One Up! is the ultimate mind game - it's not only faster and harder than Scrabble, it's also way more exciting than memorizing the dictionary. Seriously, do you think you have enough intellectual soup in the kitchen, so-to-speak, to whip out the biggest words and win?

Price: $15

How to One Up!

We've gotten several emails that have asked us to clarify certain rules, or ask What if...? and Can you...? so we're going to expand on the too-succinct (it seems) instructions printed on the can.

To start, place all the tiles face down in the center of the table. Randomly-chosen first player turns over 3 tiles, and if a word can be formed, anyone can shout it out. For example, let's say the letters R, T, and A are turned over. Someone shouts out ART, and then takes the letters and places the word face up in front of him. If a word cannot be formed from the first 3 letters, players take turns flipping over one tile at a time until a word can be formed and is shouted out. It usually doesn't take more than 4 or 5 flipped-over letters to make a word.

Words can then be formed in 2 ways - by using 3 or more letters from the center, as discussed above, OR by adding one or more letters to any existing word that changes its core meaning. Your ART can become someone else's TRAM if an M is flipped over and he shouts it out first, but it can't be made into ARTIST because the root is the same. TRAM then becomes his word, which can then be grabbed back by you (or anyone else) to make SMART if an S turns up and you call out first.

All words are in play at all times, and you can even expand on your own words. However, if you add a letter or letters to make a new word, you must use all the letters from the original word. RETARD can't be made into RETARDED by adding an ED because it doesn't change the meaning, nor can it be made into DARTED by adding a D and discarding an R. But it can become STARRED by adding an S, because it's a completely different word.

No proper nouns, abbreviations or contractions are allowed, but you can decide which slang words are acceptable in your house. Use sound judgment, and good sportsmanship at all times, of course, especially when 2 players shout out the same word at the same time.

Once all the letters in the center are turned over and no more words can be formed, players count their scores. There are usually a few letters left over in the center, which are not counted (or discounted). First letter of each word is removed, and the remaining tiles are tallied, 1 point for each, except the "Uppity" tile which is worth 4 points. Highest score wins.

House Rules Rule

First and foremost, follow the instructions. But creativity and a level playing field are sometimes just as important. At our house, we have our own variations that make it fairer for all of us to play together - we let the kids (ages 10, 9, 8) make any words; my wife can only make 4 letter words (which she's really good at!); and I can only make 5 letter words or longer. Piece of cake.

We've heard from 2 different people saying they subtract the first 2 letters of each word when adding up the score (instead of one), which gives even more weight to superior thinking ability. An old friend of ours who is always flying back and forth between L.A. and New York for business tells us that he has 5-minute speed games before meetings, or on the set between takes, and it really gets everyone's synapses fired up. The too-cool-for-schoolers who used to be late or were bent gaga over their Blackberrys all the time, he tells us now actually show up early and eager to sharpen their wits!

A League of Their Own

We received this email from Bob Gillis, author of Bob's Bible (a Scrabble word reference guide) and member of the National Scrabble Association's dictionary committee, and realized what we always suspected was true is true - we're complete amateurs:

Mr. Write,

This is essentially the after hours game of choice at Scrabble tournaments. We take two (or more) sets of Scrabble Tiles and place them face down, mix and everyone slides some near themselves.

Typical minimum is 7 letters though intermediate players may play 5.

Our rules for "steals" has evolved a bit -- to steal a word, the new word must not contain the old word inside it (in order) even if you hypothetically remove letters. In other words, the word cannot be stolen if it is an extension or an insertion or combination thereof. Occasionally this eliminates a few fairly nice plays, but it makes a straightforward enforceable no-quibble rule.

We sometimes play with blanks as well, but they must be accompanied by two non blank letters and only used for steals of a length at least 3 longer than the word being stolen.

Our scoring is based on sum of squares... first we match like length words (since they cancel out) and the remaining are scored as the square of the word length. However, the winner is usually obvious and so must games are never scored.

I can remember seeing the 14 letter word tatterdemalion (aka ragamuffin) played at the 2008 Boston Area (Scrabble) Tournament by Frank Tangredi of NY. His brief account to the national scrabble email list:

"No, I'm not tooting my horn about winning the early bird, though that felt DAMN good. But on Saturday night, I made the best anagrams steal of my life - even better than KINDLIEST + F*.

David Wiegand had RETALIATE....

I stole it with DMNT... And the word was...

TATTERDEMALION."

It's pretty unbelievable how far certain players go in playing Anagrams. The top players are so good that it's impossible for most good scrabble players to even hold onto any words for the duration of a game.

Kudos to you for introducing it to a new group of players...

Bob Gillis

*Distelfink n. A traditional Pennsylvania Dutch folk art motif of a bird or birds symbolizing good luck and happiness.

In the beginning was the word (game)...

There's nothing new under the sun, just rehash. But that doesn't mean rehash can't be breathtakingly original, and new. We'd like to think ours is. But we're also students of history, and want to know where things come, and how they got from there to here. For a comprehensive and in-depth look at word games down through the ages and around the world, check out Steffan O'Sullivan and Graham Toal's excellent Letter-by-Letter Word Games.