A couple of nights ago I was playing Scrabble with the girl, and I got to play a word I have been wanting to play in the game for as long as I can remember! I’m so thrilled by this that I just had to blog about it.

The word is “PIZZAZ” and the reason I have always wanted to play it is the tough requirements – since there is only one Z in Scrabble, and the word has three Zs, you have to use the Z and both blank tiles (which can be any letter) to play it. An unlikely scenario.

So in the game a few nights ago, I got a blank tile early on. Then, amazingly, I got the second blank tile (there are only two in the set). I also had an A, which is a common tile. I resolved not to use these three tiles, in case the Z became available. Then, shortly afterward, I drew the Z! This was the first game I have ever played where I had the three required tiles.

I searched the board for a place where the word might go, and saw that there was an I where the word would fit, and a P could be placed to turn UP into PUP as a connecting word. So if I could just get a P then I would be set.

Now, the girl and I play a very competitive game of Scrabble. The board was already a mess and it was hard to play words on it. The girl expressed her frustration with the set up, and I concurred, which pretty much happens every game we play. I also told her that I was set up for playing a word I had always wanted to play my whole life, and was playing with that goal in mind.

And then, a miracle happened. After taking a long time trying to find a good play, the girl resigned herself to a simple turn. She put a P in place next to the I, to make PI and PUP. She had set up my perfect word.

Thank you, I said, and placed my Z, A and two blanks. I put the real Z next to the triple word score space just to be nice.

There it was! The word of a lifetime!

I seriously wonder if the girl played the P because she was hearing my thoughts, and subconsciously aligning with my intentions. She actually consciously helped me play another word once, in a different game. The word was SEQUOIA. In that game, I revealed to her what the word I was going for was, and she made a play to set me up for it. She is such a sweetie.

In the case of PIZZAZ, I did not reveal the word to her, so it was fortuitous that she played the P. But maybe she picked up on my desire subconsciously. I have blogged before about how our intentions can affect what we might expect to be a random outcome.

By the way, if you are wondering about the spelling of pizzaz, usually spelled pizzazz, with four Zs – it is an alternate spelling and it is in Hasbro’s official Scrabble dictionary. The spelling with four Zs would be impossible to play in a standard game of Scrabble, unless you had some truly remarkable mind-bending powers.

Here is the board at end of game. The final score was 287-287, a draw.

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This post was also published in modified form as a session report on BGG.