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The Times quotes him as saying: “Games can be quite intense and there’s a lot going through one’s mind, let alone remembering to religiously ensure tile-drawing rules are followed meticulously.” I would say, “Yeah, Allan, but as a Scrabble dilettante and regular single-word-score loser, even I know that you’re not supposed to take a secret squint at your handful, decide that you’re all vowelled out and go back for a double dip.” However, I suspect that when the stakes are high and the pressure is mounting, even a professional might go to extremes simply to get out of the game and go home. Allan Simmons, the author of several Scrabble books, and the Times’ Scrabble correspondent, was accused of cheating after three independent witnesses said they saw Simmons returning freshly drawn tiles to the bag, and replacing them with new ones. So in some ways, I’m not surprised to learn that the Association of British Scrabble Players has banned one of its leading players following allegations of a serious misdemeanour.
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It has always astonished me that there are people in the world who are prepared to professionally devote themselves to board games, because, after growing up in a household in which every child had, at times, behaved like Steven Seagal in a pool hall, but with Scrabble tiles, I cannot comprehend the focus and calm that must be required to succeed in that world.
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I had five little sisters, and I knew that family board game sessions were a bad business, ending in tears, recriminations and someone trying to remember how to do the Heimlich manoeuvre because someone else had tried to eat seven plastic hotels and a small metal scotty dog. I knew the band was comprised of two couples who had split, and I had a spooky feeling that the split had been foretold by the single The Name of the Game, which had surely been inspired by countless group Ludo tournaments.
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