About Us

History

The Madison Scrabble Club was founded in 1984 by Richard Lauder. Four decades later, we're still going strong!

How We Play

Matches are played one-on-one. Players keep score for both themselves AND their opponents. Expert players use a clock, which allots them 25 minutes to make all of their moves. Clock use for new/inexperienced players is optional. We want to fit in four games a night, so games taking longer than an hour will be stopped and the final score recorded as-is.

New players are provided a "cheat sheet" containing two/three-letter words (plus some other useful words) for use during games if they desire. Other than that, no word sources are consulted at any time during a game except to adjudicate challenges.

The club directors determine pairings (who plays who) every round. We try to pair inexperienced players with other players around their skill level, if possible.

The cost to play is two dollars a night, except in the case of new players, who play for free on their first night. Entry fees pay for prizes, photocopies, and this website. One $4 prize is awarded each round for high play using a certain letter.

Membership

You don't have to "join" our club or otherwise become a member - just show up to play!

Rules

We generally play by NASPA tournament rules. New players are not expected to know the entire rulebook cover-to-cover. If a rules question arises during a game, one of our directors will be happy to address it.

All players are expected to have knowledge of how to play the game of Scrabble.

Dictionary

We use the NASPA Word List (NWL) as the official word list at our club. This dictionary is mostly the same as the red-colored "Official" Scrabble dictionary you can get at the bookstore, except it is expanded to contain some "offensive" words which were removed from the publicly available dictionary.

Some of our expert players use the Collins Scrabble Words (CSW) list in their games. CSW is the primary word list used internationally.

Fake or "phony" words are an accepted part of the game. Word challenges are adjudicated by fellow players who either will consult a dictionary, use a word-lookup device, or, in the case of egregiously phony words, just tell you that the word is no good. New players are allowed a number of "free" challenges, meaning they can challenge any word they want without the usual penalty (loss of turn after a valid word is challenged).

Equipment

Players with rotating "deluxe" boards are encouraged to bring them. Many players splurge on fancier boards, timers, and tournament-legal "smooth" tiles. Both scratch paper and dedicated Scrabble scoresheets (to write down words, track tiles, etc.) are available for keeping score.