Scrabble

Query; what are the chances that in the history of the game that a Scrabble board has been repeated exactly, at least once?

A Google search later and some mathematician has figured out that it’s one over a number greater than all the atoms in the universe. That is, effectively zero.

But then my hero steps in:

“The chances are 100%, because it’s happened.

I was a club/tournament Scrabble player for a few years.  Tournament play often involves unusual words, some of which are hard to extend or play through.  Tournament play also has a rule that if both players score zero for three consecutive turns (by passing, exchanging tiles, or having a word challenged off the board), the game ends, regardless of how many tiles remain.

Now consider the following game: 

I open by playing XU (a unit of currency in Vietnam), with the U on the center star, scoring 18 points.

You respond by playing UH (as in “uh, I’m thinking”) directly under my word, scoring 21 (accounting for the double-letter score on the U).

The board now looks like this:

XU
UH

Neither of these words can be pluralized.  The only way I can play on this board is to either (a) hook a letter onto UH to make DUH or HUH (note: DUH was invalid prior to 2006) or (b) play through one of the words to make a longer word, most likely by extending XU into EXUDE, EXULT, or NEXUS.

But to do that, I need to have those tiles in my rack.  If I don’t, I have to exchange and hope I get them.  You’re winning by 3 points, so if you know the tournament rules and realize you have the advantage, you’re not going to play a word even if you can.  You’re just going to exchange tiles to lower the point value of your rack, thereby reducing the number of points you’re potentially stuck subtracting from your score.  So, essentially, I only have two chances to get playable tiles in my rack or the game ends and I lose — with 4 tiles played on the board.

This position has happened in actual club and tournament play more than once.”