Ok, so the wife has been laying the boots to me in Scrabble.
How can I kick her ass? Are there any good tips, tricks, or strategy I should employ?
We use the Official Scrabble Dictionary (2nd Edition) to settle disputes if that matters any.
A lot of it is practice and a very good vocabulary, plus the ability to see and unscramble lots of words and possibilities. But a few pointers:
Save your "S"s and if it is possible to make plural words off the ones on the board. The only time to use an S just to lengthen a word is when it’ll get you a double or triple word score or to use all seven letters for the 50 point bonus. The best play is to pluralize one word and then go down/across the board or to make a word with an S in it that will fit and have the plural created. Example (pluralizing S in bold, the hypens are just to get around the limitations of the software):
STATES
-------U
-------P
-------P
-------L
-------Y
This goes double if you can get a double or triple word bonus, and is even better if your opponent has left a space open for this right next to a triple word score.
Next, never leave a space open next to a double or triple word score. This is just asking for trouble. The only time to do so is if you are playing an unextendable or already plural word. For example, OXEN or FOXES would be a good play, while OX or FOX would not. Similarly for verbs, adverbs, and adjectives. SUPPLY is a good word, since the only way to extend it is to change it to SUPPLIES, which can’t happen, while RUN is a bad word because it can be changed to RUNS.
Third, try to control and/or block the word bonuses, especially the triple word score. If you can kill a triple word score, even if you have only one point letters, go ahead and do it. It’ll still come out to a decent score and now you’ve taken one away from your opponent.
Fourth, when the bag is out of tiles, try to play your highest-value letters first. If your opponent runs out of tiles first, what you have left is deducted from your score and added to his score. Far better to have an A, an E, and a T left than an X or a J or even a B or D.
When making words, look for what you have or almost have, and then look for a place on the board to put it. Don’t try to form a word around what’s already on the board.
That’s all I can think of for now. As I said, a lot of it is practice, some luck, and a good vocabulary.
All the above.
Also, try and memorise some allowed 2 latter words, especially those with highg value letters in them. That can be very useful at the end of the game and when laying words parallel in adjacent columns/rows.
Here’s a list: http://www.mattelscrabble.com/en/adults/tips/tip1.html
And be ruthless. If you can’t make a big score for yourself, can you spoil a possible one for your enemy’s next turn?
/beat his mother-ship by 3 points, on the last turn on a board I’d just given her for Christmas.
Read this book: Word Freak
Very cool, and has a lot of insite as to how to become a great Scrabble player.
It’s helped my game quite a bit.
My buddy is a really good player (probably about a 1850-1900). His secret is crosswords. He always suckers my other buddy and I in with weird ass words, we challenge them, he gets the points.
MtM
Thanks so far!
[FamilyGuy]
Just thinking, I really should have called this thread “Help me beat my wife”.
[/FamilyGuy]
Never play a single word. Always look for a way to play two words at once, this is where those two letter words really pay off. For me, the key to getting high scores has always been multiple words per turn.
Don’t be afraid to play “et”, “aa”, “jo”, or “oe”, they are part of the game and make for much higher scoring rounds.
From the aforementioned Word Freak, I learned a few things, which I’ll share here. Champs memorize the two- and three- (and four- !) letter word lists. I learned a few two’s I didn’t know from the book.
Learn your Q-but-not-U words, or at least know that you can fall back on QAID or QAT in a pinch. Players not using the Official Scrabble Players’ Dictionary are advised to check dictionaries around their home.
Champs also maximize their chances of playing a “bingo”, where all seven of one’s tiles are placed on the board in one turn. I kicked off a game with MISTAKEn and never had to look back for the rest of the game. Will it happen to you? Probably not. But it doesn’t hurt to look for a seven- or eight-letter word in the right place. It’s a little too much to expect that you’ll get QUaRTZES on a triple-word, but you never know.
Over the holidays, I played two or three games a day with my 21 year old son. He won about 30 games. I won one. How humbling.
He is adept at most of the hints already given, particularly with the ability to lay down tiles in parallel with an existing word, forming multiple words. He’s memorized all the allowable two letter words so it’s a lot easier for him to do this.
One hint he revealed was if you have the letters K and A, there are LOTS of three valid three letter words. All the letters in Betsy’s foot make a word with KA in front of it. For example, KAB, KAE, KAT, etc.
If you get to put the first word on the board, try to make it at least five letters. Remember, the center square gives a double word score and with five letters you’ll also double the first or last letter.
I shouldn’t have to tell you to avoid placing vowels next to the four double letter squares.
Learn all the 2-letter words, the 3-letter words, the few q without u words, the short (up to 5 letters words with Z Q X and J). Then start learning the most common Bingo (all 7 tiles played at once for the 50 point bonus) prone racks. Half of playing well at Scrabble is having good rack balance, and it is often not to your advantage to play the highest scoring word if it will leave you with all vowels on your rack or tiles that otherwise do not go together well. Also, don’t be afraid to lose a turn exchanging if you do end up with really bad tiles.
The strategy most (all?) better players typically employ is to build their racks over several turns to play bingos. They aim to have “stems” like SATIRE or TISANE, which, combine with almost any other letter to form an acceptable 7-letter word.
Not to brag, but the author of Word Freak plays in the same club where I do sometimes.
If you have the time to spare, you may also want to try a few games online and sharpen up your skills before playing your wife again. You can find players at all skill leves.
Look up and learn the list of allowed two letter words, these can be great for connecting use. Try to score reasonably with every turn you play, rather than just go for the big seven letter scores. (go for SATIRE or TISANE, but make sure you score >20 points per turn whilst doing this, don’t play 4 point words just to improve your letter supply). Play mean, don’t leave high scoring opportunities for your opponent (don’t open up a route to a tripple word score), dump a useless Q or Z on her if you can, when the letter stock gets low.
You can also go solo against your computer. There’s plenty of software available and some have fallen into the realm of abandonware.
I read Word Freak and really would not describe it as “cool”, but it was very interesting. If you want to become a good player and know what it takes to become a top scorer, that is the book to read. I personally can think of nothing more boring than trying to memorize lists of words, so the thought of becoming a “great” scrabble player does not appeal to me.
It is a great book, don't get me wrong. What struck me after reading it is the fact that while Scrabble at face value seems to be a "word" game, nothing is farther from the truth at the championship level. It is all about numbers, scoring, lists and word combinations. It is much more a game of math than about language. As is mentioned in the book, the words really have no meaning in the game. They are just combinations of letters used to score points, a means to an end. Knowing the meaning of the words or how to use them has no use in the game.That reminds me of an article I read in the Wall Street Journal about people in Thailand that play Scrabble, but don’t know English:
Joseph Pereira, Hard Scrabble: Thais Who Play Very Well Learn the Dictionary – But Some Have No Idea at All What the Words Mean; Why Clutter Up the Mind?, The Wall Street Journal (New York), Jul 19, 1999.
I don’t play it in English, and the official scrabble rules of Sweden are a bit different, so I’ll just a general observation to the very good advice you’ve gotten above:
Play long words, as long as possible, even if that means a turn with an abyssmal score (below 20). The reason? You want turnover. You want to get rid of boring letters, create new openings for yourself and most of all - get as many tiles as possible. There are 100 in a game. Logic dictates, even if it doesn’t always turn out that way, that if you get 60 and your oponent get 40, chances are that you’ll get a higher score. Chances are also that you’ll find those tiles with big points and can cash in on them, preferably getting them fairly early, or in the middle of the game, so you can really get some points, instead of being stuck with them at the end, and going minus.
Some good players around here have scored more than 200 points in one turn, my personal best is around 110 (tripple word+bingo).
Another good thing is to memorize the amount of tiles for each letter. Not knowing the ratio in English, I can only give you an example: it’s a lot easier to get a ‘c’ out, if you have a ‘k’ in Swedish (lotsa words with the ‘ck’ combination, not so many with just ‘c’). However, there are only three ‘k’ so it’s a good idea to keep track of them. The most useful vowel in Swedish is ‘a’ and there are eight of them. It really pays of to keep track, and dump tiles that won’t do any good without ‘a’, if they’ve all been played.
Even if you see a ‘great’ word just sitting in your rack, force yourself to move tiles around looking for something else. Physically move the tiles around in your rack.
When trying to make 7 letter words, look for common prefixes and suffixes that can simplify the task. If you have ‘un,’ separate it, and see if you can make a 5-letter verb out of the rest. Same with -ed, de-, re-, -ing, and so on.
Do you often complain that you only have vowels in your rack? The best way to deal with that is to not let it happen. Don’t blame it on the fates like it’s out of your control. Don’t just play the hot letters in your rack - consciously think about how to play the I’s and E’s - I’s especially pile up like crazy.
I have a question for The Gaspode, or other Scrabble players who don’t play in English.
Is the frequency of letters and the associated points for each letter the same, or do you have a special foreign language edition? Swedish in this specific case.
There are different letter distributions for different language editions of Scrabble. The distributions are printed on the board (or at least on all the ones I’ve seen).
Everyone’s talking ab out vocabulary, and that’s the heart of the game. More vocabulary means more word opportunities and more chances to form multiple words. But remember: you can beat a person with superior vocabulary if you play the board better.
Look at the board the way you would a chessboard. If you put a word there, what double and triple letter scores could your wife get? Can you lay down a word is such a manner that she won’t be able to get a double/triple word, but will probably be forced to place HER word in such a manner that you can grab one? You should be thinking at least two moves ahead in an effort to direct the placement of words sop that you can grab the big bonuses on your turn.
Placing a nifty word with high-value letter in it isn’t very useful if you don’t bonus up, and it’s worse than useless if you give your wife an opening to grab a fat bonus. The game isn’t scored on letters, it’s scored on points. Spelling “Zygote” looks great, but if you don’t get at least double letter bonus on your Z, you’re throwing away a huge chunk of points. Get those doubles and triples at ALL costs. Lay down crappy words if it means on the next turn you can get a bonus instead of your wife. Simple words like “Goats” and “Mews” can hand you a 40-point win if they’re placed correctly.