Most of you know about the long-running dictionary controversy: NASPA and Merriam-Webster publish the “NASPA Word List” (NWL), which is used in the US, Canada, and Israel. The rest of the English-language Scrabble world uses the “Collins Scrabble Words” (CSW or Collins) list. Collins is a superset of NWL[1], with about 30% more words. For many years, there has been a contingent of North American players who prefer Collins and would like it to become the single worldwide English-language word list. Another adamant contingent wishes to keep NWL the way it is. This is causing schisms within the Scrabble community.
As a compromise, NASPA has made Collins an officially sactioned option. Tournaments may have Collins divisions, and clubs may permit Collins games. In our club, Collins is permissible as long as both players agree to it.
Another difference in Collins is the challenge rule. As with NWL, if a word is challenged and found to be unacceptable, the play comes off the board and the challengee loses their turn. However, if a challenged word is acceptable, the challengee gets a 5-point bonus[2] but the challenger does not lose their next turn. This “5-point challenge” rule makes challenging less risky, reducing the “poker” aspect of the game.
Aside from the poker aspect, I, an extreme mid-level player, switched primarily because the additional short words make getting “unstuck” much easier. For example, there are 20 additional twos at your disposal[3]:
CH DI EA EE FY GU IO JA KO KY NY OB OO OU ST UG UR YU ZE ZO
The biggest arguments against Collins are that you have 30% more words to learn, and if you’re a dual-dictionary player, you have to remember which Collins words are not acceptable in NWL. I personally don’t find either of these to be especially difficult to deal with.
There is a perception that Collins players are all experts, so why switch to Collins just to get your head handed to you? That perception is true to an extent[4], but the best way to get more novices and intermediates to play Collins is for more novices and Intermediates to play Collins, until there are enough players for multiple Collins divisions at tournaments.
If you’re curious about trying Collins, and you’re an experienced NWL player, we have a CSW cheat sheet under Player Resources which you can use your first few times. If you’re new to club and tournament Scrabble, you can start with the CSW cheat sheet instead of the NWL cheat sheet, and play Collins from the get-go.
Think about giving it a shot the next time you come to club!
[1] Changes to NWL can take time to be officially reflected in CSW, but except for those periods, CSW is a proper superset of NWL.
[2] That’s five points per challenged word, not for the whole play.
[3] CH# is particularly useful since there are no NWL 2s containing a C.
[4] Many Collins players in tournaments are experts, but there is a large contingent of immigrant players at a wide range of skill levels who have never played anything but Collins.
