Scrabble club racks up 20 years of words
The sparsely furnished recreation building at Wirz Park in Casselberry is quiet and serious. The only sounds are the clack of tiles being pulled from bags or arranged on boards, the dull grind of the Lazy Susan turning around and people calling out their points.
This is the weekly meeting of the Orlando Scrabble Club, which will celebrate 20 years of continuous operation on Monday. “We’ll probably have cake,” says club director Tim Bottorff. He guesses turnout will be more than 20, and will likely include founding director Judy Segall. Sounds like a party.
Turnout is low on this rainy night, eight including the ringer I brought and me. One mysterious player, who looks like Leonard Cohen complete with black fedora, is particularly intimidating to me. He has the same blank glint in his eye Mother would get when she would block the Triple Word Score while 10-year-old me sobbed.
I have brought my friend Hannah, who regularly destroys me by more than 100 points in the similar-butdigital Words With Friends. We’re paired off for the night’s second round of play. Had there been an odd number of players, one player would have had to play two games at once.
“We’d rather do that than have a three-handed game,” says Bottorff.
“Those are a nightmare,” says tournament director Art Moore.
Hannah brought a vintage board but it can’t be used. Regulation tiles are not engraved so that players can’t feel for the blanks when reaching in the bag. Regulation boards have a raised grid to hold tiles in place and they sit on a Lazy Susan-style revolving disc.
I am pitted against a regular named Gary. As a newcomer, I’m given a cheat sheet of two and three-letter words and the opportunity to challenge words without penalty. Typically, if someone thinks a word their opponent has played isn’t real, they can challenge. The club has a program pulled up on the computer that checks words in the official Scrabble dictionary. If the challenger is wrong, they lose their turn. This allows players to bluff with words that look correct but aren’t, a strategy not afforded to people who only play online.
Gary’s good. He knows when to sacrifice a turn for new tiles, only to come back with a bingo (a word that uses all seven of his letter tiles and nets a 50-point bonus). I’m mostly playing defense, blocking access to the big point squares, which keeps the score within a reasonable spread. (I did beat Hannah’s score.)
Tim assures me no one puts money on the games. “Maybe in New York,” he says. The Orlando club is here for the love of words.
The club meets 7 p.m. Mondays at Wirz Park, 806 Mark David Blvd. in Casselberry. Newcomers are welcome. Details: orlando scrabble.com.