What are best practices for winning at Scrabble?

Question

I try to kick my sister's butt at Scrabble...

How can I better prepare to beat her?

Answer 1

I think reading does help because you learn more words.  Uhmm practice practice practice. The more you play, you sort of figure out like what kind of words to make where, if you should save a letter for another word, etc. You figure out strategies. Also there's like a scrabble hint thing that comes with the game. It's like a little piece of paper that gives you little tips and hints...read that. ;)

Answer 2

One of the best things you can do to become better at Scrabble is to read a lot - that will improve your vocabulary.  It also helps to buy a Scrabble dictionary so that you will notice some little known words that you can use.  

Learn the list of all the two letter words.  They can be very important to getting a good score in Scrabble.

There are of course basic things like planning ahead to get as many double and triple letter and word scores as possible.

Pay close attention to the letters s, r, and d.  They can often be added to the end of a word already on the board and can help you get scores for two or more words in one turn.  Be wise in your use of these letters.

Pay close attention to those little spaces on the board where you can sometimes make several small words at the same time by placing just a couple of letters.  You can often get very good scores this way.

Be careful to not open up double and triple letter and word scores for your opponent.  But also look ahead and plan situations for yourself - try to set up situations where you can take advantage of those spaces.

Play anagrams as practice.  This will help your Scrabble skills as you get better at finding more words from one group of letters.

Play as often as you can and with different people.  One of the best ways to improve your skills is to play with a number of people who are better than you.  You will learn strategies from them, and you will also learn new words.

Get computer scrabble.  It will  help you improve your skills and help you learn new words.

Best of luck and have fun.

Answer 3

I am tournament Scrabble player.

The first thing is to learn the 1-01 two0letter words that a allowed in Scrabble.  And invest in an Official Scrabble players Dictionary, 4th edition.

Join isc.ro (it's free) and play against the players there.

Also learn the 3 letter words, especially those that can be made from two letter words that may already be on the board, and learn the words that use a Q but not a U/  The easiest of these are QI, QIS, QAT. AND QATS.  There are others.

a couple of free download programs you might find useful are zyzzyva ans quackle.

Zyzzyva has a word judge program that can be used offline, so you can use it to adjudicate challenges.

Answer 4

As somebody mentioned, join isc.ro - but make sure to observe the higher rated players there, not just play.  Some world champions and other top experts play there, and their games are observable (and you can actually discuss plays with other observers without the players being able to read the discussion).

For vocabulary practice, try jumbletime.com.  It has been redesigned for the needs of Scrabble players (it started out, as the name suggests, simply as a Jumble word scramble site).

Away from the vocabulary side of things:

Pay close attention to balancing your rack.  Identify the problem tiles in your rack, and make special effort to get rid of the problem tiles while they're still only a nuisance instead of a full-blown disaster.  Too many players let extra I's, U's, V's sit on their rack for turn after turn just because it's easier to use up the E's, N's, and R's etc.   After a while, you have nothing but I's, U's and V's!

When you're ahead, lean towards making the board safe and playing defensively.

When you're behind, allow the board to become more dangerous...especially if your rack has some offensive potential.   If you don't have a great play for an open triple right NOW, consider leaving it open instead of blocking it cheaply.  (If you're ahead though, blocking is often correct).

When the tiles are almost out, make a special effort to get rid of the most inflexible tiles you have (like U's I's V's J and obviously Q) so that your very last rack will maximize your options and let you play out more quickly (and hopefully get some points from your opponent's unplayed tiles at the end).

That may mean playing a cheap turn to get rid of garbage when you're tempted to use your better tiles for more points - but unless it's a LOT more points, you're usually better to deal with the garbage first and THEN have the luxury of easier tiles for the final turn or two.

Try to remember that your odds are improved not only when you score lots of high scoring turns, but also when you minimize the number of paltry little wimp turns (the sort you're forced to play when your rack degenerates into WUIUIIV).  Even if you're unable to put down many flashy high scoring plays, if you can score steadily while keeping your rack from becoming a disaster, that will make up for any lack of flashy scores.

Answer 5

The best scrabble players memorize the scrabble dictionary and try to use all 7 letters at one time.  At the end of the game try to use all your letters first to get the points that others have left in their tray.

Answer 6

Here are a bunch of good Scrabble articles:

Children and Scrabble - http://www.puzzle-place.net/children-and...

Advanced Scrabble Techniques - http://www.puzzle-place.net/advanced-scr...

Scrabble House Rules - http://www.puzzle-place.net/scrabble-hou...

Tips to Transform Your Scrabble Game  - http://www.puzzle-place.net/scrabble-tip...

Enjoy!

Answer 7

Learn a lot of words... read the dictionary. :)

Answer 8

learn more words

Answer 9

The first thing I'd suggest is to read a lot. You don't have to do anything crazy like reading the dictionary, just read novels and things like that. The more words you come into contact with, the more you'll be able to use in your Scrabble games.

Also, practice is the key. It's not just about vocabulary. The more you play, the more you'll be able to mentally move the pieces in your tray around to form words. It will also help you be more intuitive when finding places to put words on the board.

You can play Scrablle online for free. That way you can practice even if no one at home wants to play. This site is really friendly and well put together, you should check it out:

http://www.scrabulous.com/

Good luck!