I come from a very competitive family. Every person in my family is good at one specific thing. My Grandfather was the boxer, Gramma the cook, Mom the painter, Sister the rower, Uncle the lacrosse player...
And Candice the Scrabble Diva.
Okay, okay, okay, maybe I give myself too much credit. I just love this game. I’ve been playing ever since I was a little kid. I started on Scrabble Junior and worked my way up. Now I’m teaching my younger cousins how to play.
For those of you that don’t know, Scrabble is a game for two to four people. You pick seven letter tiles each, then proceed taking turns spelling words out on the crossword-esque board. Each letter has a value, anywhere from 1 to 10 points. (Common letters such as S and T are worth 1 point, whereas Q and Z are worth 10.) There are bonus boxes on the board, which can double or triple your letter or word scores. The first person to get rid of all their tiles wins. (You see, if you lay down less than seven, you need to pick the number of tiles you laid down.)
The title of this review comes from The Simpsons. It’s a word Bart laid down to win the game, using all of his letters. Of course, there’s no such word as QUIMOJO. A lot of people (including myself) try to create their own words that sound real. For this reason, you should keep a dictionary close by. A way my family has deterred cheaters is to make the person define the obscure word. If it is in the dictionary, they receive their points. If it’s not, they lose that amount of points from their score.
It’s also a good way to teach children how to spell. And, you can always spice it up to suit your taste: Only spell ’’bad’’ words, sexy words, Proper Names, Biblical words... Play Strip Scrabble, Scrabble the Drinking Game, and so on.