Taxes Hold Me is a game played with SCRABBLE® equipment that combines aspects of SCRABBLE with the poker game Texas Hold'em.  Originally, the game was conceived as an anagramming contest, in which each player drew two hole tiles from a tile bag, and then a flop, turn, and river of 3, 1, and 1 tiles, respectively, were drawn from the bag as community tiles.  Each player then tried to make the highest scoring word possible with their 2 hole tiles plus the 5 community tiles.  In this original version of the game, all of the tiles were returned to the bag at the end of the hand, so that each turn proceeded much like the opening turn of a SCRABBLE game.

A small group of Northeast Ohio SCRABBLE players who also enjoy Texas Hold Em have expanded upon the concept.  The brainchild of Dan Stock is called "Elyria Rules Taxes Hold Me." Taxes Hold Me is an anagram of Texas Hold'em, of course, and Elyria is the location of the tourney where the first multiple-table tourney of this game was played (the Purple and Green tourney in March 2008).

Elyria Rules Taxes Hold Me uses a SCRABBLE board, and each successive winning play is placed on the board (with certain exceptions), altering both the tile distribution and the available plays for future hands.  In order to balance inequities in playing ability among players of various skill levels, the game analysis software Quackle is used to determine the highest scoring play for each player who stays in to the end of the hand.

For more details, please download the full rules at right.