Welcome to the Jerusalem Scrabble Club

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

 THIS WEEK AT THE CLUB

Season 83,  Week 07 of 25 – March 11, 2025

The oznei haman laid out in the kitchen annex gave Tuesday’s session a touch of festivity together with the announcement that the player of the best Purim word would gain free entry to the club next week. The winner was Rita with TURBANED, conjuring up visions of Eastern potentates.

There are some turns following which one wishes the clock could be turned back – like Marilyn’s bingo SHUNTER. Had she “shunted” the S to the end of the word, making HUNTERS, observed Pauline, “she would have scored over 100 points on a double word going both ways and won the game.” We are often just happy to have found a bingo and so look no further, but it’s worth taking a minute or two longer to see if we can’t do something even better.

DavidS scored 500+ in all three games, a first for him, and played CUNEATE, which means wedge- or leaf-shaped. In some Jewish traditions cuneate pastries stuffed with poppy seeds or honey – what we more commonly know as hamantaschen – are eaten on Purim. Jonathan scored with OUTKEPT, which was challenged, and Liran with DELFS, meaning quarries or mines. Brenda was challenged on CUPPINGS, which is good, then proceeded to play PETITES down a triple, alongside her opponent’s GLOBULE. Peta reported that her two bingos, SAUCIER and LEISURE “had no fewer than five letters in common – UIER and S.” Steve played YECH – “but I chickened out of putting a Y on it.” YECCH is also good.

“My opening word,” said Rita, was a word I would have challenged – ADVICES – but it stayed on the board and turned out to be good.” Google wavers over the question of whether ADVICE can be pluralized, some entries saying it is an uncountable noun that doesn’t take an S. Whatever the case, it must be borne in mind that Scrabble is above all a game of strategy in which words, albeit authentic, are the tools. In the cause of enriching the play experience, therefore, the Scrabble dictionary allows many plurals one would be hard-pressed to find either spoken or written (e.g. MUSICS, KNOWLEDGES, INFORMATIONS). Put another way, the Scrabble Fairy doesn’t know from uncountable nouns.

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, Dahlia, Rita, Susan, Judy, Shirley, ElanaS

WOW:  SHERRIED (Bob), CUNEATE, ANDANTES (DavidS)

PHOW: REWILDED (Susan)

High Win, High Loss, High Triple:

A: 541 (DavidS), 415 (Jonathan),  1563 (DavidS)

B1: 435 (ElanaS), 391 (Yonatan), 1219 (Judy)

Scores over 500: 541, 515, 507 (DavidS), 511 (Rita)

100-pt play: ZONES 149 (Rita)

Attendance: 27