What is Scrabble challenging? Your recall? Your strategizing? What constitutes a cheat?

The Game Room
1

You win at Scrabble and the Scrabble clones by using your letters to make words that are built on the board in such a way as to give you the highest possible score.

In your opinion, what is the approach necessary to be a winning player:

  1. Being in possession of a huge vocabulary and the ability to think of the words you know when you see the letters on the board.

  2. Being strategic and thoughtful about where you place the words you can make, so as to maximize your score without making it too easy on your opponent.

Is it “cheating” to use the available tools to find words to make from your letters? If you think the Scrabble games are about Who Has the Bigger Vocabulary They can Easily Access Based on Letters Available, then the answer would seem to be yes.

But if you think that Scrabble games are about Who is the Best At Finding The Right Spots at The Right Times And Blocking Their Opponent, then the answer would be no.

I have an enormous vocabulary. But I freely admit that I suck at thinking of the words I know based on letters I’m looking at. Or rather, the way I get triggered by letters to think of words is pretty much useless, because I will see letters like “atrplgy” and think “anthropology!” and I get so excited that I will spend time trying to figure out how to make that word happen…:smack:

But give me a way to look at all the options and I guarantee you I will find exactly the right word and the best possible spot to make the greatest possible points while making it really difficult for my opponent to do the same. I will manage my letters wisely, thinking ahead to what I will likely need in future rounds, and what to do to keep my opponent from gaining too much from my letters.

Because I view the game as the latter, I freely use the tools I can to find the words, and I admit it because to me I’m not cheating at what I view as what one needs to win. In my opinion of the game, it’s not very interesting or “game-like”, if you will, to simply come up with whatever words you can make from your letters. Not for a game with an opponent… if it’s a solitary game, then fine.

I am reminded also of Rummy Tiles… I play that online and there’s a certain percentage of people who get very bent out of shape by the fact that I don’t immediately play everything I can possibly play, and that seems really boring and stupid to me… what’s the game? There’s no skill or strategy in immediately playing every tile that can be played, then it’s just pure luck of the draw and who cares? The fun, the gamesmanship, is in trying to hold back as much as you can, choosing what you do play very carefully to give yourself the maximum flexibility and prevent your opponent from winning off your tiles.

Anyway, back to the Scrabble question… what’s your view?

2

The biggest problem I have is my brain likes to go down well-worn paths of mixing the letters. For some reason, the path that leads to a word starting with a letter is closed and the other path which involves two or more letter Is is really more than I could handle.

As for a big vocabulary, I think just knowing all of the two and three letter words is the biggest advantage. I used to play on a daily basis back in my twenties and we just had a list on the side of the board. But let’s face it, it comes down not to a bigger vocabulary but knowing the two and three letter accepted words. To me, saying you have a bigger vocabulary means that you would also know the meanings of the words. I’ve looked up words like “Pe” and “Oe” before, but I couldn’t tell you what they are right now.

Placement is important obviously too. I never want to end a turn where the next play could use a triple word space.

For me, cheating is using something besides your letters, board, and brain to come up with your next play. I used to play Words with Friends with my aunt, when she started pulling out words like “axiomatic” online and I’ve never heard have anything close to a complex vocabulary, my “J’accuse flag” went up. As for squirreling away tiles for later use, who hasn’t kept an all important S or blank for future use. To me, it’s not to deprive the other but to make sure I get a least one bingo during the game.

3

It’s a combination of both, but using anything other than your brain to come up with words is cheating. Dictionaries, online resources etc. are to be used for resolving challenges only.

If you and the other players want to amend the rules for your particular game, feel free.

4

It’s a combination of both. Having the vocabulary is key to knowing which words to play, sure, but other aspects matter more (arguably so, anyway). Placement for point multipliers, knowing how many letters are left, knowing when to play and use blanks for max effect, baiting the opposing player into low scoring words, knowing when to dump letters, knowing when not to use a word, etc. all matter. I used to play very often, and while vocab was essential to at least be competitive, it was strategy that won against other good players.

Yes, it’s cheating to use outside methods to find words, while the game is in play. As Omar Little stated, you can modify the rules any way you wish, but personally, I’d see less point to playing if we were stopping to use aids. Part of the challenge is properly arranging letters in your possession, in order to see words (part of placement on the board, is also being able to see these words). It ensures that just having a big vocab by default, doesn’t earn a win, and balances the game at a level.

When you remove the above element, you might as well toss letters into a word generator and see what it spits out. Not my preferred style of play.

5

It’s all of these things. Like other sports, an above-average ability in one aspect can compensate to some extent for a deficiency in another. I.e. give and take. Consider that in baseball, one needs both strategic skills, running speed, and hand-eye coordination to be a good player. If you suck at running, no amount of sheer mad leet ball hitting skillz is likely to make up for that. If you are a below-average runner, you may be able to leverage your ball-hitting and strategic skills to get yourself walked to first base and/or try to go for home run slams.

6

My approach is pretty much the exact same as what stpauler wrote. When I first started I may have put more emphasis on constructing longer, sometimes more obscure words but now I focus on strategy, maximizing points with double and triple letters and words and not leaving my opponent an easy option to do the same.

I also don’t believe in using any tool outside of my own mind, with one WordsWithFriends caveat… I will sometimes take the letters I have and test different combinations to see if it’ll accept them even though I don’t know for sure they’re indeed a word.

7

I agree with this. I could maybe see people doing having house rules and letting everyone use a dictionary to find the best word possible, but that’s not at all the common thing to do. Unless it’s stated up front and understood by everyone that you can reference dictionaries or other sources, it’s assumed that you aren’t using them, and using them would be cheating.

8

I approach it more as math. We use no outside aids when we play, and a <gasp!> paperback OSPD for challenges. I do play online sometimes with strangers, and am always amazed when they get outraged by a good block. wtf? I used to play at POGO, but jeez Louise, when you have a completely open board with not a tile down, and 2 full minutes to make a play, and you ask for an extension of time, you’re either using a cheat and it’s not loading, or you’re just dumb. Highly prefer the email games at the Pixie Pit.com

9

The real way to play/win scrabble is to learn all the valuable 2 and three letter words, and all the words that have x, q, and z in them.

This is why I don’t play scrabble.

10

Yes, I have a friend who beats me at scrabble 9 times out to 10. He is good with words but relies almost entirely on strategy - he has the ability to construct up to 4 x 4 blocks of words across and down that rack up huge amounts of points. When he puts the last word into place, he’s essentially collecting the points on five words at once (which he has already collected multiple times already!), and he always has point multipliers as well.

I have a large vocabulary but a proper strategy will roundly beat a good vocabulary any day.

I’m the kind of player though that will, when someone can’t figure out where to put their last two letters, say, “Oh, show me and I’ll help you find a spot”. So I’m not properly competitive like I should be I suppose.

I can beat him at boggle though :smiley:

11

Over the past 6 months of WWF playing, I’ve learned the value of playing defensively. Previously, I used to play Scrabble against a computer. I would often win, but wasn’t playing optimally, leaving triples and doubles primed for the other “players”.

And while I view using on-line word finders “cheating”, I still use them from time to time. You still have to know the best place to place the word. Sometimes a properly placed two letter word can make more points than a 6 letter word.

12

anything using your brain is not cheating.

Kwyjibo is a wining word.

13

There’s a very good book about scrabble at the top competitive levels called “Word Freak: Heartbreak, Triumph, Genius, and Obsession in the World of Competitive SCRABBLE Players.” It’s quite entertaining and discusses how players train for competitions and the the strategies used. I’d recommend it.

14

I think this would be better suited to the Game Room forum. I’m going to shift it that way.

15

I think you have to use your own vocabulary to decide which words to play. Strategic placement is critical, denying bonus tiles to your opponent is quite a big part of the strategy as is denying your opponent prime squares to play off of.

What I think IS cheating is any use of “The Official Scrabble Players Dictionary” which in my opinion is a piece of shit and there are way too many 2 letter words in there that aren’t words in any other dictionary. Better to play with a legitimate dictionary for challenging words.

16

At the higher levels of Scrabble a large vocabulary absolutely is necessary.

For recreational play, you’ll kill your opponents through ruthless application of strategy. While knowing all the 2- and 3-letter words is very important, placement and blocking is critical. If you deny your enemies the sweet triple word scores, you will crush them.

In Scrabble, one must show no mercy.

17

I’ve used all seven letters many a time and gotten like 14 points. On the other hand, I’ve spelled words like “the” and raked in the points. Strategy is important, but a good vocabulary will help you when your rack sucks.

I have a large vocabulary, but I overthink. In the heat of a game, I forget out to spell or I Verb a Noun or Noun a Verb. So I use the dictionary to help me save time by checking if something is legit. I mean, if I “played” the word, it’s going to tell me it’s not accepted anyway, so it saves a step.

I know my family “cheats”, but it doesn’t bother me as long as it’s not every word, every turn. Since I have a larger vocabulary and an usually better at strategy games, I figure it’s like a handicapping thing.

18

Someone’s not keeping score correctly. You get the bonus for using all letters. (50 in Scrabble, 35 in WWF). 49 or 65 points is very good!

19

Der. Brain fart. Made seven-letter words (using one on the board). But yes you are totally right and I messed up.

But I still don’t always get lots of points for longer words, but can kill it with a well-placed “qi”.

20

I wouldn’t even call it “vocabulary” – it’s more like “knowledge of valid moves”, since you’re just memorizing lists of anagrams and knowing what all the words mean is just wasting valuable memory space.

Using a program to look for valid words while playing Scrabble is as acceptable as using Google to look up openings and endgames while playing chess, IMO.