Here's a pretty good overview of competitive Scrabble. It has a glossary and some links.
It was here that I first learned that a new dictionary is on the way in 2005. There's a little preview as to what changes there will be.
"Qi," an alternate form of "chi," a word that signifies energy in Chinese phrases such as tai chi, gives players a way to use the Q without a U. It's 11 points, face value (10 for the Q)."Za," which is a shortened form of the word "pizza," is also 11 points, face value (10 for the Z).
So with the addition of QI and ZA, that would leave only C and V as the only letters that won't make two letter words.
A playable QI is a big deal, because that would change the Q endgames quite a bit, making it much harder to stick someone with the Q at the end of the game. I can also see a lot of Q words hooking onto the ends of other words: QUA- words hooked onto -ING words. Just QUA played on -ING by itself would be 28 points. QI is already acceptable in British play, so I guess it isn't that big of a deal. It'll just open up the game a little bit more.
I've never heard of anyone referring to pizza as ZA, but I'm a dumb Southern boy, so what do I know?
Posted by Mike Waugh at October 18, 2004 08:49 PM | TrackBack