I see that you’ve got an answer. So, no, it isn’t. Some letters are more common in some languages, some doesn’t even exist in English. Highest score is for Z (10) and Q (10). Nobody uses Q, since it’s not a letter being used in Swedish. X also gives 10 (IIRC), but that’s strange, becuase it’s easy to play. C is 10, J and Y are 7.
Medium scores (3 or 4) are for letters that are not very common (in theory): B, U, F, Ä, Ö, Å and maybe some other (I’m doing this from memory). The rest are 1 or 2 points each.
Swedish official rules say that you can’t use proper nouns and you can’t add endings to words, making them plural.
Thanks Gaspode and Telemark.
Since the numerical values are different from English, I assume the numbers of tiles of each letter are different too, to match the expected distribution with the language being played.
However, I’m surprised that they even include a Q in the Swedish version if Swedish doesn’t have a Q. I’m also surprised to learn that the basic rules are different too (no plural making allowed).
Interesting.
Foreign Language letter distributions:
http://home.teleport.com/~stevena/scrabble/alpha/foreignsets.html
Not sure how current this list is.
Well, of course Q exist, in proper nouns ASF. There is no use for it in scrabble, though, due to the rules. I just checked my dictionary from the Swedish Academy (latest ed.) and they list a grand total of 10 words starting with Q. Out of these, one is a latin phrase, three are different ways of refering to a person from Qatar, two are compounds from the same root, two refer to the proper Swedish spelling, one is for saying that the word ‘q-sign’ is a noun and we’re left with the word ‘quenell’. There are no words that contain Q outside of the few that start with the letter.
And yes, Algernon, the number of A, E, S asf differ.
A few additional notes:
-Don’t be afraid to trade in. If you have 3 u’s and 3 i’s, you can struggle along for 5 or 6 turns making small scores until you have a good rack again, or you can take 0 for one turn and get right back into the game
-look for double- or triple- word or letter scores that are right next to a word that is alread on the board.
If the WHERE is on the board with a triple letter score directly above the E, it’s extremely to make a play like “OH” or “OW” with the H or W being tripled both directions. For extra points use an X instead (won’t work in this example, but XI and XU are both legal words). Scores can add up really fast even with very few tiles played.
-Save your blanks and S’s (far and away the best two tiles) for high scoring plays.
Sorry for the Swedish hijack, but just to set things straight: The letters Q and W do not exist in Swedish Scrabble, and the scores for letters Z, X and C are 10, 8 and 8 respectively.
The Gaspode is probably playing the mutated version of Scrabble known as “Alfapet”, which was created by the Swedish company Alga when they lost the copyrights to the game to Mattel.
For more information on Swedish scrabble please check out this page (In English):
It’s good to learn the q-without-u words, but my rule of thumb is to always keep a u on my rack until I, or someone else, plays that q.
The q-without-u words are only used as a last resort, or if playing one gets my q on a double or triple.
BTW, Scrabble is a contact sport in my family, and is always played for money. I learned the value of brutality before I was even 10.
Happy