my own worst enemy

Take Two

Monday, November 12, 2007

Pangle introduced me to a sweet new game a while back called Take Two. Admittedly, Matty GP introduced her to it -- it was a game he and his 12 siblings played as kids. It cheap, easy to learn, and addicting as hell. Here's how you play:

What you need:

A set of Scrabble tiles (just the tiles, no board)
A flat playing surface, preferably a large table

How to play:

Start by laying all the tiles face down in the middle of the playing surface. Mix up the letters. Each player selects 7 tiles and places them face-down in the palm of their hand (don't look!). When each player has their tiles in hand, someone says "Go!" and everyone flips their hand over onto the table so the tiles are now face up.


The object is to form a crossword using all of your letters -- i.e., imagine you are playing Scrabble by yourself, positioning word after word, only you have to use all seven letters. All standard Scrabble rules apply. House rules generally dictate that the "Q" tile counts as "Qu" for the sake of player sanity, and the well-being of the player who gets all the "U" tiles.

The first person to use all seven letters yells "Take Two!" Every player then takes two more tiles, regardless of whether or not they finished using the first seven.


Now each player must use all nine tiles to form a new crossword. Players can build off the crossword they already built or rearrange any or all of the tiles to make a new one.


The first player to use all their tiles shouts "Take Two!". Every player again takes two more tiles. This continues until all of the Scrabble tiles in the center of the playing surface are gone.

If a player shouts "Take Two!" and there are no tiles left (or not enough for everyone to take two), then that player is the winner of the round. You can keep score of how many rounds each player wins, or just play for the fun of it.

The rounds are hectic and a little nerve-wracking, especially if you fall behind the person shouting "Take Two". Often times the winner of a round is different than the person who shouted "Take Two!" the most, so don't get flustered. Also, sometimes you have to be willing to abandon the words you already have to fit in the new letters. And even if you don't win one round, there's another one coming in a matter of minutes.

A group of us played last night for about two hours, and if it hadn't been for work today we would have played longer.

Labels: I'm a big nerd, Pangalicious, weekend

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