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History
Swedish tournaments in English Scrabble have been arranged since early 2005. A representative from Sweden has competed in the last two World Scrabble Championships (WSC) in English:
Terms for the Swedish qualification process are found here. An English section of the Swedish Scrabble Association (SSA) was formed in June 2005, with Greger Nässén as its contact person.
Gunnar Andersson won the first and so far only Swedish Nationial Scrabble Championship in English. It was played in Stockholm on May 5, 2007. The next Swedish NSC is planned to take place in 2009 and will then be one of the qualifiers for 2009 WSC.
Rules, equipment and tiles
The Swedish rules of the SSA also apply to English Scrabble tournaments in Sweden. The only exception is that regular match time is 25 minutes instead of 30. You can play English Scrabble with a Swedish board and rack. English tiles are necessary, however, since the letter distribution and tile values differ markedly from the Swedish game (see below). The SSA have bought nine bags with ProTiles that tournament arrangers can borrow.
Dictionaries and word lists
Since May 15, 2007, tournaments sanctioned by ABSP (Association of British Scrabble Players) and the international Scrabble association WESPA use Collins Official Tournament and Club Word List (ISBN 978-0007258840) which is abbreviated CSW 2007 (or CSTCWL). It contains just the words without definitions. CSW 2007 is a corrected tournament edition of Collins Official Scrabble Dictionary (OSD) from 2005, which contained a large number of errors and was not approved by ABSP and WESPA.
A revised second edition of OSD was published in 2007 (ISBN 978-0007259083) which also includes references to basic word forms. Both CSW 2007 and OSD are divided into two sections: first words with 2-9 letters, then words with 10-15 letters.
The first tournament in Sweden using CSW 2007 was Eyes Open 2007 in June 2007. SSA has access to an electronic version of CSW 2007 for adjudication.
Until 2005, Chambers Official Scrabble Words International Edition (ISBN 0 550 10058 X) was used in international tournaments. It contained all acceptable words with 2-9 letters plus inflections. To check longer words, you needed standard dictionaries from Chambers (UK) and Merriam-Websters (US).
Tips for beginners
As a Swedish beginner you will manage quite well with your school English. Learning the different tile values and distribution just takes a while. The only thing you need to study is the list of two-letter words, and also unusual three and four-letter words. We have compiled a number of useful lists based on CSW 2007. You can play English Scrabble on several sites on the Internet, for example:
- International Scrabble Club (ISC). Free of charge. Very popular. Based in Romania. Partly command-based user interface which can take some time to master. No forum.
- Betapet. Swedish site with chat and forum. Free of charge. Use Standard board if you want to play on the correct Scrabble board.
- Quadplex. Swedish-based pay site with chat and forum.
- Scrabulous. Very popular free site in India.
Swedish and English tile sets
Here is a comparison between the Swedish and English tile sets:
| SWE |
- |
A |
B |
C |
D |
E |
F |
G |
H |
I |
J |
K |
L |
M |
N |
O |
P |
|
R |
S |
T |
U |
V |
|
X |
Y |
Z |
Å |
Ä |
Ö |
| No. |
2 |
8 |
2 |
1 |
5 |
7 |
2 |
3 |
2 |
5 |
1 |
3 |
5 |
3 |
6 |
5 |
2 |
|
8 |
8 |
8 |
3 |
2 |
|
1 |
1 |
1 |
2 |
2 |
2
|
| Value |
0 |
1 |
4 |
8 |
1 |
1 |
3 |
2 |
2 |
1 |
7 |
2 |
1 |
2 |
1 |
2 |
4 |
|
1 |
1 |
1 |
4 |
3 |
|
8 |
7 |
10 |
4 |
3 |
4 |
| ENG |
- |
A |
B |
C |
D |
E |
F |
G |
H |
I |
J |
K |
L |
M |
N |
O |
P |
Q |
R |
S |
T |
U |
V |
W |
X |
Y |
Z |
|
|
|
| No. |
2 |
9 |
2 |
2 |
4 |
12 |
2 |
3 |
2 |
9 |
1 |
1 |
4 |
2 |
6 |
8 |
2 |
1 |
6 |
4 |
6 |
4 |
2 |
2 |
1 |
2 |
1 |
|
|
|
| Value |
0 |
1 |
3 |
3 |
2 |
1 |
4 |
2 |
4 |
1 |
8 |
5 |
1 |
3 |
1 |
1 |
3 |
10 |
1 |
1 |
1 |
1 |
4 |
4 |
8 |
4 |
10 |
|
|
|
En svensk version av den här artikeln finns här.
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