I was at the weekly meeting of the Toronto Scrabble Club.

What have I done?

I'll have to admit, I was a bit hesitant in going at first, mainly because I didn't know what kind of crowd to expect. I pictured two worst case scenarios: first, an almost senile senior citizen crowd, periodically coughing on their post-nasal drip and tripping on their varicose vein support stockings. You know, the kinds of people who would disrupt their pacemakers after getting a triple word score on the word "Quiz".

Second, I pictured an intensely literate, strategically motivated bunch of academics who would pull out words like, "suq" and "moa", giving me looks of disgust after playing words that netted only 10 points.

However, my cousin Ben, an avid Scrabble player, reassured me that I needn't worry as I was.

"I'm not going to lie - there's a bunch of people like that there, but mostly everyone is really nice and patient and they'll explain things to you."

Next thing you know, here I was. I had always been decent at Scrabble, and had amassed a strange vocabulary over the years that would probably suffice. It's not like I was there to set any records, after all.

Let's cue back to being in the strange building. I walked in and was promptly greeted by an affable, elderly man sitting at a folding table covered in multi-coloured slips of paper.

"Hi there, is this your first time here?" he asked me.

I smiled, nodded and introduced myself.

"I'm Barry, nice to meet you! I'll just need you to fill out your name on this piece of paper, and I'll pair you up with other players."

He handed me a pink scoring sheet, as well as a cheat sheet that had every two and three letter word combination possible.

"By the way, we've just added two new words - 'qi' and 'xi' - so try to use those tonight!" he told me enthusiastically.

Barry also added that I would only be able to use this cheat sheet for my first three visits of the Toronto Scrabble Club, and that I would have to memorize them for any subsequent visits.

Suddenly, a middle aged woman named Fern leaned into our conversation, and told me that she would explain everything to me. She herded me over to a table of other "new" people, told me to take a seat, and that she would return shortly.

The newbies

Sitting with me was the strangest combination of people I had ever seen. To my right was a man who could pass as a mad scientist - crazed eyes, calculator wristwatch, dark hair and matching Frida Kahlo-esque unibrow, and an extremely pointed chin. Across from me, was a rotund woman who could pass as Aunt Mimi from the Drew Carey Show - eye makeup, nightgowns, and all. And to my right, was a girl about my age, fairly normal, but however, was speaking to someone else at another table.

Not one to discriminate, I tried to strike up a conversation with the mad scientist.

"So... do you come here often?" I managed to utter.

"No." he said to me in a monotone voice.

"Is this your first time coming here?"

"No," he repeated robotically.

Stopping while I was ahead, I turned away, and decided that perhaps sitting there quietly wasn't such a bad idea after all. Just in the nick of time, Fern returned and began explaining the rules.

The rules

Again, she detailed the usage of the two-three letter word cheat sheet, repeating what the man at the front desk had mentioned earlier about it being applicable for the first three visits to the Toronto Scrabble Club.

"Oh and we just added 'qi' and 'xi' to the list too, they're great for when you have tight little spaces on the board," said Fern excitedly.

Since I was a first-timer, I was also informed that I would have as much time as I wanted during my turns. I could also challenge as many words of my opponent as I wanted, without being penalized. That is, if you didn't believe that what your opponent placed on the board was a word, you could type it into the Scrabble Dictionary computer to confirm its existence. If the response was negative, your opponent would lose their turn. Things were looking up!

Fern then described bonus words, which are words that tie into the overarching theme of the evening. For example, if the theme for an evening was "music", you would receive bonus points for words like "coda" or "beat".

Third, was the timer - Scrabble games are set up like chess games, and each person is allocated only 25 minutes to complete the game. There was also the rule of Bingo, that is, if all seven tiles on your rack make up a word (i.e. TALKING or PANTIES), you would call out "Bingo!" and add 100 points to your score. The bombardment of Scrabble Club customs and rules continued, and I was feeling just a little overwhelmed.

Round 1 - Fight!

After several club announcements by the director, who happened to be a math professor, I found myself paired off with a fellow named Frank Edelman. He was an older, conservative man with glasses, and looked like he would enjoy an evening in a wingback chair, reading a crime thriller. I hoped that he was more amiable than the mad scientist.

It was near impossible to locate an empty table, so we ended up moving someone's board and bags away from the table.

Several seconds later, a lady in a polyester tracksuit came over.

"Did you move my stuff? It was RIGHT here!" she said accusingly.

"Yes, I moved it because it was taking up all the space and we needed a place to play, it's over there," motioned Frank calmly.

As soon as Polyester Tracksuit moved out of earshot, Frank sighed.

"You've got to watch out - some people here can be quite testy about their stuff being moved. It's rather intense," he said.

I decided to move on to more pleasant topics.

"So, when did you join the club?" I asked him.

"Actually, just 8 months ago - but I've been playing for a long time. My wife doesn't like playing, and I got tired of playing against my cat," he said seriously.

"Is that right?" I say, laughing a little too loudly.

The woman who looked like Aunt Mimi shushed me loudly from the adjacent table.

"Be careful about being too loud," warned Frank in a whisper, "you've already seen that some people are a little more serious than you might think."

"Okay, "I whispered back, giving Aunt Mimi an evil eye in the process.

Meanwhile I noticed that Frank's board was unlike any board I had ever seen. For one, it was about one quarter the size of a normal board, and second, each of the tiles had a peg in them. It turned out that it was a board he purchased while on vacation in the UK in the 1970s, no longer available to the masses.

"It's really quite amazing, this board," he said, demonstrating that the tiles did not fall out despite flipping the board upside down.

"Actually, you'll notice that everyone here has their own custom-made board. When you came in, you probably noticed that everyone was carrying their boards in cymbal cases."

Suddenly it all clicked - those huge squares and circular shapes were cases for Scrabble Boards. The circular shapes were for custom made boards mounted on Lazy Susan type contraptions.

By the end of the game, Frank had clearly kicked my ass by almost 75 points. He handed in the score sheets, and next thing you know, we parted ways and I was paired with Arlene Kenny, a woman notorious for being the worst player in the club.

Round 2 - a win!

Arlene and I started off on a bit of a rough patch, as someone had moved all her things and she could not locate any of it.

"These big shots are always moving my things and putting them in a place where I can't find it!" she said exasperatingly. "Just who do they think they are?"

I sheepishly agreed with her, not disclosing the fact that I was a delinquent board mover that she so despised.

The game progressed slowly, mostly because I kept trying all the letter iterations on my rack to see where I could maximize my points. Arlene was clearly getting impatient with me, and I heard a lot of sighs radiating from her side of the table.

Things didn't get any better when I decided that I would challenge one of her words, "zens".

"From what I know, I don't think you can have a plural of 'zen'," I said.

"You should challenge it then," she said icily.

I walked up to the Scrabble Dictionary computer and she followed. I carefully typed it in, and lo and behold, it confirmed my hunch.

A couple of turns later, she placed on the board, "Adz". I gave it a puzzled look.

"You want to challenge that? It's a word, check your cheat sheet," she said with pride.

She wasn't lying. It was a word.

By the end of the game, it ended up being 290 to 188 for me, and Arlene was clearly not impressed. I took the sheets and handed them in so we could be properly paired off for the next found.

A couple minutes later, the club director said that he had an announcement.

"We have a new low score record for the evening, 188. Anyone with a score lower than that tonight, will win a prize!" he said.

That couldn't be good for anyone's self esteem.

Round 3 - Put in my place

For my final round of the evening, I was placed with Miriam Johnston, a stately old English lady. A senile one, she was not. I knew I was in for some trouble, after seeing her customized board on a Lazy Susan, customized Scrabble tile bag made with Scrabble pattern cloth, and unembossed letter tiles (Note: Seasoned players can "feel" what letters they're picking with embossed letter tiles, much like Braille.) Rumour had it that Miriam's husband was also one of the club's best players.

I tried to gauge my opponent further.

"So, do you ever play against your husband?" I asked her.

"No, I never play against him - he's too good!" she exclaimed.

I still didn't feel reassured in the slightest. Despite the feeling that I got that Miriam only played because her husband did, the fact still remained that she had been playing Scrabble longer than I had been alive. The game was long and perilous. She seemed to have some kind of natural propensity towards all of the 10 point letters and triple word scores. Finally, I saw a break, when she put down the word, "faining".

"Faining?" I asked her. "Are you sure that's a word?"

"Oh sure it is," she said, without flinching.

I gave her a suspicious glance.

"I'm going to have to challenge that," I told her.

My knowledge of the English language had not failed me, giving me an opportunity to catch up. I looked at my tiles and cursed my bad luck. Tiles be damned, all of them were vowels or one point letters. So much for a comeback! A couple moves later, the game ended up going into overtime with my constant pondering, but it was no surprise that Miriam won.

After the match finished, she and I shook hands, and we wished each other well.

"You should come again, the only way to improve is with practice," she said. "I've been playing for several decades now!" she said.

I told her I would try my best to make it to another meeting. On the drive home, I thought about different ways of getting a better score. Reading more to gain a larger vocabulary. Memorizing that list of two and three letter words and any word with the letters X, Z, and Q. Being able to feel out all the letters on the tiles. When I got home and did some more research, I was astounded to find out that I was only half right. Reading had nothing to do with being good at Scrabble. One of the world champions is Thai and barely speaks a word of English (he had memorized all the words in the Scrabble dictionary). The other champion is a Canadian, who is a mathematician. Apparently, the game of Scrabble, despite being focused on words, is actually at its highest level, a math game. In essence, the tiles and spots on the board are accessories.

With one of three games won, a cheat sheet in my hand, and not enough time on my hands to memorize thousands of strange words, I realized that the world of competitive Scrabble playing was a bit too intense for me. Perhaps limiting it to what I was used to, a couple friendly games during Christmas, might be a bit more realistic. Back to the drawing...errrr Scrabble board.

Note: To protect the identities of my opponents, I have changed their names slightly. Visit the Toronto Scrabble Club's website here.