Homepage

Back

Archives

What do a University physics professor and a 56-year-old board game have in common?
They get together every Monday and Tuesday night and take on the world. Dr. Jay Streib and his love for the Hasbro board game, Scrabble, have traveled the country together. From his weekly club meetings to the national championship, the two are never far apart.

Streib’s interest in club scrabble began after a friend encouraged him to attend a night of club scrabble. That night, Strieb won the first three of four games. The rest is history. Strieb, who plays two nights a week, Monday in Exton and Tuesday in Landsdale, has won tournaments in Philadelphia and Lancaster and was a competitor at the national competition as well.
The club version of Scrabble differs from kitchen table scrabble that is played in the home. Whereas kitchen table scrabble can include up to four players, club scrabble is exclusively one on one. The club game is also played with protiles. Unlike the kitchen table version, these tiles to do not have groves carved into them denoting the letter, rather, they are screened on to allow for a fair pick from the bag.

Another difference with club scrabble is that there is a 25-minute time limit that each player has throughout the game. When one player has finished his/her move, a button is pressed which stops their clock and starts their opponent’s. Players that go over the time limit are accessed points at the end of the game. In addition, the Scrabble boards are ball bearing, like a lazy Susan, enabling players to rotate the board with ease. Other tools include the Scrabble calculator and the scrabble dictionary.

Although Strieb is quite the competitor, he also has had his downtimes as well. At one point, while playing against an extremely talented player, Strieb lost 678 to 223. “I’ve never been so embarrassed in my life,” claimed Strieb. This of course being the exception, Strieb is nothing short of talented when it comes to this game of word choice. “It’s very strategic,” he noted.
According to Strieb, not only do you have to know how to make words, but you also have to know how to put other players at a disadvantage by blocking them and challenging the words that they create.

If you have interest in giving Scrabble a try, Strieb suggests joining a club. But before you go, he suggests keeping one thing in mind: “If you play at established clubs, you need to be willing to lose a few games and be willing to admit that there are others better than you.”

A nationally ranked player of this official game of Thailand, Strieb will head to the national competition this summer in New Orleans, La.