It’s played by millions worldwide. Half of the households in Britain have a set. It’s the board game of choice everywhere from Buckingham Palace to prisons.
But are you getting the most fun you can out of Scrabble? Do you run out of inspiration, find you always have awkward racks, or just keep losing?
This book gives you 101 tips to improve your play and help you enjoy the game. There are useful words (along with helpful definitions for the unusual ones), cunning tactics, and a handy tip for each letter. A two-letter word with a Q, a six-letter word composed entirely of vowels, and the crucial difference between MELINITE and GMELINITE – they’re all part of 101 Ways to Win at Scrabble.
After the 101 tips, you will find a list of the vital two-letter and three-letter words that make the game so much easier by allowing you to fit other words in. There’s also information on Scrabble resources, clubs, and tournaments to allow you to take your game further. So whether you want to play like a champion, or just avoid getting stuck with three Is and two As, 101 Ways to Win at Scrabble is your key to Scrabble enjoyment and success.
One comment you may often find yourself making in Scrabble as you stare at your rack or play a really low-scoring move is “I just can’t do anything”.
This is the wrong way to think. You can always do something. You may not necessarily have a great-scoring move on that shot, but you can do something to improve your rack and give yourself a better chance next time.
Too many vowels? Too many consonants? A lovely word on your rack but it doesn’t fit on the board? There are ways of dealing with all these problems, so read on, but the first tip has to be “Think positive!”
Two-letter words are the most useful words in Scrabble. And the most useful two-letter words are … all of them. There are 124 in total. (You’ll find them in a handy list at the back of this book.)
The ones that contain what we call the power tiles (J, Q, X and Z) are perhaps first among equals but there is really no substitute for knowing the lot. Some of them are very common, like IN, AT and DO, while others will be familiar to you but you may not be used to thinking of them as words, such as AD (an advertisement), EX (an ex-partner or the letter X), or sounds like ER and HM. A good few, such as GU (a violin in the Shetlands), LI (a Chinese unit of distance) and ZO (a cross between a yak and a cow) will probably be completely unfamiliar to you. It will really help your game if you can learn as many as you can.
The A is usually a useful letter to have, though you don’t particularly want more than one of them. It will fit nicely into lots of good seven- and eight-letter bonus words.
To help you find them, remember some of the prefixes and suffixes that A is a part of. There’s AB- and AD-: loads of words begin with both of these, such as ABJURES (renounces on oath), ABSTAIN, ADRENAL and ADHESIVE.
ANTI-, being made up of four of the one-point tiles, starts a lot of useful words too. Here are a few handy
ANTIs, along with their definitions:
ANTIFAT of a drug, etc., tending to remove fat
ANTIFUR opposed to the wearing of fur
ANTIJAM preventing jamming
ANTILOG mathematical term
ANTIMAN opposed to men
ANTISAG preventing sagging
ANTICOLD preventing the common cold
ANTIDRUG opposed to illegal drugs
ANTILOCK designed to prevent overbraking
ANTIPOLE the opposite pole
ANTIRUST treated so as not to rust
The A is in suffixes too, like -ABLE, -ATE, -ANT, -IAL and -IAN.
With too many As, there are plenty of short words to help get you out of trouble:
AA a type of volcanic lava
AAH exclamation of surprise, pleasure, etc.
AAL an Asian shrub or tree
AAS plural of AA
ABA type of cloth made from goat or camel hair
AGA Muslim ruler
AHA exclamation of triumph or surprise
AIA a female servant
AKA a type of vine
ALA a wing
AMA a vessel for water
ANA a collection (e.g. Victoriana)
AUA yellow-eye mullet
AVA a Polynesian shrub
AWA away
BAA sound made by a sheep
CAA Scots for call
FAA Scots for fall
MAA sound made by a goat
The three-letter words are almost as useful as the twos because there are so many ways of adding a letter to a two-letter word to make a three-letter one. That helps you place words on the board and get a higher score by playing more words in one move.
There are 1,341 valid three-letter words so it will take you a while to get to know all of them. It can be done – you can absorb them partly by learning and partly (and more enjoyably) by playing. The more you play, especially against better players, the more you will see these words and the more you will find you remember them.
To get things rolling …
Here are some of the best three-letter words to start you off:
All vowels:
AIA a female servant in India or South Africa
AUA a mullet (the fish, not the hairstyle beloved of 1980s footballers)
AUE a Māori exclamation
EAU a river
All consonants:
BRR expressing cold
CWM Welsh for valley
HMM expressing doubt or hesitation
NTH of an unspecified number
PHT expressing irritation
PST