Scrabble and Irritable Vowel Syndrome. (Scrabble Original)

Member Name: GillMN

Product:	Scrabble Original
Date:	13/08/08 (65 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Keeps me quiet for ages.

Disadvantages: The dinner gets made late.

Scrabble is one of the best board games around. It is easy to learn and you can spend a lifetime improving if you want to.
The only bit of design that I could complain about is that there are too many letter 'I's included in the 100 letter tiles. I can find myself looking at a rack with little but 'I' in it and end I up with Irritable Vowel Syndrome.
I have the de-luxe version with built in turntable, my son used to find this particularly useful when he was losing. One good twirl and you end up playing Scrabble Retrievo! (Little beggar!)
One variation we play is called Scramble Scrabble. All the tiles are placed face down and on the cry of "Take three!" each player takes three tiles, turns them over and tries to make a word. As soon as a word is made (or if none can be made) "Take three" is said again. Three more are taken by each player, regardless of where you are up to, and the new tiles fitted in in the normal Scrabble fashion, except that you are allowed to move letters around in your grid. Again, as soon as your letters are fitted in, you shout "Take three!" and everybody takes three again. This carries on until the letters are all used up.
It get's a bit frantic because you can end up with a pile of letters unused and wanting to kill the smart-arse who is playing ten times faster than you are!
Scoring is done by adding up the value of each letter used in your grid and the value of the unused ones is deducted. Try it, you will have a lot of laughs.

Summary: One of the best games ever with a newish variation.