History of Scholar’s Scrabble Club

History of Scholar’s Scrabble Club

The initiator of the club is JIVAN SUBRAMANIAM who is a former student of SMK Sg. Pelek, a scrabbler and who is presently furthering his studies in medicine. Jivan had the brain wave to start a scrabble  recreation club in  Sg. Pelek

Jivan Subramaniam has contributed a lot  to the school by actively participating in many scrabble competitions since Form 2 and organizing scrabble competitions in school. After completing his secondary education in SMK Sungai Pelek, his immortal interest in scrabble encouraged him to initiate this club with the help and support from his Scrabble Club teachers and friends of SMK Sungai Pelek. Jivan’s aim is to introduce and expose scrabble to younger generations in Sepang based on the clubs moto :


SCRABBLE LEADS THE FUTURE GENERATION.

Thus SCHOLAR’S SCRABBLE CLUB was successfully founded on 18^th July, 2011 and had its official launching on 16^th October, 2011.

About Scrabble

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History                                                                      

The story of SCRABBLE is a classic example of American innovation and perseverance.

Who invented SCRABBLE?

During the Great Depression, an out-of-work architect named Alfred Mosher Buttsdecided to invent a board game. He did some market research and concluded that games fall into three categories: number games, such as dice and bingo; move games, such as chess and checkers; and word games, such as anagrams. Butts wanted to create a game that combined the vocabulary skills of crossword puzzles and anagrams, with the additional element of chance. The game was originally named Lexico, but Butts eventually decided to call the game "Criss-Cross Words."

How did he do it?

Butts studied the front page of The New York Times to calculate how often each of the 26 letters of the English language was used. He discovered that vowels appear far more often than consonants, with E being the most frequently used vowel. After figuring out frequency of use, Butts assigned different point values to each letter and decided how many of each letter would be included in the game. The letter S posed a problem. While it's frequently used, Butts decided to include only four S's in the game, hoping to limit the use of plurals. After all, he didn't want the game to be too easy! Butts got it just right. His basic cryptographic analysis of our language and his original tile distribution have remained valid for almost three generations and for billions of games played. The boards for the first Criss-Cross Words game were hand drawn with his architectural drafting equipment, reproduced by blueprinting and pasted on folding checkerboards. The tiles were similarly hand-lettered, then glued to quarter-inch balsa and cut to match the squares on the board.

Then what?

Butts' first attempts to sell his game to established game manufacturers were failures, but he didn't give up. He and his partner, game-loving entrepreneur James Brunot, refined the rules and design of the game, and renamed it SCRABBLE. The name, which means "to grope frantically," was trademarked in 1948. The first SCRABBLE "factory" was an abandoned schoolhouse in Dodgington, Connecticut, where Brunot and friends turned out 12 games an hour. The letters were stamped on wooden tiles one at a time. Later, boards, boxes and tiles were made elsewhere and sent to the factory for assembly and shipping. The first four years were a struggle. In 1949, the Brunot's made 2,400 sets and lost $450. As so often happens in the game business, SCRABBLE plugged along, gaining slow but steady popularity among a comparative handful of consumers. Then in the early 1950s, as legend has it, the president of Macy's discovered the game on vacation, and ordered some for his store. Within a year, everyone "had to have one," and SCRABBLE sets were being rationed to stores around the country. In 1952, the Brunots realized they could no longer make the games fast enough to meet the growing interest. They licensed Selchow and Righter Company, a well-known game manufacturer founded in 1867, to market and distribute the games in the United States and Canada. Even Selchow and Righter had to step up production to meet the overwhelming demand for the SCRABBLE game. As stories about it appeared in national newspapers, magazines and on television, it seemed that everybody had to have a set immediately. In 1972, Selchow and Righter purchased the trademark SCRABBLE from Brunot, thereby giving them the exclusive rights to all SCRABBLE Brand products and entertainment services in the United States and Canada.

Scoring : SCRABBLE Rules

SCRABBLE Rules: Scoring

1.       Use a score pad or piece of paper to keep a tally of each player's score, entering it after each turn. The score value of each letter is indicated by a number at the bottom of the tile. The score value of a blank is zero.

2.       The score for each turn is the sum of the letter values in each word(s) formed or modified on that turn, plus the additional points obtained from placing letters on Premium Squares.

3.       Premium Letter Squares: A light blue square doubles the score of a letter placed on it; a dark blue square triples the letter score.

4.       Premium Word Squares: The score for an entire word is doubled when one of its letters is placed on a pink square: it is tripled when one of its letters is placed on a red square. Include premiums for double or triple letter values, if any, before doubling or tripling the word score. If a word is formed that covers two premium word squares, the score is doubled and then re-doubled (4 times the letter count), or tripled and then re-tripled (9 times the letter count). NOTE: the center square is a pink square, which doubles the score for the first word.

5.       Letter and word premiums count only on the turn in which they are played. On later turns, letters already played on premium squares count at face value.

6.       When a blank tile is played on a pink or red square, the value of the word is doubled or tripled, even though the blank itself has no score value.

7.       When two or more words are formed in the same play, each is scored. The common letter is counted (with full premium value, if any) for each word. (See Turns 3, 4 and 5 in the Scoring Examples section.)

8.       BINGO! If you play seven tiles on a turn, it's a Bingo. You score a premium of 50 points after totaling your score for the turn.

9.       Unplayed Letters: When the game ends, each player's score is reduced by the sum of his or her unplayed letters. In addition, if a player has used all of his or her letters, the sum of the other players' unplayed letters is added to that player's score.

10.   The player with the highest final score wins the game. In case of a tie, the player with the highest score before adding or deducting unplayed letters wins.

Scoring Examples

In the following, the words added on five successive turns are shown in bold type. The scores shown are the correct scores if the letter R is placed on the center square. In Turn 1, count HORN: in Turn 2, FARM; in Turn 3, PASTE and FARMS; in Turn 4, MOB, NOT and BE; in Turn 5, BIT, PI and AT.

The Rules of the Game: Game Play

The Rules of the Game: Game Play

1.       The first player combines two or more of his or her letters to form a word and places it on the board to read either across or down with one letter on the center square. Diagonal words are not allowed.

2.       Complete your turn by counting and announcing your score for that turn. Then draw as many new letters as you played; always keep seven letters on your rack, as long as there are enough tiles left in the bag.

3.       Play passes to the left. The second player, and then each in turn, adds one or more letters to those already played to form new words. All letters played on a turn must be placed in one row across or down the board, to form at least one complete word. If, at the same time, they touch others letters in adjacent rows, those must also form complete words, crossword fashion, with all such letters. The player gets full credit for all words formed or modified on his or her turn.

4.       New words may be formed by:

·         Adding one or more letters to a word or letters already on the board.

·         Placing a word at right angles to a word already on the board. The new word must use one of the letters already on the board or must add a letter to it. (See Turns 2, 3 and 4 below.)

·         Placing a complete word parallel to a word already played so that adjacent letters also form complete words. (See Turn 5 in the Scoring Examples section below.)

5.       No tile may be shifted or replaced after it has been played and scored.

6.       Blanks: The two blank tiles may be used as any letters. When playing a blank, you must state which letter it represents. It remains that letter for the rest of the game.

7.       You may use a turn to exchange all, some, or none of the letters. To do this, place your discarded letter(s) facedown. Draw the same number of letters from the pool, then mix your discarded letter(s) into the pool. This ends your turn.

8.       Any play may be challenged before the next player starts a turn. If the play challenged is unacceptable, the challenged player takes back his or her tiles and loses that turn. If the play challenged is acceptable, the challenger loses his or her next turn. Consult the dictionary for challenges only. All words made in one play are challenged simultaneously. If any word is unacceptable, then the entire play is unacceptable. Only one turn is lost on any challenge.

9.       The game ends when all letters have been drawn and one player uses his or her last letter; or when all possible plays have been made.