Mississauga Scrabble Club’s 18th Anniversary

April 21, 2011

Two weeks ago the Mississauga Scrabble Club celebrated its eighteenth anniversary. The night was a huge success. A packed room filled with friends, food and fun kept us busy playing, chatting and eating all night. Many players from the Toronto, Brantford and Cambridge Clubs also came out to support us and join the fun. We tied our attendance record from June 2005 with 43 players.

During the opening announcements I reminisced about my early days playing Scrabble at the Mississauga Club and read from the diary entry I wrote after the Club’s first ever session. We looked through two photo albums and had five word contests to commemorate eighteen years.

While I was strolling up and down the tables during the first two games, I took some notes about interesting board situations. The game between Glenn Dunlop and Trevor Sealy required a Director’s ruling. Glenn had made a play through an R which was already on the board. He had second thoughts and took the play off, including the R, and then made another play, using that R somewhere else. Trevor called me over: what do you do in case like this? I ruled that this was an illegal play. It was also a play made from an “overdrawn” rack (that is, with eight tiles). I ruled that Glenn had to remove his play, restore the missing R to its proper place, and that Glenn would score zero and would not get to make another play. Glenn and Trevor’s board also saw the famous phony FOOLERs, which Glenn played for 78. If only Glenn and Trevor had been at the Club a week ago when I listed off the famous phony F**LER words in my opening announcements: FAILER, FOILER and FOOLER are all not acceptable.

We didn’t establish a new attendance record at the Club, but another record was indeed set. The lowest winning score in eighteen years for a completed game was achieved by Glynis D’Souza, who beat Mary Micek 159-149. My favourite score in any sport is a scoreless tie. In Scrabble, though, I love winning scores that are under two hundred points. Now that it’s two weeks after this low-scoring game, I have to wonder: is it even possible for two players to score 308 points combined? I wonder if a time penalty, or penalties, came into the equation. But to save me from pulling out a bag of one hundred tiles and playing a mock game, can anyone tell me if it’s mathematically possible for two players to score 308 combined without either player going overtime?

Geoff Grenville was our photographer who kept snapping throughout the evening. Geoff sent me the photos file yesterday night and I am happy to share with my friends some of the highlights from our anniversary evening.