Words Don't Come Easy. Review on Scrabble

Alfred Butt, a New York crossword puzzle fanatic, invented Scrabble in 1948 and has obviously gone on to become very, very rich as it has become to be almost as popular worldwide as is Monopoly, which is a measure of its success.

The concept is so simple that it's a wonder it wasn't invented before it actually was. In fact there was a card game in which you had to spell out words in a crossword fashion which is all Scrabble is except it is done on a board with lettered tiles.

The board of 15 squares by 15 squares has a starting point exactly in the centre and the players in turn add tiles to make up words crossword fashion and score points depending on which letters they have used. Coloured squares in light blue and dark blue denote that a letter score can be doubled or trebled if on the square. Similarly a pink square doubles the value of the word that crosses it and a red square trebles the score.

The letters are valued by how often they are used in the English language. Thus the five vowels are worth just one point. Whilst the less used letters like Z and Q are worth 10 points. There are also two blank tiles that can be used to represent any letter but in themselves have no value. So if you use a blank to represent ''Z'' it still scores nothing even though ''Z'' is valued at 10.

Before play starts it is best if all players agree that if a word is not in something like the Scrabble Word Guide or a named dictionary it is not a word. It saves endless arguments and picking the tiles out of the fish bowl, from behind the sofa, from the cat's food dish etc.

Each player starts with 7 tiles picked at random from the stock lying face down on the table. The first player's word must cross the centre spot but not in a diagonal fashion. He then replenishes the tiles on his tray to make up seven tiles.

If at any time a player is unable to make up a word or doesn't want to, they can exchange any number of tiles from the stock in lieu of their turn.

If a player manages to produce a word using up all seven tiles in his tray he is awarded a bonus of 50 points plus whatever the word scores for being such a smart ass.

The game ends when one person has an empty tray and there are none in stock or no one can add any more tiles to the board. Obviously the winner is the person with the highest score but those players with tiles left in their tray have the value of those tiles DEDUCTED from their score. If you ain't got a ''U'' and the four ''U's'' have been played there is no point in hanging onto the ''Q''.

In my view if the all the player's scores are added together and they total over 500 then they can be classed as good players. Over 600 and they are very good players. Over 700 and you have some very clever players on hand.

Up to four people can play but so can one person on his or her own.

When I bought my Scrabble set in 1960 in Capetown I also paid five shillings (25p) for an accompanying book ''How To Win At Scrabble'' As well as hints and tips on how to play a better game of Scrabble, the last chapter dealt with Solitaire Scrabble where the author had selected a number of tiles and the reader had to take these same tiles in the same order and beat the author's score. It wasn't as easy as it seemed.

If you don't fancy trying to beat the ''expert'' then try and beat yourself. Select at random a predetermined number of tiles and leave them face down. Push the remainder to one side. Then play the game and make a note of which tiles you pick and in what order. At the end of the game you will have a score in a number of moves. Now set out the tiles in the same order face down and play again and try to beat your previous score in less number of moves.

I suppose that every Scrabble player must have wondered at one time or another what is the highest score ever made or possible? What is the highest score made with one word?

I was no different and spent many hours trying all sorts of combinations to determine a result. I have found that it is possible to score 2,346 points in 32 moves in which one word scored 1,022 points.

Before anyone goes wow! I have to confess that it was set up. What I mean is that I worked backwards and placed tiles on the board to make up words to my advantage. For instance I set things up so that during the game I placed my seven tiles to add to the already placed eight letters to form a 15 letter word across the top which just happened to have the three treble word squares and the two double letter squares empty for me to put my tiles into. Thus I got the treble word three times as well as the 50 points bonus for being a smart ass. The word was PSYCHOTHERAPIST.

O.K. just to prove the point this is what happened:-

I arranged to draw the following letters in this order:-

XUSEALT EBLREM HOJAMOR EE ABOVDWN ERIN SPS YC HP T

SEXUAL across the board with the ''E'' on the centre square.

TEBLREM to meet up with the ''S'' to make TREMBLES

HO to meet the ''T'' in TREMBLES to make HOT

JAMOREE across TREMBLES to make JAMBOREE

ABOV to meet the last ''E'' of JAMBOREE to make ABOVE

DWN across ABOVE to make DOWN

ER to meet the ''A'' of ABOVE to make ERA

IN to meet the ''N'' of DOWN to make INN

S to meet the ''I'' of INN to make IS

PSYCHPT in the 7 empty spaces in the top row to make

PSYCHOTHERAPIST

P=3, S=1, Y=4, C=3x2, H=4, O=1, T=1, H=4, E=1, R=1, A=1,

P=3x2, I=1, S=1, T=1 which all adds up to 36.

Triple word score 3 times is 36 x 3 x 3 x 3 = 972 + 50 = 1022

I won't bother with the rest.

Now who is to say that the tile order that achieved this score cannot happen in a real game.