A Scrabble Variation

We're a family who likes to play games -- board games and card games, not psychological games.  When we were down in Texas recently, we played a variation of Scrabble that our son taught us and I thought I'd share it with you.  It was fun, quick, and easy to grasp.

For Jason's version of "Take Two", you don't need the Scrabble board.  You only need the Scrabble tiles.  Before the game begins, turn all the tiles face down in the middle of the table and mix them up.  Play begins with each player taking 5 tiles and keeping them face down in front of them until the signal is given to begin playing. (We usually just say "Go!")

At this point, each person plays on their own tiles.  You basically create words with the tiles that you have, building on them in typical crossword fashion until you can't do any more.  Oh, I should also tell you that you can rearrange your tiles at any point in the game.  You don't have to leave them set up the way you had them.  So, if you get stumped, you can undo what you did and try again, creating different words.  Whenever a player uses up all of the tiles he has at that moment, he yells out "Take Two" and everyone stops what they are doing and draws two tiles from the pile in the middle (including the player who ran out of tiles) and then play continues with each player continuing to work out words on their puzzle that they are building.  If  you reach a point where all the players are stumped and there are still tiles in the center, the players will agree to "Take Two" and play recommences.  Play continues as described above until ALL tiles in the center have been drawn and one player uses up all of his tiles OR until all tiles in the center have been drawn and each player has come to a dead end and is unable to use up any more of their tiles.

Once the game is over, you count up your score like you would on a Scrabble board with the exception of the fact that you don't have any double, triple, etc. special score blocks.  So you are just counting the values of each word that you have spelled.  Subtract from your total score the points of the tiles you still hadn't played when the game ended.Then we declare the winner of that game as the one with the highest score.  Some play this with a running score and carry the totals from game to game until an agreed-upon high score has been reached and then that player is the overall winner. 

There you have it.  Our son's special version of Scrabble.  It's fast and fun and helps to exercise those brain cells.