My mother just recently scored a high one on me in Words With Friends. JEEP, with the J on a Triple Letter and the P on a Triple Word, for 108 points. It’s not the highest score possible, but it’s damned efficient at 27 points a letter.
Once I was playing partner scrabble in English. My friend and I had most of the word Spelunk in our hand, so we spent 90% of the game waiting for it. We got it.
Sure, we lost, but only by a couple points and being able to play the word “spelunk” was well worth the loss. I consider that the greatest triumph of all.
The Scrabble set we play on is an ages old basic set; and a rule we have is that you have to pick out your word’s tiles and set them aside (face down) to look up a word before you play it. No word shopping in the Scrabble dictionary or we’ll be here all day!
I wasn’t suggesting word shopping. I’m saying that if you play a lot, you should have all those 2-letter word combos memorized.
I was responding partly to this statement of yours; this set doesn’t have that list. If she had a list in her head of 2 letter words I suppose she’s got one more now!
While we’re on the subject of challenges, are you required to defend the word you place by stating the definition or somesuch nonsense? Everyone else seems to think so, but my opinion is if you don’t like a word, challenge it. I also get away with a lot of near-words this way, because people are so used to losing challenges 
In my current WWF game I have all the letters for PIQUANT except the P, and no P on the board is valid. It’s a crying shame.
Oh well. Next trick is to get my opponent to set me up so I can play QUIZ on a TW and TL if I can. 129 points, if I’m counting right.
Well, it is my current anonymous opponent’s play sadly, but on the lower-right quadrant he got DEWORMS with the D and W on a TL and the S on a triple word. For 110-ish points…
I can’t feel too bad though. I didn’t give him the bonus tiles on a silver platter. For lack of a better play, I connected EN to KOINE to make NE and EN for 15pts, and he connected the D to that EN… a mistake perhaps but not a glaring one. More just a great play on his part. Still though, grrrr…
I’ve never played that you were required to defend your word in any way. But there are various ways people play the challenge. There are at least three variations that I know of: one is the challenger loses a turn if the play is valid. Another is a “no risk” variation, in which if the word is good, it stays, but there is no penalty to the challenger, and play progresses as usual. A third involves some kind of point penalty if the challenge is no good. (But the challenger doesn’t lose a turn.)
The official rules (at least the US ones), follow the first variation, at least since 1976. So there is some amount of bluffing that goes on at high-level tournament Scrabble (or at least, so I’ve been led to believe through the book Word Freak and the documentary Word Wars.)
Well, thinking of this thread and how long it’s been since I played Scrabble, I cracked it open on my iPhone today for a game while waiting for some paperwork to be processed at City Hall. I got two bingos right off the bat. First rack: LGCEIR_ played for GLACIER and 68 points. Computer plays COLOR to connect with the “L” in GLACIER. My next rack: EIIONS_ which I play off the “C” in GLACIER for RECISION and 60 points. I’m fairly certain I’ve started off with a bingo before, but never two in a row, and never on my opening two turns. Not the highest scoring bingos in the world, but pretty cool nonetheless.
When I was in college, I once played Scrabble with two coed friends, one a fellow math major. I got bingos on my first two racks.
And how did the game go?
I played Scrabble with my grandmother growing up.
You owe me a 55 gallon drum of brain bleach.
Glad this thread got resurrected… not long ago, I had ACINNRS in my rack, saw ATE already on the board, and played INCARNATES through it for a bingo, then later extended that to REINCARNATES for a 12-letter word. Not ridiculously high scores, but sure felt neat.
I’m in a game right now in which I played RE- and -ING on INVEST for an 11-letter low-point word. Probably the longest I’ve made.
Joe
I won. 