Words

Started playing Words With Friends last week and it may have been a mistake, but it is a fun game.  Obviously, it's a blatant Scrabble rip-off and it surprises me that the folks at Mattel haven't gone lawsuit on this thing.  However, there are some substantial differences.

The main one is that you can't play a fake word.  The computer stops you and tells you to play something different.  In Scrabble, of course, you can play fake words, too, and it's up to your opponent to challenge them.  This does dumb down the game a little bit.  I will say it doesn't change the character of the game, though.  Both players get the same advantage. 

It makes the game a little less serious, because you can try adding an "S" to "OXEN" and the machine will just tell you if that's legal or not.

I've been getting whipped pretty badly by a handful of people on a regular basis.  In no particular order, the honorable mentions go to:  Laura, Stevie, Tom and Matthew.  Other folks can beat me and have, but I can either play them evenly or beat them. 

Part of the problem is that I was playing with an old word list.  Stevie helped me discover that my 2nd edition Scrabble dictionary and 1998 Official Word List were out of date.  They were both updated in 2006.

So, I'm changing my game.  They added the words, "Qi" and "Za", which I think are both questionable, but those two words, alone, change the character of the game, substantially. 

That's an interesting thing about Scrabble.  It is the only board game that literally, continuously changes the rules to reflect popular culture and the society in which it is played.

Yes, I know how crazy this Scrabble talk sounds to non players.  I was there, too.  When I was getting my MBA, I met a tournament player.  I also heard some stories on NPR by Stephen Fatsis (the author of "Word Freak"), describing this bizarre game and the wierdos who play it.  Thing is, once I got into it, I understood.  It is commonly regarded as the greatest of the 20th century board games.  Not on a level with go, chess or backgammon, but at the top of the very next lower strata.