Speed Scrabble

Julia (Stu's wife) taught this at the game night I hosted last night. Better than regular Scrabble, I think! And it's more flexible: works really well with 5 or 6 players, play as long as you want, don't need the board, can succeed without BS two-letter Scrabble words, etc.

1. Everyone takes seven letter tiles, face down in front of them. You don't need the board.

2. All other letter tiles are placed face down on the table.

3. At the word "go," everyone turns over their letters and tries to arrange them such that all the letters are used.

4. The first player to accomplish this says "go" again; everyone takes an additional letter; repeat.

5. You can rearrange all of your letters at any time, but you can't trade anything in.

6. When no letters are left in the center, the first player to use all their letters says "done."

Scoring is easy: you want fewer points, and you get one point for every unused letter you have left. There's a minus-two-point bonus for consensus pick of best word on the table. (Other scoring variations are easy to come by -- bonuses for longer words is the one Julia mentioned.)

Woohoo, game night. Now it's on to Narragansett for the weekend!