From RAGS to RICHES: The Easy Way
It happened last night while playing scrabble at Club #350 (http://www.just4thespellofit.com)
My opponent made an opening play of ‘ZA‘ on the board, for 22 points. ’ZA‘ is one of the newest words in the OSPD 4th Edition, Official Scrabble Players’ Dictionary, added in March 2005. (The play suggested to me that I was playing with a rookie. Rookies try to score as many points as quickly as possible. They usually don’t think ahead, beyond the current play, and of all the better possibilities for the use of their tiles, later during the game.) This was a signal to me that I didn’t have to play cut-throat and that I could have a little extra fun.
My rack contained: ‘A’ ‘C’ ‘E’ ‘G’ ‘R’ ‘S’ ‘Y’. As usual, I looked for a playable ‘bingo’. A bingo is a play when one player uses all 7 of the tiles from their rack on a single play. A bingo earns the player a’50′ point bonus. My best guess was that I did not have a bingo. (I did notice that if the ‘Y’ had been an ‘N’ I could have played ‘CARNAGES”, vertically, through the ‘A’ on the board.) Instead, I chose to ‘hook’ my ‘G’ onto ‘ZA’ making ‘ZAG’, while coming down with ‘RAGS’. Mine wasn’t the greatest play either. I didn’t have to use my ‘S’. But, earlier in the day I had been reading an article about Dolly Pardon which was entitled ‘Rags To Riches‘. This moment and these tiles influenced me to try to play ‘RAGS’ and RICHES’ in the same game. That wouldn’t earn me any extra points, but it sure added some spice to the game, for me. If I had been playing against a fierce opponent I would have never been so lighthearted about this endeavor.
After playing ‘RAGS’ I was left with ‘C’ ‘E’ & ‘Y’ on my rack and needed to draw four replacement tiles from the bag. Wouldn’t you know it. I drew ‘H’ ‘I’ ‘R’ & ‘S’, giving me ‘RICHES+Y’. It was if I had willed those tiles to make their way into my hand, then onto my rack. I sat there in silence, hoping that my opponent would use the ‘Z’ again. . . . and he did. He played ‘ZOO’ for another 13 points. I had several ways to play ‘RICHES’. The most obvious was to hook the ‘S’ to ‘ZOO’ to make ‘ZOOS’. Instead, I chose to to hook the ‘C’ to the top of ‘RAGS’, making ‘CRAGS’ while playing ‘RICHES’.
With my mission accomplished and having my fun, I reverted to playing the game like a real competitor, looking for bingos and balancing my rack to achieve great scores.
And that’s the rest of the story. . . ‘how I went from rags to riches’