Chess versus Scrabble

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Avatar of bomtrown

Both are turn-based board games, so in some ways they are similar, but in other ways, Chess and Scrabble are quite different. For example, chess is called a game of perfect information because you always know what pieces your opponent has and where he/she can move (even if you suffer from temporary chess blindness sometimes). In Scrabble, though, you don't know what tiles your opponent will have. You don't even know what tiles you will have during a game, so there is quite a bit of luck involved. Scrabble is not a game of perfect information.

Avatar of TheGrobe

In both scrabble and chess, the most valuable peice is the Q.

Avatar of bigryoung

if you have a Q then U are the most valuable

Avatar of TheGrobe

Both games generally open in the centre.

Avatar of bomtrown

Yep. I found a book on Scrabble from the late 1950s before QI was an accepted word. If you had a Q, then getting a U was essential back then.

In the earlier days of chess, the queen had different movement abilities, so games change sometimes. 

Avatar of TheGrobe

Both have a world champion.

Avatar of heinzie

Congratulations are due for the brave whale

Avatar of Here_Is_Plenty
akintews wrote:

Interesting where the top players can be found...

 


 Yay theres one in Scotland.  Gan yersel wee man.

Avatar of chessgdt

Quartz is a good Q word

Avatar of gist718

There are many scrabble words where Q is not followed by U http://www.scrabblefinder.com/scrabble-q-words/  most common of those is qat which is a herbal drug often used in Yemen.

Avatar of Cystem_Phailure
bomtrown wrote:

Yep. I found a book on Scrabble from the late 1950s before QI was an accepted word. If you had a Q, then getting a U was essential back then.


Qi got added to the Official Scrabble Dictionary only 5 years ago, along with zzz.  But of course the Official Scrabble Dictionary isn't "official" for tournaments in any country.  Official tournaments in the U.S. have used a separate official word list since 1998 when Milton Bradley caved in to pressure and removed 107 legitimate words deemed too naughty for nice people to know.  So the 3rd and 4th editions of the Official Scrabble Dictionary are officially censored.

But qi is legit for the past 5 years, and drawing a "q" in the last couple racks of the game is no longer a disaster anywhere near as often as it used to be.  Same with the "z" now since za was added, also in 2006.

Avatar of Cystem_Phailure

BTW, rumor has it that the censoring crew tasked with making the Official Scrabble dictionary safe for all decent humanity later found employment as forum moderators with a large online chess provider . . . 

Avatar of trysts
Cystem_Phailure wrote:
bomtrown wrote:

Yep. I found a book on Scrabble from the late 1950s before QI was an accepted word. If you had a Q, then getting a U was essential back then.


Qi got added to the Official Scrabble Dictionary only 5 years ago, along with zzz.  But of course the Official Scrabble Dictionary isn't "official" for tournaments in any country.  Official tournaments in the U.S. have used a separate official word list since 1998 when Milton Bradley caved in to pressure and removed 107 legitimate words deemed too naughty for nice people to know.  So the 3rd and 4th editions of the Official Scrabble Dictionary are officially censored.

But qi is legit for the past 5 years, and drawing a "q" in the last couple racks of the game is no longer a disaster anywhere near as often as it used to be.  Same with the "z" now since za was added, also in 2006.


Wow! You sure do keep up on "Scrabble", Cystem! I love Scrabble, but my friends are way better than I. I haven't won a game in almost a year!

Avatar of theoreticalboy

One more similarity; it's really easy to cheat when you play online.

Avatar of Conquistador

I once got a triple word score in chess.

Avatar of Cystem_Phailure

I once mated my opponent in Scrabble.  Cool

Avatar of TheGrobe
It helps if your a cunning linguist.
Avatar of theoreticalboy

I just put jism across the board.

Avatar of AndyClifton

And of course one of the greatest similarities between the games (as I was quite amused to find out):

Avatar of goldendog
AndyClifton wrote:

And of course one of the greatest similarities between the games (as I was quite amused to find out):

 


Probably more than a decade ago I sent SamTimer an email asking which came first, Chronos or the SamTimer.

Never got an answer. I figured they were crooks, being shady scrabblists.