Scrabble is a wonderful game that promises hours of enjoyment. Depending on the crowd, it can be more than a little bit competitive. If you are here, chances are you are feeling a little competitive as well. That means you want tips, hacks, and cheats to maximize your Scrabble game to dominate the field of competition.
Lucky for you, we’ve got answers. There are more than a few ways to up your Scrabble game to rival even the toughest of competitors. Some of them exploit social behaviors, others are purely academic, and others still are borderline cheating. But in the game of Scrabble, cheating just means losing your turn.
So let’s get started with some innovative ways to sharpen your edge and blow away your opponents. Soon, they’ll be calling you Scrabble master.
Start Looking Up Words
Make sure you and your game group agree on the Scrabble dictionary to be used. Opt for the international dictionary. It’s the one used by all official competitions. It’s also used as a standard by any serious player.
Now that you’ve agreed to this standard, it’s time to get serious. And that means memorization and strategy. If memorization isn’t your thing, focus on strategy. However, the strategy route still involves some memorization. You can also visit websites that offer special tools and strategies. Choose the approach that’s right for you.
There are a few approaches you can take towards memorization. If you are good at rote memorization, then you should consider memorizing word lists. Pretty much all professional players memorize at least all of the 2-letter and 3-letter words.
Starting with the 2-letter words is a good idea because the list is short, the words are short, and they can be used in lots of different situations. The 2-letter word list has lots of acceptable terms that you may not realize are valid play words. Some of these words are like ‘HM’ and ‘EE’.
The good thing about these words is that you can learn to play almost any letter on any other letter. Being able to play a single tile on just about any letter gives you lots of options that can improve your strategic outlook.
The 3-letter word list is quite a bit longer at over 1,300 words. But it’s also even more useful. If memorization isn’t your thing, you need to be careful about what words you choose to remember.
Use Your Lexical Resources Strategically
Scrabble isn’t just about placing tiles on the board in the highest value arrangement possible. Sure, that’s a big part of it, but there are a lot of strategies that can optimize your game. If you’ve decided to memorize the 2-letter words, you can use that ability to quickly get rid of your high-scoring tiles before the end of the game.
If you can see that the pile is getting small, it’s time to get rid of those ‘j’ and ‘w’ tiles as quickly as possible. The winner gets the sum of all the other players’ tiles. And you get to subtract your tile values from your final score. Having the 2-letter word list gives you the opportunity to shed those high-value tiles for your endgame totals. Just because someone goes out first, doesn’t mean they need to get all your tray points and it doesn’t mean you need to lose those points either. So don’t let them catch you unaware.
Memorize words based on their applicability. Don’t just remember every word that starts with ‘w’. You need usable words that have a ‘w’ in all positions. For example, it’s better to have the three words ‘who’, ‘how’, and ‘awe’ than it is to memorize ‘why’, ‘when’, and ‘were’. Now, these are simple words that everyone knows, but the point is that the first three words each have the key letter in different positions. This means you can play off a letter in any position and use a letter regardless of the space available. This is a form of strategic memorization.
Check Out The Methods And Get Busy
Improving your Scrabble game isn’t going to do itself. It takes a considerable amount of hard work. Fortunately, you’re not the first to do it and there are lots of available resources available online. Unfortunately, other people will be using them as well as you aren’t the first person to try and optimize their skill.
Scrabble is a widely-known game that’s played on all seven continents. In some places, it’s very competitive and you can even win money playing the game. Playing Scrabble also makes you smarter. Using international dictionary rules will teach you all kinds of words from different languages.
Scrabble is a great hobby that is good for all people of all ages and backgrounds. It makes you smarter, faster and keeps your brain young and healthy.