==Overview==

I just have the basic, classic and best version of Scrabble. The game is an old family favourite and I'm certain everyone has heard of it already, just in case they haven't allow me to tell you about the game and why I love it so much.

==How to set up==

You get a board in the box which has grid squares all over it, each grid square is essentially one space on the board. Each player gets a tile holder and 7 tiles to start the game off. A mixture of vowels and consonants are on each tile and the aim of the game is to make a word with the letters you have. Each letter is worth a different number of points, common letters like A and E for example are worth 1, something like a J is worth 10, an X worth 8 and so on. Each time you play a word, you calculate your score based on what the tiles say and note the score down for each turn.

There is a twist of course. On the board, you will notice some grids have certain letters on them:
TL = Triple letter
DL = Double letter
TW = Triple Word
DW = Double word score.

They do exactly what they say on the tin and this is where the game can get interesting. When I was a kid, I will never forget, my 9 year old opponent wiped the floor with me and got the word JURASSIC on a triple word score. Damn Steven Spielberg for making the youth of today educated about dinosaurs! I gave up there and then, she blitzed me by getting 65 with that word alone. These high numbers are of course quite rare but it is best to use the special squares if at all possible.


==Cheating==

There seems to be a history of cheating in Scrabble for some folk, this all comes down to what you define as being a word. Another Scrabble incident, my opponent used "Doh" against me. I challenged it saying that it was a slang word used by Homer Simpson, we got the trusty dictionary out (this is where you can take the game seriously or just let them cheat...cheats never prosper in my book) and turns out Doh is in the dictionary and is not cited to Mr Homer J Simpson. Classic cheating in my book.......the dictionary can be a devil or a friend!


==Whats good/bad?==

It takes a bit of skill to think of some words and this can results in delays. We sometimes put a time limit in place per 'turn' so that the game keeps momentum and doesn't get boring. This is quite a useful thing to do in my opinion. For my hard of hearing relatives, they can be included as it is generally a quiet game and not too raucous (depending on levels of cheating). If you get a loads of U's or X's, you are basically stuffed, based on that it comes down to how intelligent you are (Xi is a word in the dictionary for example) and this also limits who can play in terms of younger children.

==Overall==

This is a nice game for the family but introduce some rules to keep the interest going.