Welcome to the Jerusalem Scrabble Club

COME PLAY WITH US … VISITORS ALWAYS WELCOME!

*** NEW PLAYERS: CLICK HERE FOR INFORMATION ***

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

 THIS WEEK AT THE CLUB

Season 84, Week 19 of 25 – December 30, 2025

Overheard Tuesday night: “That chocolate cake is to die for….” The many-layered treat was provided by Bob in celebration of the birth of his first granddaughter on Shabbat morning. “When I called the club beforehand to say I would be bringing a kiddush on Tuesday,” he said, “I learned that Brenda was also planning to celebrate an event with refreshments. But I got in ahead of her – and that was the only time I have ever beaten Brenda at the club!”

The contest for Best Xmas/New Year’s word was won by STOLLEN, a festive seasonal bread made with dried fruit and marzipan, and Rita gains free entry to the club next week.

We continue to hold our member Avi Joseph, Avraham ben Yehudit, in our thoughts and pray for his return to health.

While May lost her game against Pamela, she scored high in determination to fight right to the end, demonstrating what an A player once memorably referred to as “the killer instinct.” “Pamela was ahead and I was desperate to find a bingo. I had OUT on my rack and first tried OUTGRASP, which was challenged off. Next, I put down OUTRISK – also not good.” The temptation to give up before the end is premature and should be resisted; we can all recall games where a looming defeat was turned into victory by a last-minute bingo or other inspired move – or simply by an opponent’s lousy rack.

Rena sounded a celebratory note with TROMBONE. ElanaS got away with the dubious BARMATE. Her opponent saw she could use it to score on a triple, but said on reflection that since it wasn’t a bingo, challenging would have been a better way to go. Another phony was ENTRAIL which, of course, exists only in the plural. Elana: “Dahlia played two phonies that I am kicking myself for not challenging. One was UGG – it’s IGG, a class of immunoglobulins  – and the other was IRISH, which could have been a cream, but is a proper noun.”

Finally, GOOGLE is an accepted word meaning “to use the Google search engine,” and according to Google, the word CAZIQUES, good in our dictionary, set the record in 1982 for the highest single-turn score ever in a Scrabble game, 392. Describing an indigenous tribal chief in the Caribbean and Latin America, the word was played by Kurdish Scrabble legend Karl Khoshnaw.

Here’s to many exciting games in 2026.  

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 or Elana up to a week in advance.

WWW: Rena, Yaakov, ElanaS, Brenda

WOW: TROMBONE (Rena) SLEIGHT (Bob), DETENTES, SUASION (Dahlia)

PHOW: BARMATE (ElanaS)

High Win, High Loss, High Triple:

A: 427 (Rena), 399 (Liran), 1190 (Rena)

B1: 455 (Pamela), 376 (Yonatan), 1218 (ElanaS)

Scores over 500:

100-pt play: 

Attendance: 26