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 14 of 25 – June 30, 2026

Some people study word lists, others don’t touch them. Whichever group you belong to, don’t forget to sign up for our Summer Tournament on Sunday, July 19, taking place as before at Jerusalem’s Hibba Center. The fee for club members, including lunch and all-day drinks and snacks, is NIS 150. For non-members, it’s NIS 190. Susan will be registering players on Tuesday.

Pamela’s play of GODSEND proved to be just that; she won the game. She was challenged on YOGIN, which is a practitioner of yoga. The feminine is YOGINI. But her crowning achievement of the evening was TRUEBLUE, which her opponent felt she “couldn’t not” challenge – and it’s good. Pamela: “I would have challenged it as well….”

DavidS pointed out that GAROTE has several variants, “and all combinations of R’s and T’s are good, so the word is easy to spell.” In Game 1 he played GARROTTED for 83 points, “and in the very next game I was set to play another variant, GARROTES, but it was blocked.” Playing Richard, he was “actually quite lucky after I played QUOTE. He used the Q to score 54 with QUIRING, [placing the G on the top middle triple]; he then added a blank in front of it for another 51. Had he possessed the blank with his UIRING rack, the play [a triple-triple plus 50 points for the bingo] would have totaled a whopping 212, and he surely would have won the game.”

Two members facing a third playing a double game both placed TORRENT within minutes of each other. Judy bingoed with SILENTS on a triple: The strange-sounding plural refers either to old movies or to the Silent Generation – the cohort born roughly between 1928 and 1945 – so called because of its perceived tendency to be cautious, conformist and quiet. Anagrams are ENLISTS, LISTENS, and TINSELS.

Slang for a jerk or dork, coming from the mildly vulgar Yiddish term for the male anatomy, a PUTZ is what one player said he felt like for letting through his opponent’s phony POTZ. PUTZ is also a verb meaning to idle aimlessly or mess around.

Overheard: “I have no idea what LUD is – but it’s totally messed up the board!” [It’s an archaic form of “lord.”] “I thought I wasn’t competitive, but then we began and I told myself, ‘I’m not going to let them beat me!’” Comments Hilites: One top player’s view is that in competitive Scrabble, an essential element for winning is the “killer instinct.”

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: DavidS

WOW: TRUEBLUE (Pamela),  HEMLINE, DINGHIES (DavidS)

PHOW: TONALISE (Lisa)

High Win, High Loss, High  Triple:

A: 493 (DavidS), 334 (Elana), 1451 (DavidS)

B1: 424 (Richard), 424 (Richard), 1124 (Richard)

Scores over 500:

100-pt play: 

Attendance: 14