.
• It is possible to score more than 100% by benefitting from a solo top. A solo top is when only one player finds the top play, and is awarded a bonus of 10 points which is added to his total score at the end of the game.
• Any invalid word is known as a zéro and means what it implies - the player gets zero points for that move

I have to say that it seriously stretches my brain but is nevertheless a very challenging couple of hours. The most difficult part is gauging the time needed to fill in the piece of paper, after each word is found, with the position of the word on the board and the score achieved. Of course I have been bottom of the rankings each time I have played. I'm not there to ever be at the top of the rankings but it would be nice one day if I wasn't at the bottom!!