Clabbers is a game played by tournament
Scrabble
''Scrabble'' is a word game in which two to four players score points by placing tiles, each bearing a single letter, onto a game board divided into a 15×15 grid of squares. The tiles must form words that, in crossword fashion, read left t ...
players for fun, or occasionally at Scrabble variant tournaments. The name derives from the fact that the words CLABBERS and SCRABBLE form an
anagram pair.
Rules
The rules are identical to those of Scrabble, except that valid plays are only required to form anagrams of acceptable words; in other words, the letters in a word do not need to be placed in the correct order. If a word is challenged, the player who played the word must then name an acceptable word that anagrams to the tiles played.
Because the number of "words" that can be formed is vastly larger than in
standard English, the board usually ends up tightly packed in places, and necessarily quite empty in others. Game scores will often be much higher than in standard Scrabble, due to the relative ease of making high-scoring overlap plays and easier access to premium squares.
Web version
The
Internet Scrabble Club
The Internet Scrabble Club (ISC) is a website that allows players around the world to play Scrabble through a web interface. Previously, one had to download software, called Wordbiz, to play, but Wordbiz is no longer supported.
Using ISC
Player ...
offers the ability to play Clabbers online.
Example game (SOWPODS)
Horizontal words from top to bottom (# denotes words that exist in the
Collins English Dictionary
The ''Collins English Dictionary'' is a printed and online dictionary of English. It is published by HarperCollins in Glasgow.
The edition of the dictionary in 1979 with Patrick Hanks as editor and Laurence Urdang as editorial director, wa ...
but not the TWL). Some of the words below have multiple anagrams:
*ALI = AIL
*TOD = DOT
*ISNAETCR = CANISTER
*WOPL = PLOW
*DEER = DEER
*ZIF = FIZ
*SIATX = TAXIS
*BTADEI = BAITED
*MGU = GUM
*EMING = MINGE#
*ECOPU = COUPE
*RATHE = HEART
*IQ =
QI
*VUEJ = JUVE#
*EWY = WYE
*ODOR = ODOR
*ASSGEOU = GASEOUS
*ROH =
RHO
Rho (uppercase Ρ, lowercase ρ or ; el, ρο or el, ρω, label=none) is the 17th letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals it has a value of 100. It is derived from Phoenician letter res . Its uppercase form uses the sa ...
Vertical words from left to right
*ATIW = WAIT
*KAMER = MAKER
*LOSODF = FLOODS
*GCALINS = SCALING
*IDNPE = PINED
*UOT = OUT
*ALEZ = LAZE
*PHA = HAP
*RSITOUEN = ROUTINES
*FIAR = FAIR
*EBRYE = BEERY
*XIM = MIX
*NAV = VAN
*UO = OU#
*GULNED = LUNGED
*JOR =
JOR#
*RO = OR
References
{{Reflist
Mentions of Clabbers on the National Scrabble Association (USA) websiteAn A-Z of Variants, Association of British Scrabble Players
*"V-A-K-I-L: 'VAKIL' is a word? No way! Scrabble for the serious at District 14", ''The Boston Globe
''The Boston Globe'' is an American daily newspaper founded and based in Boston, Massachusetts. The newspaper has won a total of 27 Pulitzer Prizes, and has a total circulation of close to 300,000 print and digital subscribers. ''The Boston Glob ...
'', October 7, 2001
Scrabble variants