Scrabble duplicate

The Scrabble duplicate is an alternative of the practice of the play of Scrabble which consists in playing a part only while trying with each blow to make the possible maximum score, according to the letters on the rest and the configuration of the grid. The duplicate is the most popular French alternative with more than 15.000 bachelors in France and more than 20.000 bachelors in the world. It is as practiced in Rumanian and Dutch but is by far more popular in French as in all the other languages.

History

Until in the Years 1970, Scrabble is practiced only according to the formula known as traditional , i.e. to 2,3 or 4 players who pick their letters in the same bag and play on the same grid, in turn. This formula leaves a certain share to the chance, each player having letters different and exploiting a configuration from different grid since it evolves/moves with the wire of the words posed by each player.

In 1971, a lawyer of Brussels named Hippolyte Wouters invents the formula duplicate , supposed to eliminate the chance factor. It is inspired for that by the Bridge, card deck in which exists already a named formula duplicate (word of English origin, meaning “ to make a double ”) which makes it possible to strongly attenuate the chance factor by distributing the same ones give charts to the four players of all the tables.

The invention of this method of play quickly allows the installation of competitions gathering an unlimited number people. The beginnings are modest, thus the 1st Championship of the French-speaking World in 1972 gathers hardly 10 players. In 2007, the 36èmes Championnats of the World gathered several hundreds of players. and each year the French federal festivals accommodate each one more than 1000 players.

Principle

Rules

The basic rules of Scrabble duplicate are similar to those of traditional Scrabble:

One uses a plate of standard Scrabble.
One uses the 102 standard letters.
the first word passes by central star, and counts double.
the accepted words are the same ones: 2 to 15 letters, authorized conjugations, not of proper names, not of made up words.

There are nevertheless some characteristics, according to the official payment of the International federation of Scrabble French-speaking ( FISF ):

During the first 15 blows, each pulling must contain at least 2 vowels and at least 2 consonants: that avoids having too unbalanced pullings. It should be noted that Y and the jokers can be indifferently regarded as vowel or consonant, with the own way of the person who picks the letters.
If this constraint is not respected, there is rejection , i.e. the 7 letters are replaced in the bag, then the bag is mixed and 7 new letters are picked.
As from the 16th blow, each pulling must contain at least 1 vowel and 1 consonant. In the contrary case, there is rejection.
the part is finished when there remains nothing any more but one letter, or only of the consonants, or only of the vowels.

Standard notation

Épellation of the letters

When the letters were drawn, they are announced to the other players in accordance with the table of standard epellation, namely:

The joker is spelled " Joker" or sometimes " letter blanche".

Position of the words

When a word must be placed on the grid, its position is announced in accordance with the standard in force, namely:

one announces the reference of the box on which the word
begins if the word is placed horizontally, one starts with the horizontal coordinate (letter of has to O)
if the word is placed vertically, one begins with the vertical coordinate (number from 1 to 15)

In the example above, that would give:

with blow 1, one places TO PROVE in H3.
with blow 2, one place WAS ENGAGED in 3C.

Publication of a part

The parts of Scrabble duplicate are published in the reviews, daily newspapers… under a general format intended to allow rejouer the part only or with friends. For that, several rules are observed:

Each line contains the relative informations with blow: N° of the blow, Pulling, Word selected, Position, Score. Very often, the n° of the blow and pulling are shifted of a line compared to the word selected, its position and its score. Indeed, it then becomes possible to place a mask on the part to see only the first blow, to reflect, then to descend the mask from a line to see the adopted solution, as well as the pulling of the following blow.
In the column " Tirage" , certain symbols are used:

the symbol + separates the letters remaining from the new letters. In the example above, the pulling of blow 2 would be indicated by F+MLACIN
the symbol - indicates a rejection. In this case, the remaining letters of the preceding blow are given in the bag, and one picks the new letters indicated after the indent.
the symbol ? indicates a joker (sometimes called white letter ).

In the column " Word retenu" , the letters replacing a joker are mentioned either between brackets, or between tiny (in this case, the other letters are in capital letters). For example, if the pulling of blow 1 is EGJSEF? , then the word selected will be noted J (U) GÉES or JuGÉES.
In the column " Position" , the general format of position is used: H4, 3C…

Critical study

Advantages of the duplicate

the main advantage of the duplicate is to eliminate the chance factor from traditional Scrabble: in duplicate, each player has the same letters which its adversaries, and plays on the same grid.
the presence of a minimal number of vowels and consonants to each blow offers parts more pleasant to play than with a strictly random pulling.
This formula makes it possible to organize competitions between an unspecified number of adversaries without having to organize hens nor stages (quarterfinals, semi-final…)
By comparing each player with the maximum score that it would have been able to make (nowadays, the signal is given by the computer), one obtains percentage representative of its level with Scrabble (for little that he is calculated on a significant number of played parts), then allowing a classification according to this percentage. Thus, much of players evaluate their performance on a part compared to the percentage which they carried out, champions (exceeding the 95% regularly) preferring for their part negative speech in , i.e. of many points lost compared to the signal.
the Duplicate formula also allows a practice in school and thus the teaching use of many aspects of play (orthography, conjugation, mathematics, concentration, logic, etc). The pupils having the same pulling and the same configuration of grid, the organizer or the teacher easily can, by using an adapted vocabulary, to organize a succession of several explained and accompanied pullings, while being addressed to the integrality of its group or its class.

Disadvantages of the duplicate

It has there no more direct adversary, one plays at the same time against oneself (while trying to make the best score with each blow) and against all the others (while trying to find the words which they will not find).
It does not have there strategy, one seeks before all the maximum score on each blow, even if this word owes " boucher" part of the grid.
It is not possible of bluffer: duplicate, to play a fictitious word (i.e. not mentioned in the ODS) at the time of a blow reverts especially marking 0 points on this blow, which can prove very penalizing, if the blow in question is a " scrabble" offering a no-claims bonus of 50 points.
an official part in duplicate lasts approximately 2 hours, at a rate of 3 minutes of reflection per blow. It is very long compared to a part into traditional (approximately 40 minutes), and certain judged blows " évidents" can appear interminable.
the organization of a tournament duplicate is much heavier than that of a traditional tournament (see below).

Competitions

See also: Tournament of Scrabble, List of tournaments of French-speaking Scrabble

The majority of the official competitions of Scrabble dispute according to the formula duplicate. It does not occur a weekend without a tournament taking place some share in France or in the francophonie. One distinguishes several types of competitions:

PAP ( Left Attributive Points ): it is a part which is played in a club, it generally gathers players of the club and clubs nearby.
TRAP ( Attributive Regional Tournament of Points ): is played in 2 parts, in a club or a municipal hall. A TRAP generally gathers players come from all the area.
TH ( Tournament Approved ): it is the tournament par excellence, it is generally exploited in 3 parts one day and gathers approximately 200 players, come sometimes by far.
Festival: organized over several days (sometimes a whole week) and including/understanding at least 2 competitions, it gathers to him also many players. The federal festivals organized by FFSc (Aix-the-Baths, Cannes, Vichy) are very snuffed and can gather to 2000 players.
Simultaneous: it is about a test by centers. The parts are prétirées, then sent by mail to each center, which opens the envelope only at the time to dispute the simultaneous one. The simultaneous ones gather hundreds, even thousands of players, divided on many centers through France or the francophonie. Most popular, the Simultaneous world one, gathers in January more than 5000 players.

Formulas

The competitions of duplicate are generally played with 7 letters per blow and a time of 3 minutes reflection per blow. However, other formulas ( left original ) exist:

Based over the time of reflection

Semi-rapid: The players have 2 minutes of reflection per blow.
Blitz: The players have 1 minute of reflection per blow.

Based on pullings

Left Joker: with each blow, there are 6 letters + 1 joker. When a word using the joker is placed on the grid, one poses the true letter in order to preserve the joker. If the true letter is exhausted, the joker is posed, and one continues with the second joker. Once the second joker placed (generally at the end of the part), one finishes in a traditional way.
Left 7 out of 8: with each blow, there are 8 letters, but one can use only 7 at the most of them. The premium of 50 points remains valid if 7 letters are used.
Left 7 and 8: with each blow, there are 8 letters and one can all use them. If the 8 letters are used, there is a premium of 75 points. The premium of 50 points remains valid if 7 letters are used.

Many players

The tournaments of Scrabble duplicate per pairs are very popular, and the Championnats of the French-speaking world of Scrabble per pairs dispute since 1975 with the Championships of the world. The competitions follow the rules of Scrabble duplicate except that there are two players one beside the other who discuss their choice of solution.

Classification

The players progress in the classification (inter) national according to their performances in the tournaments. In France, they are classified in 7 series, numbered from 1 to 7. The 7th series is reserved to the initial players. The 1st series gathers the best international players, and includes the Super-series (the first 30 world players).

While taking part in a competition, each player can gain, according to his final place, of the Points of Classification ( PC ), even of the Points of Performance ( PP ). The PC are used to reach series 4 to 6 (main roads), while PP are necessary for the accession to series 1 to 3 (international) and 4A (French).

Champions

Like all the disciplines, Scrabble has its champions. Not very known the general public, their high level is not less real: they know tens of thousands of words, have combinative qualities sometimes very thorough, and have a perfect command of the technique of the grid. It is enough to attend an exhibition in " topping" at the time of one of the federal festivals to be convinced some. Number of them also use their good knowledge of the vocabulary in certain television programs: Of the figures and the letters, Motus…

The 30 best world players of Scrabble duplicate are gathered in the Super-series. They are described as office for the Championships of the World. Their average percentage on part of Scrabble ranges between 97 and 100%, it thus arrives to them regularly of toper (to equalize the score of the computer), which is also the case to a lesser extent for other players of 1e series and, more rarely, lower series.

Software

Scrabble duplicate

Nowadays, the use of software of Scrabble duplicate became impossible to circumvent, that it is for the organization of competitions as for the personal drive, which had a considerable effect in the increase of the mean level of the players. If the first software, in the Eighties, were particularly slow and not always exhaustive, the current software offers instantaneously the list of all the solutions to each blow, even if it is about a word of 12 letters being pressed on 5 letters already posed and forming with the passage 4 other words in the other direction!

Here a chronological list of the most popular software of duplicate:

the first experiments go back to beginning of the year 80 where the Honeywell-Bull company is leaning on the design of a software general public of Scrabble Duplicate, in collaboration with the School of mathematics applied of Angers. Diogène , the fruit of their research, found the scrabbles, but blocked on the technical blows. In fact, the very first program playing Scrabble Duplicate to 100% had been carried out, since 1981, by a French data processing specialist " précurseur" : he sought and found, with each blow of a part, the signal in a fraction of a second, on an enormous machine of the type IBM, reason for which he was never diffused!
Since, Athéna (1984), Monty (1985) and Scrabbleur brought each innovation, flirtant with the signal without never reaching it. At the time, only Duplicate interested the programmers.
Dupliscra (1989) by Gilbert Fillatre. First really succeeded software, it is distinguished quickly by carrying out a " solo" with the Festival of Vichy in front of 578 human players, thanks to the word CONTENT played while sticking integral for 24 points. Functioning with 2 diskettes under DOS, it was delivered with a sentinel (or dongle , key physics) to connect on the parallel port in order to avoid any copy.
PC-Duplicate (1992) by Jean-Michel Guizard was presented in the form of an alternative to Dupliscra, then only on the " marché". Famous Vocabble in 1994, more succeeded than Dupliscra, it becomes the official software of FFSc. Version 2.0 includes a module of arbitration still very much used nowadays.
Ludicimo (????) by Vincent Derval is software of a very complete, improvable drive by the addition of modules.
PC Scrabble (1996) by the Azursoft company, with the assistance of Gilbert Fillatre. Available initially under DOS, then Windows (version 2.0), it proves more ludic than Vocabble, in particular making it possible to play in traditional Scrabble, or to dispute duplicate parts with 3 other players in network!
DupliTop (2003) is the new name of Vocabble, following a litigation with the linguistic review of the same name. He proposes a detailed handbook, more pushed functions of research, and especially the " mode; topping" become since impossible to circumvent. He is sold by Promolettres, subsidiary company commercial of FFSc, and is reserved to the fired players.
Scrabble (2004) by the Ubisoft company, is to date the only software of French-speaking Scrabble available in the trade, Ubisoft having acquired the electronic rights at Mattel.

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