Ten Scrabble Tips and Techniques to Improve Your Game

I was logged in my Facebook account yesterday, and a friend of mine who is a Scrabble addict also asked if I can score high in Scrabble without using the bingo strategy, and, although reluctantly, I still said yes. I haven't used these techniques for a few games, however, I accepted her challenge and played one-on-one with her in Facebook, just to find out.

The result, I still won, but it is lower than my normal playing score. But a score of 360+ something is still not too shabby, eh?

If you think 360 or more is high enough to make you win then read on. I'll throw some tips and techniques on how to play Scrabble to achieve such score.

PS. Please keep in mind that I am not a Scrabble connoisseur. But I do think that I am applying a few strategic techniques that help me score an average that is above average.

PPS (especially to those dictionary nazi's). I am using the SOWPODS dictionary. The dictionary used by Gamehouse, and most Scrabble tournaments.

"Reusing" the letters that are already at the board gives you a few extra scores. Look at the example. "QuAT" was played parallel to "WISE". The play gave a score not only for the word, "QuAT" itself, but also to "QI", "uS", and "AE" also.

Don't always do this or you will both end up with a board that is unplayable.

To play this, it is imperative to know the two-letter words. There are more than 100 two letter words, and most of them are pluralized by adding an "S":

AA, AB, AD, AE, AG, AH, AI, AL, AM, AN, AR, AS, AT, AW, AX, AY.
BA, BE, BI, BO, BY.
CH.
DA, DE, DI, DO.
EA, ED, EE, EF, EH, EL, EM, EN, ER, ES, ET, EX.
FA, FE, FY.
GI, GO, GU.
HA, HE, HI, HM, HO.
ID, IF, IN, IO, IS, IT.
JA, JO.
KA, KI, KO, KY.
LA, LI, LO.
MA, ME, MI, MM, MO, MU, MY.
NA, NE, NO, NU, NY.
OB, OD, OE, OF, OH, OI, OM, ON, OO, OP, OR, OS, OU, OW, OX, OY.
PA, PE, PI, PO.
QI.
RE.
SH, SI, SO, ST.
TA, TE, TI, TO.
UG, UH, UM, UN, UP, UR, US, UT.
WE, WO.
XI, XU.
YA, YE, YO, YU.
ZA, ZO.

If you can't play parallel, try adding a letter of your word to a word that is on the board. Take the picture for example. "BRAS" was connected to "QuAT", forming and scoring for "QuATS", aside for the score of the word itself.

in Scrabble, this is called hooking. In hooking, the letter that was "hooked" gives twice the score of its value. What if you can hook a high scoring letter like, say, "X"?

There are chances that you can hook or play parallel a letter on a bonus square, you get double the premium. For example, letter X was hooked in a double letter square, then it gets doubled twice. Now imagine if you can do this to a triple letter square, then the score can shoot up!

In the set-up of the Scrabble board, getting the chance to get what they call "double-double" is not infrequent. It is when a word is long enough to cover both double letter and a double word premium squares. When you get this chance, try to put your high scoring tile to the double letter, and make a word that will spread out to the double word. You can get quadruple the value of that tile.

These tiles are always valuable. The S pluralizes most nouns and singularizes most verbs, while blanks, while it has no value itself, can stand for any letter in the alphabet. For me, I never play my S if the score I am going to get is below 20. As for the blanks, these are always for scoring above thirty, or, for the famous bingo.

Most of the time, people get stuck because they save the super high scoring letters for the triple premium squares. Don't wait for the magical moment. Chances are it will never arrive.

This one deserves a separate section itself. I researched this in the net and there are a handful of word that has "Q" in it, but doesn't make use of the letter "U". Try memorizing some of them. And yes, the list includes the infamous, "QAT".

* FAQIR -- Muslim or Hindu monk
* FAQIRS -- plural of FAQIR
* QABALA -- body of mystical teachings
* QADI -- Islamic judge
* QADIS -- plural of QADI
* QAID -- a Muslim tribal chief or senior official
* QAIDS -- plural of QAID
* QANAT -- gently sloping underground tunnel for irrigation
* QANATS -- plural of QANAT
* QAT -- leaf of the shrub Catha edulis
* QATS -- plural of QAT
* QI -- a circulating life energy in Chinese philosophy
* QINDAR -- Albanian currency
* QINDARKA -- plural of QINDAR
* QINDARS -- plural of QINDAR
* QINTAR -- Albanian currency
* QINTARS -- plural of QINTAR
* QOPH -- 19th letter of the Hebrew alphabet
* QOPHS -- plural of QOPH
* QWERTY -- the traditional configuration of computer keyboard keys
* QWERTYS -- plural of QWERTY
* SHEQEL -- any of several ancient units of weight
* SHEQELIM -- plural of SHEQEL
* TRANQ -- sedative
* TRANQS -- plural of TRANQ

Refrain from keeping two or more of the same letters if you don't have to. Also, try to keep a balance of vowels against the consonants. Three vowels, and four consonants to be exact.

There comes a time in every Scrabble player's life, they come across a rack looking like this:


What do you do? Exhange and lose your turn? Not yet. If you have all vowels, try to make words that uses your vowels and the consonants that are already on the board. There are many vowel-rich words, like "EERIE", "IODINE" or "EAU" (hey, that is ALL vowels). If you have a lot of consonants, check if you can form legal words with no vowels: "HM", "HMM", "MM", "RHYTHM", "THY" or "TSKTSK". Check legal words with no vowels for a quick guide!

Practice. Expand your vocabulary. Read good books. Read good guides. Play often.