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 85, Week 10 of 25 – June 2, 2026

With the Himmelfarb School venue unavailable next Tuesday, our Scrabble session will be held one day later, on Wednesday, June 17. Don’t forget our upcoming Summer Tournament on Sunday, July 19, at Jerusalem’s Hibba Center. Details to come.

We love new faces, and DavidG brought newcomer Stewart Last along to this week’s meeting. Stewart and his wife made aliya from Manchester, UK, in October, and we wish them every success in their new life. Stewart, who is accustomed to the British dictionary, played three stout games and declared he wasn’t deterred by having to use a different word list and playing with a clock. We look forward to seeing him again.

More about the British dictionary: Richard encourages members “who are interested in seeing the world’s greatest Scrabble players lock horns” to go into YouTube and look for the recently held Causeway Challenge, which took place in Bangkok. The games, played with the Collins word list, “were terrific and exciting.”

“Never give up” could be Scrabble’s motto because games are often turned on their heads when a losing player comes up from behind, sometimes far behind, to win. The requirement, of course, is to keep your cool and, well, refuse to give up. One player, consistently ahead and growing increasingly confident of victory throughout the game, lost when her opponent suddenly bingoed out. She took it well, considering. Another, losing her first two games and staring at a third defeat, found she could place PRALINE on the triple, adding OKE as a bonus, and moved on to a sweet victory.

Yonatan’s MAESTRO was masterful. Bob scored high with LETCHES, which can be either noun or verb. Bob: “In my game with Pamela, I was ahead midway through the game by a comfortable margin of 40 or 50 points. I was really feeling good about things… then she got a bingo, and the next turn another bingo… and the following turn, a third bingo – three in a row.  And then, on her fourth turn, she played the X on a triple letter going both ways and got probably 51 points on it. In total, she got 291 points in four turns. Some kind of record? For me,” quipped Bob, “it was like being in a Quentin Tarantino movie; I was, like, being tied to a chair, and it was one blow after another coming. But,” he added, irrepressibly, “it was a great evening, as it always is!”

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: Wendy, Jonathan

WOW: INTAGLI (Liran),  MAESTRO (Yonatan), OINOMELS (DavidS)

PHOW:

High Win, High Loss, High  Triple:

A: 495 (Rena), 392 (Steve), 1311 (Wendy)

B1: 487 (Pamela), 347 (May), 1204 (Pamela)

Scores over 500:

100-pt play: BENZINES 104 (Elana), CLOTHIER 101 (DavidS), RESEIZE 100 (Wendy)

Attendance: 22