I know twickster will be in here soon to divulge hers. Or not, perhaps she’ll keep those close.
Among mine, I try to never, ever use an “S” or a blank unless I really need it (i.e., triple letters or bingoes). If you never use them, getting a bingo becomes commonplace. I never understand people who use an s where it’s not necessary and barely gets you any points.
I also try not to over use e’s or d’s because they’re very useful.
What are yours?
Sometimes I use those sorts of letters (besides the ‘S’!) even if I don’t have a good scoring word, if:
– It will get rid of lots of letters,
– It won’t result in too many vowels or too many consonants left, and
– It won’t open up a double or triple word score to my opponent.
My thinking is, if you can use 4 or 5 of your letters it’s almost as good to get points and almost replenish your hand than to trade them in (as long as you’re not giving your opponent an opening.)
I hide half of the I tiles under the couch. Otherwise, I wind up with endgame racks of IIIORFI.
Joe
Forget my tips – get Mad The Swine in here, he’s my coach.
My main strategy is to look for the point-boosting squares (double/triple letter/word), look at the highest-point tiles on my rack, and figure out how to place them on the point-boosters for maximum impact. If it’s early in the game, I’ll sit on a Q, X, or Z for quite a while rather than waste them on anything less than twice, and preferably three to six times, their value.
And, yeah, I don’t usually use an S except to set something up with serious points.
I try not to use my q’s or x’s too soon, but I hate sitting on anything for too long. I also try to get the x on the triple letter as often as possible, particularly if it’s going in two directions–then you can get 50 points on it.
twick, have you ever had a triple letter used twice (i.e., on a bingo)? I didn’t think it was possible but then I realized it was very rarely. If someone already has something, say, a “t” to the right of the middle red triple square and you put an “s” down on the middle and then six more letters down, you should get the triple letter twice, yes?
I don’t have any particularly complicated strategies, the main thing I do is try to get rid of the difficult letters each turn and save the easy ones in order to be able to finish out. I also figure I’ve got a better shot at using all of my letters if I have all easy ones.
I also look to see if I have the makings of a word that will use all of my tiles. If the letters missing are fairly commonplace I’ll save the required letters for a few turns to see what comes up.
I win as much as I lose against my family so i dont know if these strategies actually work…
Yes, I’ve done it twice – and what’s cool is that you get your letter-score x9, not x6 (base score x3, then x3 again). Plus the bingo. So I scored 158 for that single turn the first time I did it, and 185 the second time I did it.
good times, good times
Learning the two letter words is a must including their front and back hooks.
I generally wont play a blank or an S unless they get me 25 points better than my next highest play.
Dont underestimate the value of the X,Z,J and even Q they are the most important tiles other than the blanks and S’s.
Draw more tiles than your opponent.If you get more of the premium tiles (S, Blanks,X,Z,Q and J) you raise your chances of winning a LOT.I don’t mean by drawing 8 tiles either ;),make longer words if possible.
Rack balance,always be trying to get Bingos.Its easier to get a Bingo with 1 point tiles,or letters that work well together QU,ING,TION,ERS etc.I think this is probably the most important strategy.
Passing is silly,anyone that passes without trading is most likely looking for their opponent to open up a Bingo opp., they will not get it from me.Sometimes Bingos are unplayable,it happens. Make a play,try to keep the best rack and draw another bingo.
Lots of people I have played put a bunch of value(rightly so) on the TWS,but treat the TLS like a throw away square and open them up like they dont matter.just playing a 4 point tile on the TLS and making two words with it is at least 26 points (assuming no blanks are used).
Found a good play? Always look over the board and make sure you have found the best spot to play it.
Found a really neat word? Like AALII or JNANA? Neat words are fun and make ya look cool but it isn’t always the best play,you might be better off playing an uncool word.(though looking at the example I’ve given , if you have AALII in your rack,ya should probably play it cause your rack really aint that good.)
Being aware of the tiles left in the bag is important.I’ve seen players fish for a letter by trading when they are all in play already.
I could go on for awhile and really think I can improve most peoples game if ya wanna discuss it(just ask Twickster).
Best Scrabble coach EVAH! In a half dozen games, he took me from a good social player to a reasonably competent competitive player – which is where I’ll peak until I’m willing to start memorizing word lists, which ain’t happening anytime soon.
When I first met my wife we would play scrabble and I would play very strategically, mostly by not opening up triple and double word scores if possible. She used to call it “dirty scrabble” :). In her mind you simply tried to find the best scoring word you could find. I used to beat her a lot
She has changed her mind and is now very strategic and she beats me as often as I beat her.
Sweet. And it’s just x4 if you get it on two double letters?
Smart tip about being aware of what’s already out there. On lexulous.com, they have an option so you can see which letters are available, so you can see if there are no more U’s and you have that Q, or if there are any more S’s and blanks left and so on.
Now I really want to play twickster. Or Mad. Are either of you guys gonna be playing lexulous tonight, say…9 EST?
Yeah, the second thing I do when starting a game (after saying “hi and gl” to my opponent) is open the “unplayed tiles” chart. You don’t need to be at the endgame to have that be helpful information for playing strategically. (“Okay, if I do this, my opponent could hit the TWS if and only if s/he had a G – there are two G’s not yet played out of 34 unplayed tiles… so there’s a 1 in 17 chance that s/he has one.”)
Might be, might not be – I often am in the evening, but I’m in the middle of an obsessive viewing of all five seasons of Six Feet Under, so I might be watching TV and working on the afghan I’m making for a friend.
I play at Lexulous as twickster, and am always happy to play with another Doper – throw in a “hi Opal” if I’m not going to realize you are by your username there.
Double word yes.
One word list that is very helpful(and not hard to learn) are the U-less Q words.Qi Qat Qoph Qintar Qindar Qaid Qanat Sheqel Faqir to name a few.
Never played there,I’ll check it out
Scrabulous went belly-up in the trademark thing – they regrouped and are back in business as Lexulous. Your sign-in, ratings, buddy lists, etc. all carried over intact.
Sorry, double word is what I meant. I’ve gotten quite a few more bingos now that I try for them, but I haven’t managed to land a bingo one two triples or two doubles yet.
I knew about qi and qat, but not the others. I’m adding those to my mental rolodex.
On lexulous.com, I’m SadakoGirl. I’ll definitely flash the signal (“Hi Opal”) if I see you so you know I’m not the local perv. (Though the other night, I got a random message from an older gentleman asking my age/sex/location. I felt a little like I was back in an aol chatroom.)
Do you prefer a certain room there?
Usually of the “top 3,” (Auntie’s Room, Bingo Boomers and The Lounge), whichever I can get into. You?
I don’t want to give away too much as one of my favorite opponents is also a popular Doper, but I will say this: I have been very good at perplexing my opponents by making plays that seem to be incredibly foolish, giving them wide openings that allow them to score lots of points.
They are usually so puzzled that they are often still scratching their heads after beating me by triple-digit margins. 
Wow…I did not know that. I’ve been playing regular Scrabble on Facebook since Scrabulous vanished, buggy as it is.
No,i will try to find you later.