Full video

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S C R A BB L E Scrabble. The famous

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board game that forces you to be both a

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spelling bee and a math wiz. And though

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you've tried to hit that triple word a

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few times, luck hasn't always been on

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your side. But Scrabble isn't all about

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the letters you're dealt. to turn you

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into a scrabble winner who remind you of

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its basic rules, delve into its past,

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including the vacation that changed

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everything, and bring in a world

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champion and his tips. Keeping a poker

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face is very, very invaluable in

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Scrabble.

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[Music]

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One bag, 100 letters, four racks, and

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one memorable board. The green, red,

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blue, and yellow probably brings back

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some childhood memories. Wherever you

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are in the world, you have probably

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played

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Scrabble. It exists in 28 languages, and

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more than 165 million sets have been

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sold.

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Whilst for some it's a regular fixture

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in family life, for others they may be

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gathering dust on a shelf, unloved for

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years. So, let's remind you of a few key

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rules. Each player gets seven letters.

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There are 98 letter tiles and two

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magical blank tiles. Those can be turned

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into any

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letter. You cannot play diagonally, as

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much as that would be enticing

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sometimes. The red, blue, and yellow

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squares can boost your score. We

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especially like triple word. The same

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word can be played more than once, and

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you can challenge an opponent's word

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given that all players have agreed on a

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reference dictionary at the beginning of

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the game. You can't of course speak at

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this while

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playing. But who had the brilliant idea

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to get a soul competitive about word

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making?

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[Music]

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It was the Great Depression in the

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United States of America and Alfred here

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was unemployed. Sounds like a familiar

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story, doesn't it? A bit like Monopoly.

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Anyways, unable to resume his

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architecture career, Alfred delved into

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the board game world to create something

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that could merge numbers and letters.

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But this was not without a

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future. First up was Lexico. Initially

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named it, Lexico was a simple word game

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that requires you to collect nine random

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letters and create words from it. Alfred

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chose the amount of letter tiles in

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their point system by analyzing none

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other than the frequency of letters in

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the front pages of several

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newspapers. Sadly, no major success came

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from this. In 1938, Alfred continued

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crafting his game and decided to

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decrease the number of collected letters

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to seven and add a 15 by 15 squares

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board with several bonus spots. Looking

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more familiar now, no the name of

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choice, crisscross words. But sadly for

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Alfred, still no

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success. Usually it's third time lucky,

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but Alfred still needed a bit of help.

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Enter James Bruno.

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He loved crisscross words and thought

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that with some tweaks it could be a huge

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success. So he got to work. Among his

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changes were a new board color scheme, a

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new 50point bonus rule for using all

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seven tiles and most importantly the new

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iconic name scrabble which means to

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scratch or dig frantically with the

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hands. Sounds about right. James meant

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business. He also bought the

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manufacturing rights from Alfred and

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agreed to give him a royalty for every

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set sold. He copyrighted and trademarked

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Scrabble in December 1948 and then went

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to make the game sets with his family

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out of their

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home. But what about that vacation that

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changed everything?

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Well, legend has it that in 1952, Jack

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Strauss, the then director at the

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renowned Macy's department store, played

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Scrabble while on vacation, and he loved

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it. That prompted him to do a large

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order, and within a year, it was one of

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the most coveted board games. Scrabble

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was a huge success. But Alfred didn't

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want to stop there. He went on to create

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another board game, Alfred's Other Game.

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The board game didn't take off, but

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Alfred couldn't rest easy knowing that

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his hard work had created a worldwide

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sensation. Associations, clubs, and

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tournaments took off. There was even a

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game show in the 80s and '9s. The new

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century saw Scrabble take the internet

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lead, and the worldwide takeover

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continued until today, touching every

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corner of the globe.

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I was born and raised in Nigeria. The

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first time I played Scrabble was when my

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elder brother, he brought it home. I was

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like 14,

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15. Back then I was a fan of such board

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games like Monopoly, chess and all that

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and I got naturally drawn to it.

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I played my first official tournament

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scrabble in 2002 and uh it was in 2015

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that the efforts paid off. I won my

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first world championship. It was it was

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a very very very very euphoric moment.

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It's beyond it's beyond explaining. It

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was special that I won because I was the

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first African to even get to the final.

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You know, everybody wanted let it be

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something that is possible to do this

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irrespective of your race, irrespective

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of your uh beginnings, irresective of

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where you come from and all of that. And

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now, no more waiting. Here are

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Wellington's tips that will turn you

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into a Scrabble wiz.

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Once you think in terms of prefixes and

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suffixes, it makes it easy for you to

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now arrange the other tiles before the

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suffix to form a valid word. Something

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like remaking. You are use utilizing

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both a

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suffix and a prefix.

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What you want to do is to be able to

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extend an existing word to get to the

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premium squares. You can add an E R to

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this to form

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speaker. And of course, you can also add

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an S so that it gets to this

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spot.

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Remember in Scrabble the practice is to

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always lift the bag above your eye level

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so that you won't be accused of

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cheating. The Q is the heaviest tile on

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this rack. And the heavier a tile is,

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the more difficult it is to form

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acceptable words. And one very good way

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of eliminating the Q is a word like Qi.

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forming ch and

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I there is a very hot spot on this board

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which

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is this spot here the triple word score

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we can't really make the best of that

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score at that moment so we have to do

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something about it and that is what we

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call

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blocking so if you notice we we scored

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little But with the little that we

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scored, we were able to prevent our

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opponent from having access to this very

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juicy

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square. Keeping a poker face is very,

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very invaluable in Scrabble. Some people

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make the mistake of making it easy for

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your opponent to guess the kind of tiles

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you have just by looking at your face.

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So, in Scrabble, you want to be able to

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keep a bland face, an unreadable

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face. Okay, get your board, tiles,

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rocks, and some players because you are

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definitely ready to scrappble.

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[Music]