Anagrams

Anagrams is a game where players reveal letter tiles one at a time, claiming any word as soon as they can make it. Once a word is in front of someone, other players may steal it by making an anagram of it which introduces other letters from the pool.

Reimplemented as Snatch and Scrabble Scoring Anagrams. Published during the same time frame as the 1877 Word Making and Taking. A version of this game using the word “anagram” in its title was published by Thomas Whittaker in New York on or before 1875 and was called “The Game of Anagrams”. With Parker Brothers and McLoughlin Brothers both releasing Anagrams games in 1890, this likely reflects the expiry of the 17 year patent period that existed at the time.

Many editions of the game have been sold and exact rules vary, but one version runs as follows:

The players shuffle the letters in the "pool" thoroughly. Each player, in turn, draws a letter tile from the pool and places it face up on the table. These letters are available to all players on their turn.

Before starting play it should be decided that either 3-letter, 4-letter or 5-letter words are to be established as the basis of play.

Then the first player draws a letter from the pool. Keeping it hidden, he tries to form one word of 2 or more letters with the letter in his hand and with at least one or more of those letters face up on the table. He may also form the word with only the face up letters and not use the letter in his hand. Whenever a player forms a word, his turn ends.