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How to improve your Scrabble Strategy

created on by  in Word Board Games

You are thinking about taking part in a Scrabble tournament or becoming member of a Scrabble Club? You are addicted to Scrabble and you are getting better and better with every game? Nevertheless, your skills are still capable of development? Take your Scrabble strategy to the next level by following these four rules that bring you closer to become a Scrabble professional.

Every Scrabble expert has their very own style and Scrabble strategy but some rules pay off almost always. Grab a pen and read carefully.

Rack management

The very first advanced Scrabble strategy includes rack management. There are two elementary needs every Scrabble player has: to gain as much points as possible and to get rid of most of the tiles with every move. Try to build words that are as long as possible to keep your tile turn-over high. It is always good to have a balanced rack. Please note that consonants and vowels have to be stored in balance to avoid situations where it is impossible for you to build words out of your letters. Knowing you will still find several A’s or O’s in a play or high value tiles are not available anymore might influence your decision on how building words. It is advisable to have an overview of Scrabble letter numbers and distributions.

The two special tiles

The second strategy we would like to present to you is to keep an eye on two special tiles: the blank and also the S. This principle has been published by the authors and Scrabble champions, Joe Edley and John D. Williams. They claim: Blanks are for Bingos and S is perfect for Scoring. Good gamers use their blanks and point tiles to cause them to bingos. As they say, S is perfect for scoring. It pluralizes most nouns, singularizes most verbs. Keep this in mind and you will increase your chance to win the game.

Useful vocabulary

The third Scrabble strategy emphasizes vocabulary building. We recently published an article called How to Effectively Improve Your Vocabulary. There are lots of possibilities to do this, from mnemonics, to crazy definitions, to learning anagram groupings. Some experts recommend to learn some word lists. Especially the two and three letter words because they are likely to appear on rack. There are also some freaks who try to memory the 7-8 letter words, even though there is a low chance to make use of these words. Everyday practice should improve your skills as well as memorizing words your opponents created in past games.

Phony words

The last Scrabble strategy experts point out involves using phony words properly. This might be quite difficult in a competitive arena compared to a game with your friends and family. Although you could risk victory for this, try your best using the best poker face you have. It is also helpful to know which words are allowed or not allowed in a Scrabble game. Thus you won’t get suckered by your opponent. Therefore, read our article about the Scrabble word list.

Focusing on these abilities will definitely improve your game. To get some help checking phony words or learning word groups try our Scrabble Word Finder!

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  • Scrabble Letters – SMART: Photo courtesy photos-public-domain.com