Luyk: Opening moves

WELCOME to a weekly scrabble column, mostly written by grandpa, but occasionally by guests from Baguio and from wherever scrabble is played! Some of you will recognize the picture above: I am grandpa Huub Luyk and president of the “Baguio Benguet Word Builders’ Club” (BBWBC). This scrabble club was started in 2003, but scrabble was played competitively as early as 1997 when I found some young ladies playing scrabble in the small Café San Luis near SLU. We got to talking and soon my wife and I were involved in regular games and even tournaments, ably organized by Pigeon Lobien and Malou Coronation. The game has come a long way in the Philippines, especially Baguio, since then! Over the years the BBWBC has organized the National Championships, Dual Meets against the La Union Scrabble Club, The Baguio Scrabble Tournaments, Center Mall Tournaments and of course, last year the Baguio Centennial International Word Builders Tournament at the Baguio Country Club as part of the 100’th year anniversary of the city. Quite a few players from Baguio even venture out of the country and play in tournaments in Thailand and Malaysia!

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Little did Alfred Butts, the inventor of the game of scrabble, know that “his” game would be played by millions all over the world by the turn of the century. Butts invention took a while in taking off. After a few attempts to launch the game, first under the name “Lexiko”, then “Criss Cross Words”, it was re-launched under the name “Scrabble” by James Brunot. He and some friends turned out 12 games per hour, cutting and stamping tiles by hand! After some games were put on display in MACY’s, the game suddenly caught the interest of the public and sales soared: over a 100 million sets are estimated to have been sold to date. Alfred Butts enjoyed the game and played with family and friends till his death in 1993. What started as an alternative source of income, became a source of fun, challenge and excitement for many the world over!

Playing a good game of scrabble involves several skills. In the coming weeks we will discuss the various skills involved in playing scrabble and give tips for winning strategies. It goes without saying that knowing words, as many as you can, is the most essential part of playing the game. You do not need to know the meaning of a word in order to play it, although sometimes you may find it necessary to know the meaning in order to remember the word. Until some years ago, different word lists were used and depending on where you played, USA, Europe, Australia or Asia, certain words were not allowed. In 2004, the popular SOWPODS word list was updated and expanded and printed as “Collins Scrabble Words”. This word list contains all allowable 2 to 15 letter words. The shortest words one can play are the two-letter words of which there are now 124:

AA, AB, AD, AE, AG, AH, AI, AL, AM, AN, AR, AS, AT, AW, AX, AY, BA, BE, BI, BO, BY, CH, DA, DE, DI, DO, EA, ED, EE, EF, EH, EL, EM, EN, ER, ES, ET, EX, FA, FE, FY, GI, GO, GU, HA, HE, HI, HM, HO, ID, IF, IN, IO, IS, IT, JA, JO, KA, KI, KO, KY, LA, LI, LO,MA, ME, MI, MM, MO, MU, MY, NA, NE, NO, NU, NY, OB, OD, OE, OF, OH, OI, OM, ON, OO, OP, OR, OS, OU, OW, OX, OY, PA, PE, PI, PO, QI,RE, SH, SI, SO, ST,TA, TE, TI, TO, UG, UH, UM, UN, UP, UR, US, UT, WE, WO, XI, XU, YA, YE, YO, YU, ZA, ZO.

Note that there is no 2-letter word with “v”. This list is not so difficult to learn:

-some 27 words are used daily, like: it, in, on, by, etc. You know these already!

-of the remaining words there are exclamation words (ah, oh), notes (fa, ti), letter sounds (ef, ar), which you will remember easily;

-that leaves you with only 56 words to learn, some of which you may even know already (pi, om).

-study and practice the ones that are really new to you!

These 2-letter words will give you powerful options to make parallel plays with potentially high scores!

This week’s puzzle is:

“First Move”

Your opponent opened with REACH for a score of 28 points. Your letters are: ABEEFLT. What is your move scoring 25 points?

Next week more puzzles and tips!

Coming Saturday and Sunday we will hold the “Baguio Day Scrabble Tournament”: you are invited!

Venue: “Highland Villa Hotel and Resto”
Address: corner Ferguson and Bokawkan roads, near Holiday Supermarket.
Date: September 11 and 12, 2010
Time: 9 - 6 each day
Registration for Open: (Qualifier for National Championships) P 500.00, with two meriendas. Prizes: 3k, 2k, 1k depends on no of players. 16 games, KotH; WESPA rules.

Registration for Youth:(To select Baguio representative to World Youth Scrabble Championships [WYSC] in December) P300.00 with two meriendas. Prizes 4k, 2.5k, 1.5k depends on no of players. 10 games, KotH, WESPA rules.

We need some more scrabble sets and clocks for this tournament, please

Bring your own sets along for sharing!
For information call Grandpa @ 0918-959-3464