Scrabble - Records

Records

The following records were achieved during competitive club or tournament play, according to authoritative sources, including the book Everything Scrabble by Joe Edley and John D. Williams, Jr. (revised edition, Pocket Books, 2001) and the Scrabble FAQ. When available, separate records are listed based upon different official word lists:

1. OSPD or OTCWL, the North American list also used in Thailand and Israel;
2. OSW, formerly the official list in the UK;
3. SOWPODS, the combined OSPD+OSW now used in much of the world, known today as Collins Scrabble Words. To date, new editions or revisions of these lists have not been considered substantial enough to warrant separate record-keeping.

• High game (OSPD) – 830 by Michael Cresta (Mass.), at the Lexington (Mass.) club, October 12, 2006. Cresta defeated Wayne Yorra 830-490.
• High game (OSPD) in a tournament game - 803 by Joel Sherman (N.Y.), at a tournament in Stamford, Conn., December 9, 2011. Sherman defeated Bradley Robbins 803-285. Sherman played a record-tying seven bingoes in that game and stuck Robbins with the Q.
• High game (OSW) – 793 by Peter Preston (UK), 1999.
• High game (SOWPODS) – Toh Weibin set a record score of 850 at the Northern Ireland Championships on 21 January 2012. The winning margin of 591 points is also believed to be a record.
• High combined score (OSPD) – 1320 (830-490) by Michael Cresta and Wayne Yorra, in a Lexington, Mass., club, 2006.
• High combined score (OSPD) in a tournament game – 1134 (582-552) by Keith Smith (Tex.) and Stefan Rau (Conn.), Round 12 of the 2008 Dallas Open. (Rau's losing score of 552 included three phony words which were not challenged.)
• High combined score (OSPD) in a tournament game with no phony words played – 1127 (725-402) by Laurie Cohen (Ariz.) and Nigel Peltier (Wash.), in a tournament in Ahwatukee, Arizona, February 16, 2009.
• High combined score (SOWPODS) – 1157 (627-530) by Phillip Edwin-Mugisha (Uganda) and Vannitha Balasingam (Malaysia), at the 2009 World Scrabble Championship.
• Highest losing score (OSPD) – 552 by Stefan Rau (Conn.) to Keith Smith's (Tex.) 582, Round 12 of the 2008 Dallas Open.
• Highest tie game (OSPD) – 502-502 by John Chew and Zev Kaufman, at a 1997 Toronto Club tournament.
• Highest tie game (SOWPODS) – 522-522 by A Webb and N Deller, at the Peterborough Free Challenge Event 2009
• Highest opening move score (OSPD) – MuZJIKS (with a blank for the U) 126 by Jesse Inman (S.C.) at the National Scrabble Championship, 2008. The highest possible legal score on a first turn is MUZJIKS 128, using an actual U rather than a blank.
• Highest opening move score (SOWPODS) – BEZIQUE 124 by Sam Kantimathi (1993), Joan Rosenthal. BEZIQUE 124 by Sally Martin.
• Highest single play (OSPD) – QUIXOTRY 365 by Michael Cresta (Mass.), 2006.
• Highest single play (SOWPODS) – CAZIQUES 392 by Karl Khoshnaw.
• Highest average score, multi-day tournament (OSPD) – 484 by Doug Brockmeier (N.Y.) over 12 rounds at Elmhurst, Ill., 2011. 471 by Chris Cree (Tex.) over 18 rounds at the Bayou Bash in Houston, Tex., 2007.
• Highest average score, multi-day tournament (SOWPODS) – 499.94 by Nigel Richards (MY) over 16 rounds at the 7th Lim Boon Heng Cup, Singapore, 2009.

Two other records are believed to have been achieved under a British format known as the "high score rule", in which a player's tournament result is determined only by the player's own scores, and not by the differentials between that player's scores and the opponents'. Play in this system "encourages elaborate setups often independently mined by the two players", and is significantly different from the standard game in which defensive considerations play a major role. While the "high score" rule has led to impressively high records, it is currently out of favor.

• High game score of 1,049 by Phil Appleby of Lymington, Hampshire, UK, on June 25, 1989 in Wormley, Hertfordshire, UK. his opponent scored just 253 points, giving Appleby a record victory margin of 796 points.
• High single-turn score of 392, by Dr. Saladin Karl Khoshnaw in Manchester, UK, in April 1982. The word he used was CAZIQUES, meaning "native chiefs of West Indian aborigines".

Hypothetical scores in possible and legal but highly unlikely plays and games are far higher, primarily through the use of words that cover three triple-word-score squares. The highest reported score for a single play is 1780 (OSPD) and 1785 (SOWPODS) using oxyphenbutazone. When only adding the word sesquioxidizing to these official lists, one could theoretically score 2015 (OSPD) and 2044 (SOWPODS) points in a single move. The highest reported combined score for a theoretical game is 3,986 points using OSPD words only.

In August 1984, Peter Finan and Neil Smith played Scrabble for 153 hours at St. Anselm's College, Birkenhead, Merseyside, setting a new duration record. A longer record was never recorded by Guinness Book of Records, as the publishers decided that duration records of this nature were becoming too dangerous, and stopped accepting them.