If I were to tell you that my life has changed since I discovered Boggle, you'd probably laugh, but it's true!

I'm not going to waste words on explaining exactly what the rules of Boggle are and how it works--there are other opinions on this site which do that much better than I could.

So here is a warning: The rest of this opinion is only for those who already know the basics of Boggle!

When I say my life changed after discovering Boggle, what I actually mean is that my life after discovering Master Boggle.

As you know Boggle is a 4x4 grid of letters from which you try to make words of 3 letters or more. I'd always found this a fun game. But on a holiday in Canada about 5 years ago with 3 other friends, we decided to make it more exciting by only allowing words of 4 letters or more and this worked quite well. It meant we weren't wasting time crossing off all the little 3-letter words which we all got.

Then one day, one of our number came back from a shopping trip in ecstasy, having just seen and purchased Master Boggle, which none of us had ever come across before. If you don't know Master Boggle, it is basically the same as Boggle except it is a 5x5 grid, giving loads more possibilities especially for longer words. We tried playing this with our usual 4-letter minimum requirement, and then for a challenge had a go at only allowing words of 5 letters or more. It was quite hard at first, but now we only play this way and are well and truly hooked.

We also play in pairs, which seems to work better, two minds being better than one. The team spirit also seems to help.

We have also found it helpful to have a standard work of reference which we always use to avoid any arguments. In our case, we have chosen the Chambers dictionary, which seemed appropriate as it is the official Scrabble dictionary. There are no disputes. If it's in the dictionary (however obscure) it's allowed.
If not, not. Even if someone claims it should be or is in another dictionary. We end up knowing all sorts of odd words that are in that dictionary and which we seem to use time and again, but we often forget what they mean! There's "grice" for example, which is something to do with pigs, and "mease", which means ...??

One extra note about Master Boggle. The set we bought in Canada is the one we always use as it seems to give us a workable distribution of letters. However, we subsequently bought another set in this country, but whenever we shake it it appears to give an impossible display of letters. Maybe, it was just an one-off or maybe the UK version is deliberately harder than the North American one!

We have not always found it easy to find other people as into Boggle as we are (and as serious about it) and I would love to hear from anyone else who is a diehard Boggle enthusiast. We would love to join a Boggle club if there is such a thing......