My girlfriend asked me how I could live with myself after doing this in our game last night.
I put down the word “zit”, knowing that it wasn’t legal by our dictionary. However, I doubted she knew that and felt I could get away with it.
She didn’t challenge it, so it remained on the board. On the next turn she added an S to it, making it “zits”.
I challenged it.
See, once a word is down it stays there. You have only that turn to challenge it, right? She created an illegal word by adding the S, so I successfully challenged that.
So I didn’t get any last night, even though she eventually won the game by four points.
Was I wrong to employ this strategy? I feel I was simply exploiting the rules to my advantage. It’s not my fault she doesn’t know “zit” isn’t legal, right?
It strikes me as being a legitimate strategy. It’s a competitive game. The challenge/no challenge part of the game is an important part of a competitive Scrabble match.
However, in our house we would have allowed “zit” anyway.
Legal, yes. Smart thing to do to your girlfriend? Come over here, lemme explain the concept of chivalry to you, or, if you find that chauvanistic, the concept of not being a dick to your friends. It doesn’t strike me as being in the spirit of friendly play, and you’d certainly risk physical injury if you tried such a thing in my neighborhood in Chicago.
OK, I am exaggerating, but that’s a bit overly competitive of you don’t you think? Scrabble can cause a lot of hurt feelings and egos, believe me, I’ve seen it. Before you drop down legal two-letter words like “aa” and “ae” and “qi” (British Scrabble), make sure you’re playing someone who is aware of these words. What I do, to make it fair, is provide a list of legal two- and three- letter words to casual players, so I feel the play is fair. Or I play without them. Some people have the rule, if you use a word, you must be able to define it or use it in a sentence. Unfortunately, most good Scrabble players do know the definitions of these words.
I don’t have a copy of the Official Scrabble Player’s Dictionary, but I’d imaging zit would be a perfectly acceptible word. I would never challenge it, and especially when archaic Scots words like “ae” are fair game, why shouldn’t a common word like “zit” be?
Zit is a legitimate word (though it is noted as slang for “a pimple”) on Dictionary.com . What are Scrabble’s rules regarding the use of slang? Could a player use the word “ain’t”, for example?
You might want to formalise some unwritten rules like ‘if someone makes an honest mistake, it can be corrected with no penalty.’
When I play pool we ignore it if we nudge any balls by accident. Wouldn’t work in a tournament, but as we trust each other and play for fun it’s better.
You may want to decide before you start what to do about words you both think should be in the dictionary, etc. It sounds fairly close fought so it’d be only fair for both or neither of you to exploit the rules.
Mjollnir, I was working on the assumption that “zit” was not a legal word, as it isn’t listed in the dictionary we agreed to use for our game. Therefore, “zits” wouldn’t be legal either.
It’s been suggested that we get a better dictionary, but that’s not really the point.
My girlfriend feels I suckered her by using a word I knew to be illegal. It could happen with another set of words, so the strategy point is the one we’re interested in. Is it fair game to draw someone into the situation that happened in our game?
Of course it’s fair. Using a non-existent word is perfectly legal, with the understanding that the penalty is the loss of your turn if you’re challenged. That’s part of the game.
Word of warning: My friends and I were working with an old (original or second edition) Official Scrabble Players Dictionary, which was getting worn out. So I bought the latest edition but neglected to notice that it was “for school use” also, so it leaves out all the essential nasty words! We play a very friendly game where we are allowed to consult the dictionary (although I do the best I can to avoid it); we haven’t been able to dispense with the old dictionary as we still need it to verify things like “twat”.
While it may be technically legal, it strikes me as unnecessarily nasty. By using and getting points for making a word, you imply acceptance of it. I can see where rejecting that acceptance would strike many as underhanded and not in the spirit of fair play. It is a strategy perhaps better suited for cutthroat competition than friendly competition.
Legal, but jerky. I get from your post that your SO is an able speller, but a beginning Scrabble player. In this case you are not exploiting your knowledge of the rules, but rather her lack of knowledge. Did she even know she was allowed to challenge you? If not, you’re just being an over-competitve jerk. What’s the point of a game if both parties can’t have have a good-natured round?
Just cause you can doesn’t mean you should you know.
The classic line is: “I don’t play to win; I just play to have fun.”
Hmm. I have fun when I win. I have fun when I lose, too, as long as I’m playing hard and playing against people who are playing hard.
You don’t “imply acceptance” of a word by using it. You get points for a word by using it. Once the word is down, it’s open to being challenged. If the opponents fail to challenge it, then the issue is done. Scrabble is not a chance to sit around the tiles and board and sing Kumbayah. It’s a competition. With rules. To be won or lost based on your skills in using those rules to your advantage.
IMHO, It is perfectly fair and legal for you to employ that strategy. It is also perfectly fair and legal for your girlfriend to withhold sex in retaliation. It is now up to you to decide which is more important to you: winning the Scrabble game, or having sex with your girlfriend.
This also strikes me as a gambit that is only effective once. Your girlfriend is now (or should be) wary of you trying this again.
As a final note, one scenario in which this strategy might strike me as unfair is if you are using a non-standard dictionary with which you are very familiar, and she is not. (e.g., it would be unfair for me to invite you to play a game using my reprint of the original 1828 Noah Webster dictionary)
