Software plays an increasing role in organized SCRABBLE® activities.
NASPA's Web Committee offers web hosting space to software developers,
and works with them to develop standards. The Technology Committee evaluates software for use at tournaments and clubs.
Note: the Technology Committee does not evaluate or endorse the various study tools available, but has provided a list here for information purposes only.
Tournament and club software
Word judge (software self lookup)
NASPA recommends that tournaments and clubs use laptops running word adjudication software to process
challenges in competitive games. The following Software Self Lookup (SSL) programs were evaluated by the Technology Committee and are approved for use in club and tournament situations as noted below.
- Zyzzyva
- developed by Michael Thelen, is used at all major events, including the National SCRABBLE Championship, National School SCRABBLE Championship and Canadian National SCRABBLE Championship
- Requirements: Windows or MAC
- Acceptable for tournament and club play
- WHAT
- developed by Mike Wolfberg
- Requirements: Windows
- Acceptable for tournament and club play
- WordJudge
- developed by John Babina
- Requirements: Requires bootable floppy drive
- Acceptable for tournament and club play
- Lexpert (No longer available but previous versions exist)
- developed by M.G. Ravichandran
- Requirements: Windows, Windows CE
- Acceptable for club play only
Tournament management
Tournament management software assists the director in pairing players, recording game results, generating pairing reports and standings for printing, and generating final tournament data for submission to NASPA for rating of tournaments.
There is at least one popular software package not listed below, at the request of its publisher.
- tsh
- developed by John Chew, is used at all major events, including the National SCRABBLE Championship, National School SCRABBLE Championship and Canadian National SCRABBLE Championship. It has a very rich set of features, but most directors need some help at first learning to use it. tsh runs under OS/X, Linux, DOS and Windows.
- TMENU
- developed by RA Fontes, is also widely used in the United States but no longer distributed. TMENU requires DOS or Windows.
- TourneyMan
- developed by Jeff Widergren, formerly used at the National SCRABBLE Championship and still widely used in the United States. It has a limited set of features but is relatively easy to learn. TourneyMan requires Windows.
Study tools
Note: the Technology Committee does not evaluate or endorse the various study tools available, but has provided a list here for information purposes only.
Game analysis
- Quackle
- developed by Jason Katz-Brown and John O'Laughlin, is the strongest SCRABBLE playing program in the world. It is used by many players for training, and to analyze their games to improve their future play.
- Maven
- developed by Brian Sheppard, is also a strong program, but was withdrawn from the market when its rights were sold to Hasbro. Sheppard continues to develop the program, a branch of which was available briefly from Hasbro in CD-ROM form.
- ACBot
- developed by James Cherry, and used to provide game analyses to users of DOoM servers, is no longer available.
Anagramming and word lookup tools
- CHECKWORD
- app for the iPhone that anagrams letters to find words. Also has a word judge feature (that has not yet been authorized by the Technology Committee for offical use at tournaments or clubs).
- System: iPhone
- LAMPWords
- developed by Paul Sidorsky, runs on Palm devices. No longer actively being developed, it is still an excellent program to search for words for a given rack or set of tiles. Also has a word judge feature (that has not yet been authorized by the Technology Committee for offical use at tournaments or clubs).
- System: Palm
- Lexpert
- developed by M.G. Ravichandran, anagramming and study tools. No longer supported or easily available, but a Windows version is available at www.valuecube.com/lexpert.
- Systems: Windows, Windows CE (palm-pc)
- WHAT
- developed by Mike Wolfberg, Wolfberg's Helpful Anagramming Tool. Also authorized SSL word judge for tournaments and clubs.
- System: Windows
- Zyzzyva
- developed by Michael Thelen, allows a variety of word lookup methods, includes definitions, cardbox studying, quizzes, etc. Also authorized SSL word judge for tournaments and clubs.
- Systems supported: Windows, MAC, Linux, etc.
Dictionaries
- Franklin Electronic Dictionary
- available at Word Gear and other stores for approximately $50, allows lookup and definition of OSPD4 words. Use a password to unlock OWL2 words (no definitions for them). NOT authorized for word judging (no multiple work lookup and wordlist hasn't been verified).
- Dictionary: OSPD4/OWL2
- System: standalone device.
- RoadLingua
- application for Palm devices that allows upload of OSPD4 definitions (and OWL2 for words 8-letters or less). Free version interrupts with a registration pop-up every few lookups--pay $10 and that goes away.
- Dictionary: OSPD4/OWL2 (others available)
- System: Palm OS, Windows Mobile
- WeDict Pro
- app for iPhone devices that allows upload of OSPD4 definitions (and OWL2 for words 8-letters or less). Price $5.99 for app (OSPD4 dictionary available free). [It's little tricky to download. From inside WeDict Pro, you must click on Download Dictionaries, then Download from URL, and then TYPE in the url "http://app.weiphone.com/wedict/upload/files/TWL2-8.zip" (don't click on this link--that won't work). It might take a while and you might have to do it twice. Good luck.]
- Dictionary: OSPD4/OWL2 (others available)
- System: iPhone
- Zyzzyva
- Includes definitions along with word list and study tools.
- Dictionary: OSPD4/OWL2, OSW, ODS4
- Systems supported: Windows, MAC, Linux, etc.