How to Win at Scrabble

By eHow Hobbies, Games & Toys Editor

Rate: (4 Ratings)

Learn what turns a beginner into an intermediate player and an intermediate player into an expert.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately challenging

Things You’ll Need:

  • Dictionaries
  • Deluxe Scrabble
  • Hasbro Interactive Scrabble
  • Scrabble
  • Scrabble 50th Anniversary Editions
  • Scrabble Deluxe: Travel Editions
  • Scrabble Junior
  • Scrabble Junior: Curious George Editions
  • Spanish Scrabble
Step1
Get the Merriam-Webster's Official Scrabble Players Dictionary (3rd Edition) - which is known as the OSPD3 - and become familiar with it.
Step2
Practice improving your vocabulary. The more words you know, the more words you will think to use.
Step3
Capitalize on variations by adding -ing, -ly, -ed and other suffixes.
Step4
Learn a lot of 3-letter words. (There are about 975 of them.)
Step5
Try to get the bonus squares. Earn even more points by using two bonus squares in one play.
Step6
Learn "rack management." Understand that each move is dependent on the ones before it. Sometimes playing the highest-scoring word will leave you with a bad set of letters.
Step7
Don't let yourself get stuck with all vowels or all consonants on the rack.
Step8
Join the National Scrabble Association and read its publication, "The Scrabble News," for strategies and tips.

Tips & Warnings

  • It isn't important to know big words - it's important to know how to use combinations of letters.

Comments

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Anonymous

Anonymous said

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on 3/15/2006 Get a good dictionary - such as the concise OED. Learn all the words that have q without u.

Anonymous

Anonymous said

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on 11/22/2005 The word 'craziest', played in the very top, left corner of the board earns you 311 points.

C and T are placed on triple word scores and the Z is on the double letter score.

Voilà, 311 points, you win!

Anonymous

Anonymous said

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on 11/22/2005 1. Learn the 2-Letter words, there are 96 of them and will definitely help your score.
2. Try to use all the letters in your rack at once. This is a BINGO and will garner a 50-Point Bonus
3. Avoid getting stuck with a Z or Q: Even if you can only get face value for it, it's much worse to have it in your hand at the end of the game.

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