Francophone Scrabble

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Francophone Scrabble, or French-language Scrabble, is played by hundreds of thousands of amateurs throughout the World. Just as in English, points are scored by playing valid words from the lettered tiles. In French there are 102 tiles - 100 lettered tiles and two blanks known as jokers.

1 Forms of play
- 1.1 Duplicate
2 The World Championship

[edit] Forms of play

A completed game in French

There are two forms of competition Scrabble in French. Scrabble classique, also known as partie libre, is match play, as in the English-language game. Duplicate Scrabble is an alternative form of the game where all players have the same letters and board in front of them, and play against the theoretical top score.

[edit] Duplicate

An arbiter is used to choose the letters for the game. He draws seven tiles at random to start the game and announces them; the players draw the same seven tiles and the arbiter starts the clock. After the allotted time period, the arbiter stops the clock and the players must submit their solutions to the nearest official. The highest scoring word (known as the top) is announced and place on the display board by the arbiter, and the players do the same. At the end of the game, the arbiter announces the top - the total score of all the moves, which is the theoretical high score which cannot be beaten. The winner of the game can be expressed in three different ways. Points scored, points dropped compared to the top, or percentage.

Rules of duplicate:

The highest scoring word must be placed on the board after each move. However if there is more than one word which have the same score, the arbiter chooses the word which is most apt for opening the board up.
It is possible to score more than 100% by benefitting from a solo top. A solo top is when only one player finds the top play, and is awarded a bonus of 10 points which is added to his total score at the end of the game.
Any invalid word is known as a zéro and means what it implies - the player gets zero points for that move
There must be at least one vowel and one consonant in each rack, or else the letters are put back in the bag and redrawn until the rack meets these criteria. If no more vowels or no more consonants remain, the game ends with the final score as it stands at that moment. Both the letter Y and the blank are counted as both a vowel and a consonant.

[edit] The World Championship

The French Language World Championship or le championnat du monde has been held since 1972. Two players have won the World Championship five times; Michel Duguet and Christian Pierre. The current World Champion (2006) is Pascal Fritsch of France. The elite competition is limited to qualifiers who compete in their national championships. Although around 270 take place every year, this is a relatively small field compared to tournaments where more than 1000 people compete. Most other tournaments are open to all members of the international federation.

[edit] Michel Duguet

Michel Duguet was the first superstar of French Scrabble. Five times world champion, 5 times world champion in pairs, and 6 times French National Champion. In 1983, he dropped just 12 points out of a total of 4177. Performances like this gave him the nickname 'l'Extraterrestre' - the alien. He was given the award 'player of the century' at the 2000 championship in Paris.

World champion 1982, 1983, 1985, 1987, 1988

[edit] Christian Pierre

Christian Pierre is almost without argument the greatest Belgian player of all time. Five times world champion, and twelve times Belgian National Champion, perhaps the most durable player of all-time, he was third in the world championship in 1987 20 years ago.

World Champion 1991, 1992, 1994, 1996, 1998