My first game was not going well.
“Terger?”
Me ….“Wiktionary’s definition is ‘a person who teases, taunts, aggravates, angers’”.
As organiser and chair of the scrabble tournament Bryn bristled with self importance…. and incredulity.
“Translated from Norwegian! Come-on Charlie. You know the rules.”
Using a practised left hand to flick through the T’s of the Official Scrabble Players Dictionary, his right hand twisted first one greasy handle, then the other, of his handlebar moustache.
“Quote ‘The word you’ve entered isn’t in the dictionary.’ Final.”
His words cut; I was still a newbie. Just three weeks previously I had breached the stiffness of the hydraulically-hinged, double-entry front doors of The Board Game Cafe.
“So what’s a meeple and what’s common about <Common Meeple>” The eyes of young bar woman kindled from within like a lighthouse-lens.
“A small figure in human form used as a playing piece” she enthused. We want it to be a space welcoming to all… individuals, family, friends … dogs! Hundreds of board games, organic coffee, craft beer and veggie snacks… for our doggie friends too”
She swept me critically up and down. I could hear her thinking loner, looser.
“Could I start with Scrabble?”
At the hospital Dr Cox had lauded the many benefits of playing scrabble – improved cognition, concentration, speed of thinking, vocabulary. And then the adding, multiplying and triple scoring; all therapeutic brain work for onset Dementia. His views on its efficacy in reducing stress and blood pressure were not so convincing; IMHO the tournament scene is more like the lead-in for a punch up.
“Sure I’ll can set you up as a solo player. You can play against The Bot,” she had conceded.
So I joined the Swansea Scrabblers Reserve Team, practised with some real human scrabble communities (I prefer actual players to AI virtuals), and wheedled the trick down to 3 minutes 22 seconds. Over the next two years I climbed the scrabble ladder until I was promoted by Bryn– not sure the Management Committee have much say in Scrabble realpolitik– to Team A.
Here I am in Norway representing The Swansea Scrabblers at the International Scrabble Fayre. I have already placed Terger unchallenged. According to a local custom and practice law, Norwegian dictionaries are allowed here. Seventeen tense rounds of word placing and tile exchanges and the 225 squares are almost covered. But all fifteen squares on the left side of the board are still free. I add my 7 tiles Y, X ,P O,Z, B, E to fill in the words already on the board. Oxyphenbutazone, –three Triple Word scores, seven crosswords down. Another 1784 * points.
“And the winner is Charlie Swan of the Swansea Scrabblers.”
Cheering whistling and whooping erupts from the assembled Club supporters.
My advice to scrabble wannabees is to learn Norwegian, a soft musical language and Oslo boasts the oldest language Museum in the world. Learn your synonyms and antonyms. “Know thyself” Are you a terger or wheedler?
REFERENCES
*http://www.scrabbleplayers.org/w/SCRABBLE_Trivia#
*https://youtube.com/watch?v=su3twdNzJoU&si=_icBwG11htmPQ9yi
