Choosing Our Own Words

 On Club Day, the committee member responsible for preparing the player draws for each game also announces a spot prize — awarded to the player who plays a word that best meets a stated challenge.

The tools of our board game are 100 letter tiles and a player’s knowledge of words and variant spellings contained in the official Scrabble dictionary. It may seem simple enough to announce, before the start of Game 2, something like: “Highest scoring word containing three or more different vowels.”

But coming up with letter clues and word challenges that add interest to a game is not always as simple as it seems.

To retain their competitive edge, players study useful words and think carefully about how best to position tiles so their wordplay scores well.

A challenge must be clear and set at the right level. At our club, playing strength ranges from beginner through to Grand Master. What seems obvious to one player may not be so obvious to another.

There is always something to learn from drafting these challenges. A clue that appears easy to write at first can prove less easy to understand.

Last week, I drafted a list of fourteen clues for an upcoming 14-game Mid-Winter themed tournament. The degree of difficulty needs to be at a competitive level.  For example, an expert player and I discussed at length, this briefly worded draft challenge: 

Game 2: Highest scoring word containing ICE in order

How might a competitive Scrabble player read and understand this? We paused. 

• "ICE in order” felt slightly ambiguous.

• Must the letters I–C–E appear consecutively?

• Does "in order" mean in that sequence, anywhere within the word?

• Does “containing” imply that the letters may be separated? 

And so, it went. There should be no uncertainty about letter sequence requirements — yet there we were, questioning our own wording. Only thirteen more to think about. 

It seems that even in a game devoted to words, we must choose them very carefully.

— Scrabble Notebook 

A Settling Moment — and then Bingo!

It was Sunday morning, nearly 10:00am on the second day of the inaugural SNZ Women’s Championship 2026 in Auckland. The room was quiet and pleasantly cool for a January summer day. Players, intent on their wordplays, shuffled tiles that clicked against the racks or slipped softly from their bags. Nothing remarkable, you might think. Often a low hum of conversation can be heard during games, and at times the organiser will remind players to keep the noise level to a minimum. Game 10 was underway.

My scoresheet shows nothing remarkable about this game - the words played, the sequence of plays or the total points scored by my opponent and myself. Yet a scoring opportunity opened in a way I might easily have missed had I made a hurried decision.

My opponent had scored well, playing BLASTED for 70 points early in Turn 2. I replied with PLAZA for 32 points in Turn 4, bringing the totals: Her 118 and Me 85. She then used the first blank as an E to play SHREWD for 45 points in Turn 5, extending her lead to 166. At this stage, the board was tight, with little in the way of openings. 

I held six letters - including the third S and the last blank — ◻EIORSY. At one point, I thought to play SOY for 23 points, a desperate move that would also have blocked my opponent from using the last S to hook onto the end of PLAZA, the only playable bingo column. But I hesitated. What to do? My rack leave would be good with ◻EIR, but better with the S. If I used that valuable letter for a modest mid-game score, I'd likely play catch-up for the rest of the game.

Meanwhile, across the way, the local Tongan congregation had gathered. The glorious harmony of their voices singing hymns drifted into the room. It was a divine pause-and-listen moment — and, inexplicably, I did so in the middle of Turn 5. It was truly beautiful to hear and settling. I jotted a few notes across the bottom of my scoresheet to capture the mood. For a few seconds, I almost forgot I was at a tournament.

The digital game timer relentlessly clocked down the minutes of my turn, adding to the pressure to get a word played onto the board and to score well. I rattled through the alphabet again. As I reconsidered how to use the blank as an H, the word emerged: hOSIERY for 74 points, with the S hooked onto PLAZA. Bingo! My total rose to 159, and I was back in the game: Her 166 and Me 159. Seven more tiles were drawn. I was able to place the X on a triple-letter square to edge ahead by five points. I won the game by a narrow three-point margin — and with no time penalty. It was a close call. 

When I play in a competitive game - I'm a mid-ranked player, I can feel pressured to make a quick play or be distracted by talk and movement around the room. Looking back at Turn 5, I am reminded of how important it is to take the time to reconsider. I knew that 7-letter word - I just wasn't seeing it. Scrabble is about strategy: placements on the board, managing the rack and deciding.

During our post-game chat, I agreed with my opponent about the atmosphere in the room — the singing, the stillness, when she said, “the pressure’s different”. There is a quiet discipline in staying calm under pressure, in pausing long enough to think about what is possible on the board with the available tiles.

There's always something to learn from a moment in a game that may seem quite ordinary. Words may fade from the board, but some moments stay with you.

— Scrabble Notebook

A brief history of club and competitive Scrabble in New Zealand

The game of Scrabble in New Zealand has a rich history, and I have never been able to resist a good historical story—particularly when it tells a story about us as Scrabble players. A cursory scan through the earliest copies of Forwords - New Zealand’s Scrabble magazine, offers some insight into the origins of clubs and the development of competitive Scrabble in this country.

Sixty-two years ago, Mrs. Noel Maisey, a long-time Scrabble enthusiast, set up NZ’s first Scrabble group in Hamilton. Eight years later, in 1976, she was instrumental in founding the Tauranga Scrabble Enthusiasts’ Club, which was featured in both the New Zealand Herald and the New Zealand Woman’s Weekly.

By 1979, she was typing accounts of players’ achievements, clever wordplays, memorable games, and the small moments that made Scrabble so engaging for club members. Her quarterly newsletter was copied and posted—presumably to the Secretary of each of the eight Scrabble clubs then active in NZ. Dictionary and rules of play were discussed, and interest in the competitive side of the game began to grow.

The 1980s were a decade of consolidation. The first New Zealand Scrabble tournament was held in Tauranga in 1980, and the New Zealand Association of Scrabble Players (NZASP) was formed in 1981. The first issue of FORWORDS, the association’s magazine, was mailed to seventeen clubs around the country. More players became engaged in the game, drawn not only by a love of words and word puzzles, but also by the sense of community and friendly connection. Horizons broadened as players began travelling to compete, including events as far afield as Norfolk Island. Competition, it seemed, could be both serious and fun.

Like all good stories, a sequel must be written to carry the theme forward. It is up to the current cohort of players to continue that story. Last week I mentioned how members celebrated our club’s twentieth anniversary in 2025. In my role as club Secretary today, information and resources are emailed to members, often with attached files to be either printed out or filed in a computer folder on their device at home. How much easier it has become to share Scrabble news through digital devices, live-streaming and social media platforms.

The 2026 Scrabble NZ website Calendar already marks several inaugural events:

• the SNZ Women’s Championship, held in January

• the SNZ Australasian Open (June) 

• the SNZ Youth Championship (July)

Each of these, in its own way, becomes another small line in the ongoing history of Scrabble in New Zealand.

Looking back through these fragments of history, what stands out is not only the growth of tournaments and clubs, but the continuity of something quieter: people gathering around boards, sharing words, learning from one another, and enjoying the game. The names and formats may change, but the spirit feels familiar. Each game played today becomes part of the same long story—one rack of seven tiles, one word, one club gathering at a time.

Another note from the board — Scrabble Notebook.

Welcome to Scrabble Notebook

 Last year, as the newly elected Club Secretary, as I listened during the afternoon tea-break to Sue reading aloud her handwritten monthly club news, I thought how her club news had all the makings of a Scrabble blog. She makes special mentions of players’ achievements. Her monthly analyses of games and other highlights capture clever word plays, memorable scores and the stuff of life that make our club involvement with competitive Scrabble so engaging.

Words worth noting reflect the club members’ shared curiosity about the lexicon we use. Whether you’re a ranked New Zealand player or enjoy a social game, we often learn best by sharing and talking about the words we play. Her newswraps tell our story—it’s who we are as Scrabble players. There is always something to learn from games that at first glance, may seem ordinary.

Our Club has seen a lot over the years, including a milestone twentieth anniversary and even a new word for many of us: vicennial. Last July, our annual Club tournament was a china celebration—a “Scrabble storm in a china teacup”, full of friendly rivalry, wins, and losses. As club players, we know a thing or two about playing a good game of Scrabble. As associated members of Scrabble NZ, we know how to celebrate our special occasions. 

As Club Secretary, I write a weekly newsletter-the minutiae of club life, that I email to club members. It too has the makings of a blog. Scrabble Notebook is my personal place to record my thoughts and moments that make Scrabble memorable for me - the unexpected plays, the shared love of words and the friendships that keep players coming back to the board. 

Every Scrabble game leaves a trail of words—and every word, every wordplay has a story worth telling.