You can play Scrabble online, or in cafes, or with a growing number of clubs around the country. It's the new bingo, writes Eoin Butler
IT'S 8PM on a quiet Wednesday evening in leafy south Co Dublin. The tea has been poured, biscuits passed around, and I'm about to get my ass kicked in Scrabble by a woman old enough to be my grandmother. The popular board game is celebrating its 70th birthday this year. To date, 100 million sets have been sold in 29 languages across 121 countries. But Scrabble's most recent resurgence is down to Scrabulous, the game's strikingly similar (and legally contentious) online alter ego. An astonishing 2.3 million people worldwide play that game daily, over half a million of them on the social networking site Facebook.
In contrast, Ireland's (offline) Scrabble-playing community is a small, tight-knit bunch. As one might suspect, pensioners and teens are well represented in their ranks. But there are enthusiasts of all ages and from all walks of life. Anne Lyng, spokesperson for the Republic of Ireland Scrabble Players' Association, knows most of the faces. "One of our regulars is an inmate of the Central Mental Hospital," she cheerfully informs me. She rummages in the bag, plucks out seven tiles and passes them across to me. "He's very good," she continues. "Apparently he has them all playing up there now."
I mention that Scrabble is enjoying a resurgence of popularity online. Lyng looks surprised. "I wish more of these people would come to our tournaments," she sighs.
Anne is a self-confessed Scrabble-addict who plays hundreds of games a week, at Scrabble clubs, retiree groups and in private games. As befits a one-time Countdown quarter-finalist, she has an incredible talent for spotting anagrams. She turns her stack of letters around and asks for the biggest word I can see. I ponder the question a moment and tell her I see a five-letter word: SAINT. Anne laughs, and with lightning speed shuffles the letters on the rack around to show me three possible seven-letter combinations: INSTEAD, DETAINS and STAINED. The game is about to begin and I've already got a decidedly sinking feeling.
This lack of confidence might come as a surprise to some of my online Scrabble buddies. After all, many of them have been on the receiving end of some spectacular trouncings from me recently. The pathetic truth, however, is that I cheat compulsively at Scrabble online. Before my friends start getting their knickers in a twist over this, let me say another thing: I'm pretty certain most of them cheat, too. (Come on, we barely knew the rules two months ago. Now we're swapping Triple Word Scores such as KAPA, THRIP and FLEECH like they were supermarket gossip.) There is no Cheat-o-Matic in Lyng's living room unfortunately. So I suspect I'm up against it.
THE FIRST THING that strikes me is the speed at which Lyng and her friend Pauline (a retired teacher) play. Lyng doesn't even need to turn the board around. She can read it upside down. She churns out a lot of long words. Pauline specialises in shorter words laid atop other short words. This requires an encyclopaedic knowledge of obscure words such as dod, dzo and ny. I ask if she knows what any of these words mean and she shakes her head.
My hurried first effort (NEAR) scores a pathetic four points. Anne rifles down BARRIER for 77. I'm already a dot in her rear-view mirror. My next (JOTA for 22) is a modest improvement, but then I go all out and try DEUX for 37. It's not strictly an English word. But Pauline has already gotten away with EL and LA, so I'm willing to take my chances. Unfortunately, it's not in the Scrabble dictionary so I miss my turn.
Depending on which dictionary you use, the highest possible score on a single move in Scrabble is either CAZIQUES (meaning native chiefs of West Indian aborigines) for 392, or QUIXOTRY for 365. The game eventually finishes up 279 points to Lyng, 191 to Pauline and (a not completely disgraceful) 152 to myself. "All you need is a little practice," she assures me. "That's all it takes."
Anne says she sometimes fantasises about great words: CONQUERS for 221 is the best she's ever managed, but it's not the word she remembers most fondly. "There was a D in the top row," she recalls, recreating the scenario on the empty board. "I had DISPEL and an R on my rack." She took a chance and put down the word PIDDLERS, spanning the two red Treble Word Score squares for 177. Her opponent challenged, but the word was in the Scrabble dictionary. "Can you imagine?" she says, laughing at the thought of it. "PIDDLERS!"
Scrabble lingo
CHALLENGEWhere one player calls into question the validity of an opponent's word. Depending on how the Word Judge rules, either the challenger or their opponent loses a turn.
A MIWORDA word which is often mistakenly assumed to be a misspelling of another, more common word (e.g. FIRN, BIBB, CONN, LONGE) deployed in order to draw unsuccessful challenges.
OLD MCDONALDAny rack that contains the letters EIEIO
BINGOSWords that utilise all seven available tiles are known as BINGOS in the US. This has in turn spawned the term MINGO - a particularly low-scoring bingo, such as REALEST, which (even including the 50 point bonus awarded to all bingos) still scores less than 60 points.
PINGOAn abbreviation of phoney bingo, refers to any bingo which is successfully challenged.
HUMONGOA bingo that scores above 100 points, particularly one that covers two Triple Word Scores simultaneously.
There are Scrabble clubs in Dublin, Wexford, Cork and Galway. www.scrabbleireland.org