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Scrabble Loophole
(10 Jan 2007 at 22:37) |
Tonight while playing Scrabble I discovered a loophole in the rules. From the official game rules: | 9. [Ending the game] The game ends when all letters have been drawn and one player uses his or her last letter [...]
8. [Challenges] Any play may be challenged before the next player starts a turn. | |
From this it seems the only conclusion is that your last play is unchallengeable—once all of the tiles are gone from the bag you might as well play ZYMURGYQXUAVMK on the triple word score with the +50 bonus for using all 7 tiles and nobody can challenge! Anyway, just wanted to get that one out there so that you guys will be ready for it when I whip it out next game. |
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| I dispute your qxuavmkery. After you have placed the last tile, no player has taken a turn yet (nor will they ever!) so the time to challenge is still ripe. |
| If "The game ends when all letters have been drawn and one player uses his or her last letter" then you shouldn't get any points for the last turn! So go ahead and try the triple word score +50, you can't score them until after you put down your letters, and the game's already over when you do. |
| Mike - don't you then just say "you count up points once the game is over" to fix that? I want to take jcreed's assertion further, or at least differently - if you are the last player, I can challenge you *until I play scrabble again* - it might be MONTHS later, I don't play scrabble much! |
| shit |
| Yes, I was actually thinking about that indefinite extension clause as well. Man I wish board games had like judicial precedent. It would be great if a couple of officers bust down your office door and were like "excuse me sir by the provisions of Milton v. Bradley 2005 I'm going to have to confiscate all your points and blank tiles" |
| I checked the official rules and they say "end of the turn". They do confirm what I was initially expecting, however: that there is never any penalty for challenging the game-ending play. |
I belive the rules of chess have a similar loophole. Once the game ends, you cannot complain about illegal moves.
Thus, you can win with an illegal move that checkmates the opponent king.
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| Sweet, white always wins! |
wow, that's cool. chess rankings would flatten out, assuming everyone gets to play white as much as black.
truly this is dangerous knowledge. |
| Swwwweeeeeeeet. |
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