Today, I was playing Scrabble with Granny P, one of my clients. This is the same client who taught me to play pinochle, with the help of her two younger sisters. The first time we played Scrabble, Granny P beat me 310 to 170. I told her today that I wanted a rematch.
Boy did I get one. She beat me 404 to 182.
This is potentially demoralizing for someone with a very expensive English degree. Fortunately, I have a theory that success in Scrabble requires equal parts vocabulary skills, visual-spatial intelligence, and luck. I have the first one nailed, the last two not so much.
The important thing is that we had fun.
21stcenturyrenaissancegirl 
Ouch – Granny P must have loved it.
I saved the score sheet so her daughter could see it. 🙂
Scrabble and Words With Friends are wholly luck. The luck of the letter draw. If you end up with nothing but u’s an x and a z, yeah, there isn’t much you can do. Meanwhile your opponent has the makings of Oxyphenbutazone and you just lost based on one word. It has happened to me. Especially with a triple letter and triple word.
My problem is that I end up with all vowels or all consonants. I *did* get both the Q and the U, but as you can see, it didn’t do me much good.
Recently played Scrabble with my husband after a very long time – probably years – of not playing the game. Had forgotten how hard it is. Sitting with seven vowels, then several evil consonants that go with nothing.
Yep, reckon luck is a big part of this. And risk taking…. do you put your reasonably big score down, but leave the triple word exposed? Or do you play mean and sew the board up with smaller scores leaving nothing for your opponent to work on?
You’re correct – risk tolerance is definitely a factor in Scrabble.
This gem from The Onion seems apropos. Sure, it’s old, but it’s still funny:
http://usmilitary.about.com/library/miljokes/blvowels.htm