Scrabble (game show) wild card contestants competed in semifinal matches on Monday through Thursday. The four winners advanced to the final matches that Friday, with a grand prize of $100,000 for the winner. With slight adjusting, this tournament format became the new permanent "Scrabble" format on December 29, 1986. As noted above, each episode now featured four contestants and two Crossword games worth $500 each. The champion played in the first Crossword, whose winner set a Sprint time for the second winner to beat, and the Sprint winner received $1,000 and took or retained the championship. With this format change, "Scrabble" became a
TV Scrabble screen and stylus and the tiles would fly out of the podiums onto a giant upright Scrabble board. Contestants scored points for the word they made but only the higher scoring word remained on the board to be played off for the next go. This would be played four or five times. The second round was Speed Scrabble. Each player was given a clean board and had just one minute to formulate as many words and score as high as they can. They would take their minutes in turn. The winner of the first game would do battle with the