3
THE HIGHEST ONE-MOVE SCRABBLE SCORE
A. ROSS ECKLER
Morristown. New Jersey
The November 1972 issue of Word Ways reported that the British
monthly magazine Garnes & Puzzles had just launched a year-long
search among its readers for the highest possible single-move score
in the game of Scrabble. As an incentive. the editor s of the magazine
offered two prizes: 5 pounds sterling to be awarded at the middle of
every month to the highest Scrabble score received since the beginning
of the conte st, and 100 pounds sterling to be awarded to the fir st Scrab­
ble score to exceed a single-move score devised by Darryl Francis
(the value of this score, however, was not revealed) •
With a total of 160 pounds to be won, interest in the contest was
very high; Garnes & Puzzles was flooded with entries. The fir st month
saw a solution scoring 1700 points ,. but it was not until the tenth month
that Ron E. Jerome of Bracknell, Berkshire won the 100 pounds by ex­
ceeding the secret Garnes & Puzzles score of 1935 by ten points. In
the eleventh month, W. E. R. Bone (apparently a pseudonym for a group
in the Department of Pure Mathematic s at Cambridge Univer sity)
raised the score to 1949 points; this score was tqe highest one re­
ceived when the contest ended a month later.
The Bone solution. achieved by placing B, Z, X, Y, C, Hand S in
the word BENZOXYCAMPHORS, is detailed below:
P
S
E
Q U A
0
E U
T T I
N D E
A I
D
V
J
I
N
N
Y
R
L
E
I
W E
E
0
R E
B
B
E
R*N
E Z
M*O
V 0 X
F o G G E R Y
R M A N I A C
A
T U G
A
I
L I M
S
E
P
E R A N D A H
T 0
R
C K S HAW S
D
0
T
0
F
U
Letter s marked with an asterisk are represented by the two blank
Scrabble tiles. The moves leading up to this were as follows:
1. ie 2. squander 3. squandermania 4. etna 5. eu, ou 6. ai, did
4
7. fraise, if 8. veigled 9. at, nu, tug 10. ea, gat, gnu, om, outdid,
pettifogger, pu, ra 11. lim 12. amp 13. remora, vo. 14. mo
15. free 16. oe, orn 17. tofu 18. dote 19. we, web 20. en 21. ver­ anda 22. at, to 23. or 24. vlei 25. rickshaw 26. jinnyrickshaw
27. benzoxycamphor s, freez, jinnyrickshaws, pettifoggery, squander­
maniac, verandah, vox, webb
The rules of the conte st stipulated that allowable words had to be
listed in either Webster ' s Third, Webster 1 s Second, or the Oxford
English Dictionary; in addition, plural forms of nouns listed and in­
flected forms (ending in -ED, -ING or -S) of verbs listed were allowed.
No proper names, hyphenated words, or apostrophized words were al­
lowed. This led to the rejection of the plausible word SESQUIOXIDI­
ZING, used by several reader s to achieve score s of more than 2000
points. The verb SESQUIOXIDIZE doe s not appear in any of the se dic­
tionarie s, although the OED lists the past participle SESQUIOXIDIZED.
Darryl Francis wrote to Merriam- Webster to find whether or not SES­
QUIOXIDIZE might have appeared in certain printings of Webster! s
Seconq.; they replied that the word had been considered for entry in
the 1934 edition but had too few citations.
Nevertheless, Word Ways readers may be interested in seeing the
highest Scrabble score using this word, a 2037-point solution devised
by Josefa Heifetz of Mill Valley, California. Parenthetically, it is
worth noting that Josefa is the one who started the whole high- scoring­
single-Scrabble-move business in 1967, when a move of 1175 points
devised by her was published in Dmitri Borgmann's Beyond Language
(Scribner 1 s, 1967). Unpublished efforts go back even earlier; Prince
Djoli Kansil of Hawaii devised a l413-point solution in 1961. The Hei­
fetz solution, achieved by placing S, Q, u, X, I, Z and G in SESQUI­
OXIDIZING, is detailed below:
S E S
J A
A T
M
E
B E A
0
K
Q U
U P
E E
R N
R D
Y*E
D
I
0 X I
R A T
N
R
I
N
G
I
T
H
0
P
H
Y E
L
L
I
T
E
2. year
3. phyllite
4. arf
5. ace
6. few
7. wem
8. mica
9. oologic, if 110 . sleet 11. astronomical 12. astronomically
13. dao, as
14. bot, bas
15. it, in
16. anthophyllite
During tl
Scrabble sc
of the Guim:
A detailE
by Games &
ber 1972 We
player ' s ha
a fifteen-Iel
are placed i
of the word
the perpend
The choi
the choice c
forming the
words typic
po sitions fa
one or both
Z. X, J or
the Winning
GAPOPHYS
multiplicati
great leap f
with 62 poir
more is PS'
By exam
perpendicul
the above se
to the basic
1 674 (the IT
Earlier in t
add 324 poil
her task of
easier with
that it woul<
prove eithel
I Z I N G
B 0 T
A
D A 0
S
S L*E E T
R
0
G
0
I F
N
A C E
0
A R
W E M
F
I
C
A
L
L
Y
D
The moves leading up to this were as follows:
1. hyll
18. it, id 1
24. uer ry.
at 28. eat,
lite. ibas, :
17. rat
5
n, outdid,
mo
n 21. ver­
:kshaw
squander-
lad to be
Oxford
land inere allowed.
ls were a1­
LJIOXIDILan 2000
these dic­
OXIDIZED.
,r not SES­
bster 1 s
'ntry in
seeing the
n devi sed
y, itis
h- scoring­
5 points
Language
er; Prince
The Hei­
SESQUI­
18. it, id 19. io, or 20. drip 21. pended 22. beard 23. ea
24. uerry, up, ee, ern, ye 25. jambok 26. jamboking 27. ja, at,
at 28. eat, es 29, se squioxidizing, querry, upended, xanthophy1­
lite, ibas, zoologic, gastronomically
During the summer of 1973, the search for the highe st one-move
Scrabble sco re received additional recognition when the 20th edition
of the Guinne s s Book of Records added a section to deal with this topic.
A detailed examination of the various high- scoring solutions received
by Game s &- Puzzle s has confirmed the strategy outlined in the Novem­
ber 1972 Word Ways. In all solutions, seven tiles from the Scrabble
player's hand are added to eight letter s already on the board to form
a fifteen-letter word along the board edge; five of the se seven tile s
are placed in the first, fourth, eighth, twelfth and fifteenth positions
of the word, In addition, these seven tiles complete seven words in
the perpendicular direction, all as long as possible,
The choice of a suitable fifteen-letter word is far more crucial than
the choice of the seven words perpendicular to it; the value of the tile s
forming the fifteen-letter word is multiplied by 27, but the other seven
words typically add only 275 to 325 points. Since the fourth and twelfth
positions fall on double-letter-value squares, it is important to have
one or both of these letters represented by high-scoring t~les such as
Z, X, J or Q. During the first eight months of the Scrabble contest,
the winning fifteen-letter words were PHENYLHYDRAZIDE, PREZY­
GAPOPHYSIS and DIAZOHYDROXIDES, each worth 51 points before
multiplication; BENZ,OXYCAMPHORS, at 59 points, represented a
great leap forward, but it in turn was eclipsed by SESQUIOXIDIZING
with 62 points. (The (;m1y other known Scrabble word of 50 points or
more is PSYCHOANAL YZERS. )
By examining the variation in the scores achieved with the ~even
perpendicular words, one can speculate on the likelihood of either of
the above solutions being bettered. The Bone solution adds 306 points
to the basic 1593, and the Heifetz solution adds 313 points to the basic
1674 (the missing 50 points in both solutions is the seven-tile bonus) .
Earlier in the year, one Game s &- Puzzle s conte st winner was able to
add 324 points to her basic solution; however, it should be noted that
her task of finding perpendicular words may have been made a bit
easier with the terminal letters D, A, Z, Y, D, I and S. My guess is
that it would be extraordinarily difficult, perhaps impos sible, to im­
prove either solution by as much as ten points.
8. mica
1y
at