Wordplay

Details: Written by HG; Category: Wordplay; Published: 03 July 2020; Hits: 2498

During June, we set the following Solitaire Scrabble Game for our members :

Scrabble Solitaire is played with a subset of the 100 tiles. Your subset is :

L I F E I N L O C K D O W N I S N E V E R E N D I N G

Your first rack is the first 7 letters from that phrase : L I F E I N L.

You can play as many or as few letters as you like on each move , but to fill your rack for the next move, you keep the unplayed letters and take the next consecutive letters from the 27 tile phrase.

For example if you played FILL on move 1, your next rack would be E I N + O C K D.

This continues on with your next and subsequent moves so if you played NICKED from your second rack (making FE and ID)

you would have O + O W N I S N as your third rack. etc.

Your objective is to play all 27 tiles and score as many points as you can.

Some hints :

1. Playing fewer tiles sometimes scores more in the long term than playing one long original word (For example NICKED may have accrued more points by playing ED, KED, NICKED).

2. Because you can see the future tiles, you may be able to play a couple of smaller scoring moves to ensure you get a bonus word in a few letters time.

3. You may even be able to set up a 9 timer if you can place a tile between two triple word scores.

Remember your objective is to score as many points as you can, this may be consistently scoring 25 points on every move or a couple of very big move scores.

You must take the tiles in order from the phrase. The last letter you draw will be the G.

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Report on the results !

Thanks to everyone who submitted an entry to this puzzle - it wasn't easy so top marks just for entering.

There were a surprising number of different bonus words appearing over the different entries and these included FLOCKED (by far and away the most popular) as well as :

FLICKED, CLINKED, VENINES, RENDING (a last move double-double) and SNORING.

A few people managed some nine- timers too. These included OVERSEEN (Frank) and SWERVING (Joyce). We also found INFERNOS when we attempted the puzzle.

In second place, with an impressive 311 was Joyce but the DESERVING (nine letter word, nine timer!) winner was Wanda with 380 points. Well done Wanda!

Her moves and board are attached.

RACK	WORD	POSITION	SCORE	CUMULATIVE SCORE
LIFEINL	LI	H8a	4	4
FEINLOC	IN	H9a	8	12
FELOCKD	FLOCKED	I7a	86	98
OWNISNE	OW/WE	M6d	32	130
NISNEVE	WEE	N6d	6	136
NISVENR	WEEN	N6d	7	143
ISVENRE	IN	M9a	3	146
SVENREN	INS	M9a	3	149
VENREND	FIND	I7d	8	157
VEBRENI	INN	H9a	3	160
VERENIN	NO	K6d	2	162
VERENIG	DESERVING	O7d	218	380

Details: Written by HG; Category: Wordplay; Published: 27 June 2020; Hits: 2453

Here are 10 racks of 7 letters, each containing one vowel, and each making a valid seven letter word. How many can you spot ?

ABBCRYY

ABCLMSY

ACLRSTY

AFLPRTY

BLLNTUY

CCIPRTY

CDEPRTY

CILPRSY

EFHLTTW

GHIMNRY

Answers below

Coming soon

Soon

Maybe..

Answers :

ABBCRYY - CRYBABY

ABCLMSY - CYMBALS

ACLRSTY - CRYSTAL

AFLPRTY - FLYTRAP

BLLNTUY - BLUNTLY

CCIPRTY - CRYPTIC

CILPRSY - CRISPLY

CDEPRTY - DECRYPT

EFHTTW - TWELFTH

GHIMNRY - RHYMING

Details: Written by HG; Category: Wordplay; Published: 20 June 2020; Hits: 2456

Sunday 21 June is Father's Day.

To celebrate here are two quizzes :

a) what 4 letter words can you make with DAD and a blank ?

b) what 7 letter word can you make with FATHER and a blank ?

There are 20 answers in total, 7/8 are fairly everyday words.

Answers below :

Answers below

Coming soon

DAD +

A - DADA

E - DEAD

O - DADO

R - DRAD

S - ADDS, DADS

U - DAUD, DUAD

W - DAWD, WADD

Y - ADDY, DYAD

FATHER +

E - FEATHER, TEREFAH

I - FAITHER

L - FARTHEL

R - FARTHER

S - FATHERS, HAFTERS, SHAFTER

Details: Written by HG; Category: Wordplay; Published: 13 June 2020; Hits: 2455

British birds

Here is a list of twenty British birds.

12 of them can be anagrammed to make 24 valid scrabble words. 8 of the birds can't be anagrammed into other valid words.

What are the 12 anagrammable birds and what words can be made. Just under half are fairly everyday words, so well done if you get move than 13 !

AUK COOT CROW DOVE EAGLE

EGRET EIDER HEN KITE LARK

OWL RAIL RAVEN ROBIN ROOK

RUFF SWAN TEAL TERN TIT

Answers below

coming soon

paddling furiously

here are the answers :

AUK - no anagram

COOT - TOCO

CROW - no anagram

DOVE - DEVO

EAGLE - AGLEE

EGRET - GREET

EIDER - no anagram

HEN - no anagram

KITE - TIKE

LARK - no anagram

OWL - LOW

RAIL - ARIL, LAIR, LARI, LIAR, LIRA, RIAL

RAVEN - no anagram

ROBIN - INORB

ROOK - KORO

RUFF - no anagram

SWAN - AWNS, SAWN, SNAW, WANS

TEAL - LATE, LEAT, TAEL, TALE, TELA

TERN - RENT

TIT - no anagram

Details: Written by HG; Category: Wordplay; Published: 06 June 2020; Hits: 2439

Here is a list of twenty British birds. Apart from an S plural, what other letters can you find which hook onto the front or back of the bird’s name to make other words e.g. a Y can be added to GULL to make GULLY. Just under half of the 57 new words made by adding a letter are also common English words, but some definitely are not ! FYI the 57 words don't include the plurals.

AUK COOT CROW DOVE EAGLE

EGRET EIDER HEN KITE LARK

OWL RAIL RAVEN ROBIN ROOK

RUFF SWAN TEAL TERN TIT

Answers below

Answers just below

Answers here (please note, the plurals eg AUKS, COOTS are not listed)
All the names take an S a s the plural.

bauk, cauk, jauk, wauk	AUK
scoot	COOT
scrow	CROW	crowd, crown
	DOVE	doved, doven, dover
beagle, teagle	EAGLE	eagled, eaglet
regret	EGRET
deider	EIDER
shen, then, when	HEN	hend, hent
skite	KITE	kited, kiter
	LARK	larky
bowl, cowl, dowl, fowl, gowl, howl, jowl, nowl, sowl, yowl	OWL	owly
brail, drail, frail, grail, trail	RAIL	raile
craven, graven	RAVEN
	ROBIN	robing
brook, crook, drook	ROOK	rooky
gruff	RUFF	ruffe
	SWAN	swang, swank
steal	TEAL
stern	TERN	terne
	TIT	tite, titi

Page 22 of 38

Solitaire Scrabble

Single Vowel 7 letter anagrams

Father's Day

British Birds Quiz (part 2)

British Birds Quiz (part 1)