If you love playing online Scrabble, then these tips will help you excel.
Any avid Scrabble player will know that this well-loved, popular game is the ultimate combination of language, strategy and board gaming, suitable for all ages and abilities. With the emphasis on strategy, winning a game of Scrabble does not come easily,
particularly when playing with people who have large and sophisticated vocabularies.
Learning some of the best scrabble cheats will help along the way of taking ownership of the scrabble board and becoming champion every time!
1. Create two words at once by utilizing the letter "S"
Adding the letter ‘s’ to the end of an existing word on a scrabble board to pluralize it can create an entirely new word. Many words also start with the letter ‘s’ meaning that pluralizing words is made possible.
You must use the letters wisely, though. With only 4 ‘S’ tiles in the game, use this strategy to earn at least 10 points to make it a worthwhile choice.
2. Learn two and three-letter words
When played properly, two-letter and three-letter words have the ability to boost a game score by up to 50 points per game.
Two-letter and three-letter words are beneficial within a game as they can help to open up areas of a game board that have previously been blocked off. They also minimize the need to pass your turn when the board begins to get cluttered deeper into the game.
3. Look for the ‘hook’ words
Hooks are single letters that can be added to existing words on the board to make completely new words. For example, ‘come’ can be changed to ‘comet’, ‘lush’ turns into ‘blush’ and ‘host’ can be transformed into ‘ghost’.
Words that may include the letter ‘y’, ‘e’ ‘r’ and ‘d’ at the end are also easy ways to transform these ‘hook words’, too. ‘Tamed’, ‘tamer’, ‘plane’ ‘planet’ and ‘handy’ are especially good words to easily improve on a score.
4. Use tiles that create common endings or beginnings placed to one side of your rack.
Lots of high scoring words in scrabble end with the letters ‘e’ and ‘r’, ‘e’ and ‘d’, or ‘ing’ so placing these tiles to the right-hand side of the rack will help you to visualize words in future rounds. They can also be added to existing words to create higher scoring new ones.
Word beginnings can also be utilized in this way, such as ‘un’, ‘re’ or ‘in’. If you have these letters available, as well as the ones listed above, place them to the left to help with visualizing in that instance.
5. Use ‘Q without U’ words
With a score value of 10, the letter ‘Q’ is the highest scoring scrabble tile, along with ‘Z’. However, words that begin with ‘Q’ will more often than not, be followed by the letter ‘U’ which can somewhat limit the options available for your golden letter ‘Q’, since there are only 4 ‘U’ tiles which are likely taken up by other words.
Q is possibly the toughest letter to place during a game as there are not a huge amount of words that use the letter. Use your Q at the first opportunity you can, particularly when you have knowledge about ‘Q without U’ words.
The scrabble dictionary lists 17 words that are ‘Q without U’. These are; qabala, qat, qi, qoph faqir mbaqanga, qaid, qanar, tranq, qinder, qintar, qwerty, sheqel, qindarka, and shequalm.
Using the letter S will also enable most of these words (except the last two) to become pluralized.
6. Save High scoring letters such as J, X and Z for double or triple letter words
The letters J, X and Z are other ways to score big points on the board, as well as the letter Q. However, J, X, and Z are more commonly used in the English language, meaning that they will be easier to place.
Using these letters on the correct position on a board, double letter, double words, triple letter and triple word scores are sure ways to rack up double or even triple-digit points in even one single round.
7. Don’t plan too far ahead of the game
You may have the perfect high scoring word available, right near that triple word score square on the board, but the fact that this strategy game is for at least 2 players, the other players will see the same opportunities that you do. Don’t stockpile your high scoring letters for opportunities later on, as other players will want to jeopardize other players’ chances of winning, too. Do you have the opportunity to score reasonably well now? Play that tile while you have the chance. It could get frustrating later on.
8. Look for opportunities to use your entire deck
Anybody who enjoys a game of scrabble will be familiar with the undeniable feeling of being able to use their entire deck of tiles on a single turn. A move like this early on, though exceptionally rare, could decide the winner of the game later on. This ‘scrabble bingo’ score could potentially add 50 points on top of a player’s usual score.
Even better is having the opportunity to move towards the double word and triple word score tiles early on. A well-executed move could turn your score into triple digits.
9. Use Parallel Words Wisely
Using parallels are a good way of getting rid of vowels while still racking up the points towards the end of the game. Playing these vowels parallel to another word already on the board, you still obtain points for every new word created.
Wait for the sweet spot near bonus squares, or even with a high-value letter. Knowing two and three-letter words will prove to be useful at this point.
10. Gain Encyclopedic knowledge of Scrabble suitable words
Use a scrabble word finder if you are ever unsure whether a word can be used during a game. Learning new words will not only help you to win games of Scrabble, but they will also help with increasing your vocabulary, which can also aid your personal and professional life.