Francophone Scrabble

Francophone Scrabble, or French-language Scrabble, is played by many thousands of amateurs throughout the World and the Fédération internationale de Scrabble francophone has more than 20,000 members. 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. The official word list for Francophone Scrabble is L'Officiel du jeu Scrabble.

Forms of play

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.

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...
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