ScrabbleBasicStudy

Basic Scrabble Study

Two Letter Words

Once you're playing with the official word list, the first thing to learn is the list of 101 two letter words:

AA AB AD AE AG AH AI AL AM AN AR AS AT AW AX AY BA BE BI BO BY DE DO ED
EF EH EL EM EN ER ES ET EX FA FE GO HA HE HI HM HO ID IF IN IS IT JO KA
KI LA LI LO MA ME MI MM MO MU MY NA NE NO NU OD OE OF OH OI OM ON OP OR
OS OW OX OY PA PE PI QI RE SH SI SO TA TI TO UH UM UN UP US UT WE WO XI
XU YA YE YO ZA

To memorize the list, write it out by hand or type it on a computer from memory, then check against the list above. Pay attention to the words you get wrong and retry until you've learned the whole list.

U-less Q words

The most commonly-played word in tournament Scrabble® is "QI", and this word is at the top of the next important word list, the "U-less Q words". These are very useful for playing off the Q, which you should never keep on your rack unless you're very sure you'll be able to play it next turn or have some high-scoring (30+ points) play.

QI QAT QIS SUQ QADI QAID QATS QOPH SUQS BURQA FAQIR QADIS QAIDS QANAT
QOPHS TRANQ UMIAQ BUQSHA BURQAS FAQIRS QABALA QANATS QINDAR QINTAR QIVIUT
QWERTY SHEQEL TRANQS UMIAQS BUQSHAS QABALAH QABALAS QINDARS QINTARS
QIVIUTS QWERTYS SHEQELS MBAQANGA QABALAHS QINDARKA SHEQALIM MBAQANGAS

The Cheat Sheet

A wealth of words is contained in the Cheat Sheet, a two-sided page which lists:

• 2-Letter Words
• Short J, Q, X and Z words
• 3-Letter Words
• 2-Letter Words with hooks
• Vowel-, I- and U-dumps
• Bingos formed by adding a single tile to each of SATINE, SATIRE and RETINA
  • These three six-letter words are examples of "stems", that is, collections of letters which readily combine with a single additional tile to for 7- or 8-letter words.

Rack Management

In the first session we noted that keeping "nice" tiles can help keep you from getting into trouble with an unworkable rack. This is called "Rack Management". Here are some of the factors to take into consideration:

• Save the S and Blanks for high-scoring plays
• Don't keep "trouble tiles": QJWVBYFM
  • Not all high-scoring tiles are "trouble"--C, H and P for example
• Don't keep multiples of any letter
• Keep a balance of vowels and consonants
• Keep combinations that work well together, for example:
  • CH
  • ING
  • ED
  • TH

Tracking

The one practice which distinguishes "casual" players from "contenders" is tile tracking. This entails keeping a list of all the tiles in the game and crossing them off as they are played.

Knowledge of which tiles are unplayed confers several benefits:

• If there are many of some particular tile still in the bag, you'll want to avoid keeping those tiles on your rack (especially the I)
• Knowing the vowel-consonant balance in the bag is also useful for rack management
• The content of the bag can guide decisions about what tiles to exchange
• At the end of the game you'll know exactly what tiles your opponent is holding

It takes some experience to be able to do this effectively so you may want to wait until you're comfortable with the game techniques we've listed up to this point before trying to track tiles.