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 Director: Elana Simons, 054 220 6238, elanalibby@gmail.com

 THIS WEEK AT THE CLUB

Season 83,  Week 04 of 25 – February 18, 2025

A posting on the social question-and-answer Quora website led Hilites to consider the differing attitudes with which people sit down to a game of competitive Scrabble. When we’re talking about men playing opposite women, how important to each is winning the game as opposed to “merely” having fun? 

It’s been fairly well documented that men are more competitive than women, a gender difference that appears in childhood and increases into adulthood. “Give everything you got to win,” urged the Quora poster. “Spend endless hours in training. Push yourself to the extreme. Suffer now. Is that fun? Not really. But celebrating the hard-earned victory is fun for sure.”

No one is pretending that the principal aim of competitive Scrabble is anything other than to win. This is true for women as well as for men. But games are social activities, and the impression persists that while men tend to be more exclusively fixated on winning and chastened when they lose, women’s aim is more to have “a good game,” win or lose. For them the interaction and social bonding with others can be more meaningful than the outcome of the game itself – which doesn’t mean they don’t experience the thrill of competition and do their best to win. 

May had MAMZER but was afraid it wasn’t good and so went with MAZEL. Turns out the former is good and the latter isn’t, but it wasn’t challenged. Some players’ spelling is better than others’ and Elana’s RECURING aroused no suspicion. It is of course RECURRING. She was less lucky with ULUATED, which was challenged off by Chani. The protracted, high-pitched, rhythmical sound that expresses joy and celebration – and, it appears, can signal sorrow as well – needs another L to make it ULULATED. Wendy played a double in which both of her opponents scored the same: 328.

Wendy went on to say that “Sometimes you do all the right things, but don’t get the right result. DavidS played probably two-thirds more tiles than I did, giving him double the chance of drawing the biggies. Yet both blanks and most of the power letters fell to me.” Note: The Scrabble Fairy doesn’t have a complaints box.

If you missed the opportunity to communicate your hilite in person at the club you can email it to judymo@netvision.net.il or WhatsApp it (054-5552355) up until noon the following day. If you wish to mark any occasion by bringing refreshments to the club, please check with Susan up to a week in advance. 

WWW: Elana, Hilda

WOW:  CARRYON (Susan) DAEMONS (Chani)

PHOW: RECURING (Elana)

High Win, High Loss, High Triple:

A: 493 (DavidS), 401 (Rena),  1272 (Steve)

B1: 495 (Nechama), 414 (May), 1195 (Elana)

Scores over 500:

100-pt play: SCHOOLS, 102 (Hilda)

Attendance: 23