Earlier in the week, I had the chance to meet up with an old friend for a drink and a couple of games of Scrabble. I'm a big fan of Scrabble — it's a game I enjoy playing and often find challenging. It has often been said to me, though, that Scrabble is a game to be played only once or twice a year, most notably around Christmas time. Given an alternative and playing Scrabble, most seem to plump for the former.
I don't want to get into the details of why this tends to be the case in this post — that's something I'd like to come back to in a different. Instead, the purpose of this post is to provide some basic tips to those interested in raising their game. Where most might average around 220-250 points a game, these tips will help you reach and pass the 300 mark in no time at all. To provide you with an example of how the following tips will help, the two games I played with my friend this week saw a first game score of 463–270 and a second of 436–330: an average of 375 points per player per game.
Like poker, backgammon and other games that originally appear to depend on chance, Scrabble can be a game of great skill. The basis of this skill is the ability to make anagrams, an ability that varies from person to person. But there are two basic steps you can take to improve your game ten-fold. By reading these, you'll find that you'll be able to beat around 75% of the people you play.
1. Learn some two-letter words
If you draw any of the J, Q, X or Z tiles, I'll bet your reaction is a negative one. Intuitively, this makes sense because these tiles are the high-value ones and are letters, therefore, that appear in few words. Q — especially without a U — is notoriously difficult to get down on the board.
Far from being a disaster, however, these tiles are an opportunity to score and to score big. The way to achieve this is through learning a handful of two-letter words. These are as follows (with their definitions as words for you non-believers):
JO – dear, sweetheart (Scottish) QI – Chinese life force (alternative form for "chi") AX – short for axe EX – the letter "x"; also one's former spouse or love interest; also used to mean "out of" in such phrases as ex cathedra or ex libris. OX – a bovine mammal with hooves XI – a letter in the Greek alphabet XU – a Vietnamese monetary unit ZO – a Himalayan cross between a yak and a cow (also "dzo" or "dzho")
Those are the eight two-letter words that contain the high-scoring tiles. Now, when you draw a J, Q, X or Z, you can try and combine it with a vowel to make a big score. The best way to do this is to see if you can place the high-scoring tile on a triple- or double-letter space. If you can, then you could easily score 31. But — and this is the best bit — if there's already a vowel next to a triple- or double-letter space, then you could play a high-scoring tile on that space in both directions so that its value is tripled twice. Thus, playing ZO in two directions with the Z on a triple-letter space would score 62 points.
This is the easiest thing you could do to start making bigger scores in Scrabble.
2. Remember RETAINS
If you play all of your tiles in one go, you get a bonus of 50 points on top of the value of the word(s) played. Such moves are known as "bingos" and considerably boost your score. Of course, two bingos in a game means you'll score 100 extra points and this immediately moves you into 300+ points territory.
Seven-and eight-letter words aren't that difficult to come by. There are, however, certain letters that combine in more ways and with letters that may have already been played to make seven- and eight-letter words. The best combination of letters is easily remembered by the word RETAINS.
By itself, you can make 9 seven-letter words from RETAINS: ANTSIER, ANESTRI, NASTIER, RATINES, RETAINS, RETINAS, RETSINA, STAINER and STEARIN
However, you can make all of the following words when you combine RETAINS with single letters as follows:
A – ANTISERA RATANIES SEATRAIN B – BANISTER BARNIEST C – CANISTER CERATINS CISTERNA CREATINS SCANTIER D – DETRAINS RANDIEST STRAINED E – ARENITES ARSENITE RESINATE STEARINE TRAINEES F – FAINTERS G – ANGRIEST ASTRINGE GANISTER GANTRIES GRANITES INGRATES RANGIEST H – HAIRNETS INEARTHS I – INERTIAS RAINIEST K – KERATINS L – ENTRAILS LATRINES RATLINES RETINALS TRENAILS M – MINARETS RAIMENTS N – ENTRAINS O – NOTARIES SENORITA P – PAINTERS PANTRIES PERTAINS PINASTER PRISTANE REPAINTS R – RESTRAIN RETRAINS STRAINER TERRAINS TRAINERS S – ARTINESS RETSINAS STAINERS STEARINS T – INTREATS NITRATES STRAITEN TERTIANS U – RUINATES TAURINES URANITES URINATES W – TINWARES
That's 74 words from remembering just one.
In order to increase your score in this way, you'll need to try and play tiles on your rack so that you maximise your chances of getting the letters that make up RETAINS. By doing so, you will significantly increase your chances of scoring a 50-point bonus bingo.
I'll post a few more hints and tips here in the future. In the meantime, happy bingoing.
