Face Book has a great Scrabble server, which, alas is not accessible from the United States or Canada…(unless you use a proxy server).

Now, as with any game, there is a difference between playing the game and winning. Those in the first category are quite pleasant and you’ll enjoy the time you spend. Those in the second category are best avoided.

There are various kinds of cheating. In Scrabble, looking up words in a dictionary is not cheating as the game itself has a two letter dictionary and a box where you can check spelling.

There are various apps which allow you to enter your letters and words will be supplied. This is kind of borderline cheating as you could, if you wanted spend awhile shuffling the letters around, come up with these words, at least some of them, as others are quite obscure.

Then there is an app where you enter your letters, and the letters on the board and the app tells you where to play.

Hence a dyslexic can be the top player as his little ‘helper’ prog is better than that of the guy with the Doctorate in English.

This is pretty much the kind of cheating of those who are not playing scrabble but playing Win.

In every game on line there are ‘cheat’ programs or ‘helpers’ which are computer against computer, you’re just there to enter your name. As my computer doesn’t need to be amused, but I do, I avoid the cheat programs.

It is not impossible to appreciate when the other player is using a cheat. The strange words, the odd positioning, and you are left with:

• a) get a cheat program to play against his/her cheat prog;
• b) quit
• c); drag it out

In the first, it’s kind of boring to do this, the second is sort of knee jerk, but if you’re smart and have chosen one of those 24 hour to move games, you get to play Torture the Cheat.

Most cheaters avoid long games, they want to play Win and get it over with as fast as possible. Playing “1 day to take a turn” games are usually safe from those playing Win, though occasionally you’ll get a live one.

Now here is this character with his cheat prog running at high speed. He gets on, sees the letters you’ve played, types them into his cheat prog, enters the letters he has, and the computer flings out the word and where he should play it.

Now you play, his computer responds, and you feel, something is strange here. So you take your time. Maybe you try to chat with the guy.

He doesn’t want to chat with you, he wants to play Win.

So when he texts; “Are you going to make your play?”

You text back: “Well, I’ve got 24 hours to play.”

He will forfeit the game.

Now you ponder how in the world can a guy whose life is based on ‘winning’, who cheats to win, can forfeit a game, which counts as a loss.

The fact is, this guy is not playing any game at all, he’s cheating to Win. He is so annoyed it will take so long to win he forgets his creed, and angry at you, makes that illogical action.

The mentality of cheaters will invariably provoke this response. He wants to ‘get it over with’. He believes he must Win and desires you just quit after he makes his first play so he can go on to play 100 games of Win and 0 games of Scrabble.

Torturing the cheater doesn’t stop him from cheating, it stops him from playing with you. Which is all you want.