scrabble – Ewan Spence

Word Trouble In The Land Of Scrabble

Posted on October 20, 2014 by Ewan Spence

Fascinating insight into the commercial pressure around the words you can and can’t play in Scrabble over on FiveThrityEight. Turns out there are two lists – the�book of words you can buy (the Official Scrabble Players Dictionary) and the Official Word List (used in competition). And they are no longer in agreement: The Official Tournament and Club Word List (OWL) governs tournament play, and is not made readily available to the public. The Official Scrabble Players Dictionary (OSPD) is for casual and family play, and is sold in bookstores.�Aside from expurgated words � offensive or trademarked words omitted from the

How to win at Scrabble if you’re the underdog

Posted on January 24, 2013 by Ewan Spence

Five minutes of a delightful presentation by Mehal Shah from Ignite Seattle on winning by playing at the edge of the rules. Reminds me very much of one of my Dad’s books, Chess for Tigers.

Just because you can (Q,10), doesn’t mean you should (Z,10)

Posted on January 15, 2013 by Ewan Spence

Academic decides that the Scrabble tile scores are all wrong and need to be balanced. Meanwhile the manufacturer points out that people have complained about that since the game was launched in the thirties, and no they won’t be changing Scrabble. Mattel has no plans to change Scrabble tiles. It is not a game where fairness is paramount, it is a game of luck and changing the tile values wouldn’t achieve anything. If only Mattel ran Facebook’s timeline design process.