Fruit Machine Chat

the big news today is that the makers of scrabble are going to allow celebrity names and placenames as words as well as considering words to read in reverse.
If a game/sport is any good why change the rules.Some knobs in my game chess decided to change a perfectly good rule, you now have to play your move then write it down rather than write a move down,consider it then move.Something that has existed for probably hundreds of years gets changed overnight.When in tournaments opposing players often point out at the end of the game that Im breaking the rules , generally when Ive beaten them. Strange that.........

Hmm, I await Istenem's view - although I know he is not the biggest fan of Scrabble in the first place.

Agree though? Why?! Reversing words will look horrendous if nothing else. I guess it will increase scores as the premium squares to the right-most edge of the board could be more easily populated with high-scoring letters.

okay, i'll take the bait.

scrabble can be a good game if you play it for enjoyment. if you get kicks from scoring 62 points for putting QI/QI over a blue square, good for you but i personally cannot find that edifying. on occasion i have played the game relatively seriously when money has been involved but then it becomes a job, not a game.

my major beef with scrabble is that it masquerades as a word game but the rules wilfully abandon lexicology these new rules are an affront to the dignity of word games and makes it firmly a puzzle game with only accidental etymological merit.

for people who have the sole aim of being competitive, this is one way to play the game: learn all the allowable combinations and retrieve them when they pop up on your rack but then it is a game of response to stimulus and speed of thought.

according to my paper, you will now be able to play the word BEYONCE (presumably disregarding that É is not the same letter as E) and it will have as much validity as something elegant like MOONCALF. as for spelling words backwards, that is a ridiculous idea, unless these backwards words score negative points for anyone cretinous enough to use one.

you might as well just play whatever letters you have picked up diagonally, in any order and take the multiple multiples; the next player can extend this to the TWS with whatever letters he has and you can each have a million points to run up your flagpole. alternatively, give each player some blank tiles and a marker, let them write Zs on each and decide that they should be worth 500 points each. and while you're at it, award yourself a head-start of a million.


as i understand it, a lot of the top players have no interest in what any given word means. but if EUOI gets rid of some vowels or CAZIQUE fits on the triple word they will play it and clap themselves on the back for being such a jolly good scrabble player. this has to be missing the point.
mah jongg is a good game but you shouldn't suddenly decide that the six of bamboo is a match for any odd stone, just because it simplifies the game and makes it easier for dullards to win.

scrabble is nothing to do with words. they might as well let Hungarian interjections allowable, but it would only score nine points, you'll be better off saving the S to put on the end of BONEHEAD.

I really enjoyed that reply Istenem. No point me picking fancy words to describe it, so I'll just refer to it as a 'very good' reply.

I even feel that if the almighty Q......Qu......Qui..... <Ahem>....Quim.......Qumrt.....who?.....yes err.... Quizhmmfter were to read that posting, then he would be tempted to leave off the darts for a while and have a few games of WordUp on the Quizbox as a mark of respect for the bastardisation of the rules of Scrabble.

Then again Paragon TTs might fly.

Basically it's all getting a bit silly now isn't it? Even sillier than before for sure. Shut that rules door.

On the chess front, I always thought it was more natural to record the move after playing it. Is this not standard procedure anyway? It has been a long time since I've sat next to that Coldfield clock, ticking away, the red flag rising....three minutes left and an explosive open position with so many permutations to consider.

If you ever want a game on Yahoo or similar Cool, give us a PM when I'm on line and something like 20 mins each for all moves will do me fine.

First off I would agree entirely with the ridiculousness of the alleged rule changes, however they are in fact proposed rules for a new game that is a variant rather than alterations to the existing game rules.

I would question if there is any such thing as a competitive word game that truly embraces lexicology, the closest I can think of is the occasional bonus points that can be gleaned from a game such as bookworm where a boost can be offered for spelling out an onomatopoeic word and variations. In general the beauty of language lies in how words are combined rather than any intrinsic elegance of individual words, and as such any game requiring the playing of isolated words (more so where a numerical score is attributed) will always be limited.

I enjoy the experience of seeing an opponent play an obscure word (although I too would feel happier if they at least had an interest as to its meaning), whether it be a vowel dumping AIA, EUOI , or EUOUAE, or a handy hooking MZEE, DZOS or SQUIZ.

The rules are wonderfully concise, even if the word list is not, if a word is in the chosen dictionary then it is permitted.

diputs tup d'I