1. Despite the name, it is not a game of word-making. It is a game of strategy that happens to involve words. A good vocabulary is important, but no more than height is important in basketball. Just like Shawn Bradley and Gheorghe Muresan weren't particularly good basketball players, a "tall" vocabulary does not assure success in Scrabble or Words.
2. With that said, to become elite, it is mandatory to know all the two-letter words. From there, one should learn all the Q and Z words (within reason ... you're probably never going to play "benzaldehyde") and then the J words. Then learn as many three-letter words as you can.
3. On that vocab alone, you WILL beat 85% of the people you play. With experience, you'll learn how to utilize your small words. It seems simple, but with three tiles, you can make three or four words, which racks up the points quicker than most people realize.
4. In the same vein, learn from people you play. I learn new words all the time from other players. "Chaleh" is the most recent example, but it happens quite often. Don't think, "That guy is cheating." Even if he is, he is short-changing himself and teaching you.
5. Once you start to get a feel for using the short words to your advantage, the next step is to set up your rack. Naturally the easiest bingoes to make come when you have an "ers" or "ing" rack. When all else is equal, a 14-point play that leaves you "ters" is better than a 20-point play that leaves you "tkur."
6. You'll figure out the true evaluations of this yourself, but my general rules for an S or a blank is that I won't play an S unless it gets me 10 more points than the next best play and I won't play a blank unless it's at least 12 points better than my next best play. Obviously, if you have 3 S's, this changes, but it is nearly impossible to underestimate the true worth of these tiles.
7. Play defense. Of course, you never want to leave your opponent the TL/TW combo with a vowel sitting in the middle. That's asking him to drop a 60-pointer on you. But also, if you get out to a quick comfortable lead, muddy the game up. V's and C's are your best friends for this purpose because they are the only letters that do not have a two-letter word play off them. With experience, you will learn to leave un-bingoable boards, or at least close to it.
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Expanding on your #7, one of the biggest mistakes I see people make is playing a word which ends on the outside rows or columns, leaving access to the TW and TL. Even letting your word begin or end on the next layer in from the outer edge of the board is dangerous because someone can build a cross word which spans both DW tiles simultaneously (4X the points). Playing across both DW tiles is doubly advantageous when you can open up access to both TW tiles. Your opponent will take one, but you'll get the other, leaving you with the pure 4X point advantage from the 2xDW move. (while doing this, be careful about providing your opponent a TWxTL combo or make sure to open up both.)
ReplyDeleteAnother combo to avoid (or take advantage of) is spanning a DW and TL tile at the same time, making the TL worth 6X the point value.
Knowing all your two letter words gives you the ability to lay words in parallel. You are at the least doubling the points of the part of your word that overlaps as well as getting credit for the tiles you're touching. Add in a DW/TW/DL/TL then you can really make bank. Example: Someone plays "MAXED" on a D that was already on the board. The pre-existing word goes down from the D. Depending on the letters you have, you can play something like "OPEN" over "MAXED" creating "OM" "PA" "EX" and "NE" as cross words. A DL tile under the P give 4x the value, so 16pts, total move worth 38pts for playing 4 tiles, almost 10pts per tile.
As the blogger pointed out, letters like C and V which have no two letter extensions act as blocks which prevent parallel plays. Q, Z, J have few extensions, but give 10 points when played upon.
The best teacher is time and practice. I have 20 games going constantly. Half of them are stalled by people who don't play frequently. With enough games, you begin to perceive what moves become accessible after a play. When you place your tiles, you can feel what you're opening up for your opponent to play off of. Take advantage of the mistakes your opponent makes and try avoid opening strategic territory on the board.
There are a couple metrics you can score your moves by. One is points per turn. I try to challenge myself to find 20-point-minimum moves every turn. The other metric is measuring pts/tile. I try to make at least 6 pts per tile (often more). Assuming you play 50 tiles out of the 100, that's a 300 point game (better than most). these metrics are more to challenge yourself to look for better moves if you can find them.
I don't try to get bingos. The people that beat me are those that do shoot for the bingos and have an extensive vocabulary. I'm more of an analytical mind than vocabulary oriented, so this is the strategy I use. I win 90% of my games without getting bingos.
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