Francophone Scrabble
Encyclopedia
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
.
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.
Rules of duplicate:
format and has been held every year since 1972. Two players have won the World Championship five times; Michel Duguet
and Christian Pierre
. The current World Champion (2007) is Antonin Michel
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.
At The French World Championships, more than one title is distributed. There are 5 age categories; cadet (younger than 16) junior (16-18), senior (all players) vermeil (60-69) and diamant (70+). There is an official winner of each age category with the winner of the senior category being the overall world champion. There are also multiple tournaments; duplicate, duplicate pairs, duplicate blitz (60 seconds per move) and a matchplay Scrabble world cup. The match play Scrabble world cup event was introduced in 2006, won by Parfait Mouanda of the Republic of the Congo
. The competition was played over 3 days and 12 games, with the two finalists playing a best of three series to decide a winner.
The 2007 championship was won by Amar Diokh of Senegal
who beat Frenchman Edouard Lebeau two games to nil in the final. The tournament was played over 14 games with a best of three final on the final day.
Seven players players have won the individual duplicate world title more than once:
The records for the most wins at the following championships are
At least four competitors from the Francophone championship have competed in the English language
World Scrabble Championship
; Antonin Michel
, Hervé Bohbot
, Dan Laurentiu Sandu and Robert Springer.
Scrabble
Scrabble is a word game in which two to four players score points by forming words from individual lettered tiles on a game board marked with a 15-by-15 grid. The words are formed across and down in crossword fashion and must appear in a standard dictionary. Official reference works provide a list...
, 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
Scrabble letter distributions
Many editions of the word board game Scrabble vary in the letter distribution of the tiles, because the frequency of each letter of the alphabet is different for every language...
- 100 lettered tiles and two blanks known as jokers. The official word list for Francophone Scrabble is L'Officiel du jeu Scrabble
L'Officiel du jeu Scrabble
L'Officiel du jeu Scrabble has been the official dictionary for Francophone Scrabble since January 1, 1990. It is published by Larousse and is often abbreviated to ODS...
.
Forms of play
Duplicate Scrabble
Duplicate Scrabble is a variant of the board game Scrabble where all the players are faced with the same board and letters at the same time and must play the highest scoring word they can find. Although duplicate is rarely played at competition level in English, it is the most popular form of the...
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 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 vowelVowelIn phonetics, a vowel is a sound in spoken language, such as English ah! or oh! , pronounced with an open vocal tract so that there is no build-up of air pressure at any point above the glottis. This contrasts with consonants, such as English sh! , where there is a constriction or closure at some...
and one consonantConsonantIn articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are , pronounced with the lips; , pronounced with the front of the tongue; , pronounced with the back of the tongue; , pronounced in the throat; and ,...
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 blankBlankBlank may refer to:*Blank, a space where there is nothing at all.*Blank , a thick, shaped stone biface of suitable size and configuration for refining into a stone tool...
are counted as both a vowel and a consonant.
The World Championship
The French Language World Championship or le championnat du monde de Scrabble francophone uses the duplicateDuplicate Scrabble
Duplicate Scrabble is a variant of the board game Scrabble where all the players are faced with the same board and letters at the same time and must play the highest scoring word they can find. Although duplicate is rarely played at competition level in English, it is the most popular form of the...
format and has been held every year since 1972. Two players have won the World Championship five times; Michel Duguet
Michel Duguet
Michel Duguet is a French Scrabble player who won the French World Scrabble Championships five times during the 1980s. His record of five world titles has never been broken, but has been equalled by Christian Pierre during the 1990s...
and Christian Pierre
Christian Pierre
Christine Pierre is a Belgian Scrabble player who has won the French World Scrabble Championships five times, equalling the record of Michel Duguet who won the competition five times in the 1980s while Pierre won all five of his titles in the 1990s...
. The current World Champion (2007) is Antonin Michel
Antonin Michel
Antonin Michel Is a French Language Scrabble player who has also competed in English. He has won the French National Championship four times, the World Championship twice and finished 95th in the 1999 English World Championship.-Career Biography:...
of France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan 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.
At The French World Championships, more than one title is distributed. There are 5 age categories; cadet (younger than 16) junior (16-18), senior (all players) vermeil (60-69) and diamant (70+). There is an official winner of each age category with the winner of the senior category being the overall world champion. There are also multiple tournaments; duplicate, duplicate pairs, duplicate blitz (60 seconds per move) and a matchplay Scrabble world cup. The match play Scrabble world cup event was introduced in 2006, won by Parfait Mouanda of the Republic of the Congo
Republic of the Congo
The Republic of the Congo , sometimes known locally as Congo-Brazzaville, is a state in Central Africa. It is bordered by Gabon, Cameroon, the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo , the Angolan exclave province of Cabinda, and the Gulf of Guinea.The region was dominated by...
. The competition was played over 3 days and 12 games, with the two finalists playing a best of three series to decide a winner.
The 2007 championship was won by Amar Diokh of Senegal
Senegal
Senegal , officially the Republic of Senegal , is a country in western Africa. It owes its name to the Sénégal River that borders it to the east and north...
who beat Frenchman Edouard Lebeau two games to nil in the final. The tournament was played over 14 games with a best of three final on the final day.
Notable players
- Marc Selis (1974, 1976)
- Benjamin Hannuna (1979, 1984)
- Michel DuguetMichel DuguetMichel Duguet is a French Scrabble player who won the French World Scrabble Championships five times during the 1980s. His record of five world titles has never been broken, but has been equalled by Christian Pierre during the 1990s...
(1982, 1983, 1985, 1987, 1988) - Christian PierreChristian PierreChristine Pierre is a Belgian Scrabble player who has won the French World Scrabble Championships five times, equalling the record of Michel Duguet who won the competition five times in the 1980s while Pierre won all five of his titles in the 1990s...
(1991, 1992, 1994, 1996, 1998) - Emmanuel Rivalan (1993, 1999)
- Jean-Pierre Hellebaut (2002, 2003)
- Antonin MichelAntonin MichelAntonin Michel Is a French Language Scrabble player who has also competed in English. He has won the French National Championship four times, the World Championship twice and finished 95th in the 1999 English World Championship.-Career Biography:...
(2005, 2007)
The records for the most wins at the following championships are
- Blitz world championship: Antonin Michel (4 wins)
- Pairs world championship: Michel Duguet (5 wins)
- French national championship
- French duplicate championship: Michel Duguet (6 wins)
- French matchplay championship: Pierre Olivier-Georget (3 wins)
- French duplicate blitz championship: Antonin Michel (5 wins)
- French duplicate pairs championship: Jean-François Lachaud (5 wins)
- Belgian national championship: Christian Pierre (14 wins)
- Swiss national championship: Véronique Keim (5 wins)
- Tunisian national championship: Abderrazak Ouarda (14 wins)
- QuebecQuebecQuebec or is a province in east-central Canada. It is the only Canadian province with a predominantly French-speaking population and the only one whose sole official language is French at the provincial level....
national championship: Germain Boulianne (8 wins)
At least four competitors from the Francophone championship have competed in the English language
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
World Scrabble Championship
World Scrabble Championship
The World Scrabble Championship is the most prestigious title in competitive English-language Scrabble. It has been held every second year since 1991. The current World Scrabble Champion is Nigel Richards...
; Antonin Michel
Antonin Michel
Antonin Michel Is a French Language Scrabble player who has also competed in English. He has won the French National Championship four times, the World Championship twice and finished 95th in the 1999 English World Championship.-Career Biography:...
, Hervé Bohbot
Hervé Bohbot
Herve Bohbot is a French Scrabble player who competes annually in both French and English language Scrabble competitions. He is also an administrator on the online Scrabble site Internet Scrabble Club, the president of the French matchplay Scrabble committee and an official on the International...
, Dan Laurentiu Sandu and Robert Springer.