How To Play Scrabble by Phone

I have a relative who is housebound with MS. She does not have a computer. (Well, she had a laptop, but for some reason it has been given to her son (who is an aviation mechanic and therefore, in my opinion, has a well-paying job and can damn well afford to pay for a laptop for himself, especially these days when they are so damn cheap!) and he isn't giving it back.

To cut a long story short, I suggested playing Scrabble by phone.

Here's how it works.

Decide who goes first.

The person who goes first chooses their 7 letters - and then tells their opponent what 7 letters they are. The opponent chooses these same 7 letters.

Both people get a certain amount of time to spell a word. The person who spells a word with the most points, "wins" that round. Their word stays on the board.

The person who spelled the word gets to choose more letters to get up to 7, and the opponent chooses the same letters.

Then, round 2. They each try to spell a word that will give them the most points - the person with the most points wins that "round". The word with the most points is the one that stays on the board, and the person whose word it is, gets to choose letters to get back up to 7 - and his or her opponent replenishes his rack with the same letters.

So in one sense strategy is bypassed... there's no spelling a word in order to set up spelling a different word that will get more points...it's all about getting the most points during each "round."

We've only played it once (I've only recently reconnected with this relative) but it seems like it will be fun.

So if you know people who are housebound and have a phone but no computer...give it a try.