Scrabble variation makes you pay for each letter

I like Scrabble. I play it online and I play it in real life. In the newspaper I put together, there’s a regular Scrabble column, which highlights unusual wordplays.

I even enjoy playing a Scrabble variation called “speed Scrabble” in which you do away with the board and everyone plays at once. (I’ll have to post the rules to that, here, it’s a blast.)

Now, though, I’m looking forward to playing a variation I’ve just discovered — a variation where you don’t pick new tiles randomly from the bag or from the pile, but instead you bid on them, against the other players.

Covet that “S”? Well, be prepared to pay!

Says Jeff Ely on his blog Cheap Talk:

At the beginning of the game tiles are turned over in sequence and the players bid on them in a fixed order.  The high bidder gets the tile and subtracts his bid from his total score.  (We started with a score of 100 and ruled out going negative, but this was never binding.  An alternative is to start at zero and allow negative scores.)

After all players have 7 tiles the game begins.  In each round, each player takes a turn but does not draw any tiles at the end of his turn.  At the end of the round, tiles are again turned over in sequence and bidding works just as at the beginning until all players have 7 tiles again, and the next round begins.  Apart from this, the rules are essentially the standard scrabble rules.

Since each players’ tiles are public information, we decided to take memory out of the game and have the players keep their tiles face up.  It also makes for fun kibbitzing.

He also links to a pdf of the complete rules here.

According to his game notes, seven- and eight-letter words are much easier to make, there are some bidding strategies that develop, and differences in ability become magnified (since the element of luck has been removed).

Sounds like a blast!