Anagrams, Snatch, Snatch-words, or Grabscrab is a board-free word game that involves rearranging letter tiles to form words.

The game pieces consist of a set of tiles with letters on them. Tiles are turned over one by one, and players form words by combining unused tiles with existing words, their own or others'. The game has never been standardized and there exist a great many varieties of sets and rules. Anagrams is now often played with tiles from another word game, such as Scrabble.

History

Reputed to have originated as a Victorian word game, Anagrams have appeared in many published versions in the last century. The first modern version seems to have been the game Anagrams published in 1934 by the manufacturer Selchow and Righter, who would later publish Scrabble in 1953. Spelling and Anagrams (a set incorporating two distinct games, Spelling and Anagrams) was also published in the 1930s. In 1975, Selchow published the Scrabble Scoring Anagrams version which featured tiles with point values similar to the familiar Scrabble system. Another version was published in the 1960s by the now defunct Transogram. The Embossing Company also produced a yellow-on-black Eye-Rest set. Many other versions have been produced and used sets can still be found on internet auction and specialty sites. A variation called Up For Grabs was published by Tyco in 1995. Portobello Games produces it under the name Snatch. Prodijeux has been marketing a variant called wordXchange since 2000 . Many players use several Scrabble or Upwords sets together.

A version of the game seems to be popular among tournament Scrabble players. Writers John Ciardi, James Merrill, John Malcolm Brinnin, and Richard Wilbur reputedly played together regularly in Key West, Florida, with novelist John Hersey also sometimes sitting in.

Rules and variations

There has never been a standardized set of rules, and players now often play by house rules, but most are variants of the rules given here.

To begin, all the tiles are placed face down in the middle of the table. Taking turns around the table, each player turns over one tile, placing it in clear view of all players.

Another variation is to have each player have a "bank" of tiles in front of themselves, which affords players a clearer view of the "pool" of face-up letter tiles in the middle of the table.

Whenever a player can form a word with the tiles in the middle of the table, possibly combined with words that he or another player has already formed, he calls out the word and uses those tiles to spell it out in front of him. If two players call out words simultaneously, the longer word prevails. If two players call out the SAME word simultaneously, those two players each turn a new tile face up, and the player whose letter is closest to "A" wins the word (the "tie-breaker" tiles are flipped back over and remixed with the other face-down tiles).

All words must be at least four letters long, or three in some rules. Tournament Scrabble players often play with a minimum word length of six or seven.

The minimum acceptable word length can be adjusted to a player's skill level (for example, in a game with adults and children playing together, the children may be permitted to form four-letter words, while the adults are restricted to words of at least five or six letters).

New words cannot be mere plurals of existing words; some rules require that the new word change the root of the old, thus allowing APPEAR to become PARAPET (+T), but not APPEARED (+E+D) or REAPPEAR (+E+R). A player may modify his own words, subject to the same rule.

Some versions only allow players to make or steal words on their turn (this slows down play).

End of game and scoring

The game ends when all tiles are face-up and no one can create or steal any more words.

There are various scoring systems:

• Simple letter count. The most tiles win.
• Simple word count. The most words win.
• Add letter point values, using Scrabble letter values.
• Remove one or two letters from each word and count the remaining tiles, rewarding longer words.
• Sum of the squares of the lengths of the words, rewarding long words more.

Variations

A host of variations come from both different versions and players' house rules. (There does not seem to be anything close to a comprehensive (or even representative) list of these on the internet.)

The "Fanagrams" variation

The rules from The Embossing Company set refer to variations by players who "have developed an interesting test of mental alertness and a highly exciting form of competition" by eliminating turns. Instead of taking turns, a dealer deals letters in and any player may call out a word. (Players may also choose to form teams.) The result, as the game's official rules note, is that it "very often happens that a quick witted player alone may defeat several others."

• An even faster-paced version of these rules -- known to some as "Alaskan rules" -- has each of the players (or perhaps several, if there are too many) simultaneously turn their tiles into the pool. This results in many more possibilities being available at a time.

Miscellaneous variations

• Players may not create a word by creating a word that is already on the table or steal one resulting in such a word.
• Some versions of the game name the winner as the person who, after the round of turns has finished, first acquires eight words. (Ten words in The Embossing Company version.) If more than one player has done so, then the winner is the player is the one with the most tiles. There may be a tie. (See also Tom Jukic's review of Anagrams on boardgamegeek.com).
• A very similar rule found in The Embossing Company set simply says the "first player to complete ten words, wins."

• Players are permitted to combine two or more existing words with zero or more letters from the pot to create a single new word, although this is often difficult in practice.

Letter distribution

Though there are many variants, one standard letter distribution of 188 letters (given in the Rust Hills article) is as follows:

A	B	C	D	E	F	G	H	I	J	K	L	M	N	O	P	Q	R	S	T	U	V	W	X	Y	Z
13	5	6	7	24	6	7	6	12	2	2	8	8	11	15	4	2	12	10	10	6	2	4	2	2	2

A variant with 220 letters:

A	B	C	D	E	F	G	H	I	J	K	L	M	N	O	P	Q	R	S	T	U	V	W	X	Y	Z
14	6	6	8	20	6	8	10	14	4	4	8	8	12	14	6	4	12	12	14	10	4	8	2	4	2

The distribution of 180 letters for Scrabble Scoring Anagrams (according to a review on funagain.com):

A	B	C	D	E	F	G	H	I	J	K	L	M	N	O	P	Q	R	S	T	U	V	W	X	Y	Z
16	4	4	8	22	4	6	6	14	2	2	8	4	10	14	4	2	12	8	10	8	2	2	2	4	2

References

External links

• www.gtoal.com's "Letter-by-Letter Word Games FAQ"
• www.gtoal.com's large collection images of various Anagrams sets and other wordgames.
• "Anagrams" by Michael Schreiber, The Wolfram Demonstrations Project, 2007. A computer model of anagrams.