How to Win at Scrabble: Learning Words

[@ArsonFan]

Reading the comments before watching the video prepared me to actually learn the word zyzzyva as a word

[@BLSKYZ]

Great timing on this video! ZyyZyva was just recommended to me, so your introduction, explanations, and suggestions have been most helpful. Thanks !

[@wanderer15]

So glad to hear this!

[@incherestingly]

Thanks Will! I've been trying to understand Zyzzyva for a while now.

[@wanderer15]

Uh oh... watch out Scrabble world!

[@cynicalad]

Hallelujah! The video all us noobs have been waiting for. Cheers Will.

[@wanderer15]

Thanks - more to come in this vein!

[@Dfcameron13]

This was excellent; Will takes the time to explain things slowly and completely. I've never used Zyzzyva. I was introduced to Aerolith by a top player named Scott Appel when I started club Scrabble in mid-2017. I've become so used to the Aerolith interface; that I'd find Zyzzyva unintuitive. I would never argue with Will on his assessment comparing the two, with best uses though. If you're starting fresh, seems Zyzzyva is a great way to go. Yet, I've learned a decent amount through Aerolith - but still have a long way to go!

[@kylecobb9982]

Thanks Will, been looking forward to this one!

[@mapeus]

Nice to see spaced repetition systems being utilized in scrabble well too

[@javierrodrigo1009]

Hi Will! Thank you so much for making these videos - I've just started to get into Scrabble and they've been helping a lot, though it looks like you've sort of abandoned this series after the first two videos which is a shame. Could you maybe consider doing a video on board dynamics next, such as how to choose where to place your words specially in the early game to maximize your chances of scoring well while also preventing your opponent from doing so. Thanks again for bringing this beautiful game to the public eye!

[@wanderer15]

I hope to revisit some videos of this type sometime. Really appreciate your comments!

[@DanielDugovic]

I just assumed Aerolith would have this, but 2s with blanks, 3s with blanks, etc. sound more beginner-friendly than simply recalling a word list.

[@wanderer15]

You can simulate this by doing a word list recall quiz with the parameter Anagram Match: A? to quiz yourself on the 2 letter words containing an A in either position, or Pattern Match: A? to quiz yourself on the 2 letter words starting with A. It's maybe a little unwieldy to keep making new quizzes repeatedly, but could still be useful.

[@Firefly256]

3s are really hard for me for some reason, I can do anagrams of JQXZ 4s, vowel heavy and high prob bingos, but recalling 3s without anagrams has always been hard, how do memorize better?

[@wanderer15]

I used to play the game Boggle to help learn these - you see the short words over and over again.

[@johnwilder4789]

Nice! Been using Zyzzyva for a while and didn’t know about the “Word List Recall” feature - that’s great. The only thing I’d add is that you can also set your Quiz settings to “Anagram + Hooks” instead of just “Anagrams,” forcing you to recall the hooks as well. I think getting into the habit of learning words with the hooks is helpful, not just because you’ll learn new words but because sometimes it’ll show you hooks that you may not have thought of, despite knowing the words (a back -O to FLAMING, for example). Would you say then based on your chart, that in terms of learning the 4s, learning the “4s with Scoring Tiles” is more important than learning the 3s -> 4s (I.e, all the hooks for the 3s)?

[@wanderer15]

It's really hard to say definitively - 3s to make 4s are a really helpful list of words to know too. I very likely have a bias here from my background in Boggle, which is extremely good training to not only learn hooks, but to teach yourself the instinct to look for them consistently. Drilling this set of words was never a major issue for me, but it might be smart to break words like that out into their own group and give them higher priority.

[@frankieporter1889]

Senarii is probably a very good bingo because 1. It gets rid of 2 I's 2. It's a bingo, so obviously it's good 3. It follows the retains rack (Retains, you can have 6/7 of the word, but any letter but Q and Y can make a bingo)

[@wanderer15]

It's definitely one of the highest probability bingos that most people wouldn't already know from everyday language.

[@frankieporter1889]

@@wanderer15 because it's Latin/Greek

[@empowers67]

Recently have started getting into Scrabble and I've been loving your videos, especially the Scrabble History series and your Better Know a Letter vids. Question: would you recommend starting by learning the CSW lexicon, or should I learn the NWL first, then worry about CSW later? I'm mainly playing on International Scrabble Club which uses NWL, but not sure if it's best to start small and work up or if I should just start with CSW since it's a more expansive list. (Also, if you can recommend online Scrabble websites that use CSW, let me know!) Thanks in advance for your help!

[@wanderer15]

Thank you so much for the nice comments! Regarding lexicon, it’s a tough choice, but it mostly depends on how interested you are in playing players from all around the world. If you’re North America-based, you’ll be just fine with NWL. Playscrabble.com is a licensed Scrabble site offering CSW, and woogles.io is another good alternative offering all major lists.

[@mvshroomelleYT]

Thanks for the tips! These help a lott! :)

[@wanderer15]

My pleasure!

[@16_rafi44]

Hey uhh i tried zyzzyva on mobile but i didnt see variables that gives me top order 1-50 word, is it different than pc?

[@wanderer15]

Yes, the mobile app may be a bit different than desktop.

[@ณฐโชคฯ]

In Zyzzyva is there a twl06 or owl2 dictionary?

[@g4_61]

Thanks for the tutorial; this was a big help for someone looking to get started. One question that has been nagging at me, however: why do Scrabble players tend to learn 7-letter bingos with 6-letter roots instead of 8-letter bingos with 7-letter roots? Unless I am mistaken, most instances of playing all seven tiles require attaching them to an eighth letter somewhere else on the board, no? Thanks again

[@wanderer15]

It's a good question. I think there are a couple reasons that come to my mind. First, learning 7 letter words is already a bit of a shock to most players' systems - it's hard, and takes practice. Adding an 8th letter is an extra degree of difficulty that becomes easier once you have a base of 7 letter word anagramming in place. Also, for entry-level players, you're less likely to see those sprawling, wide-open boards that two elite experts often generate. For more tightly compacted boards without a tile to play through, 7-letter words are going to comprise more of the words that you'll realistically be able to play.

[@anewfuture]

It's basically like learning a foreign language.

[@omi3211]

How do you associate the alphagram to the word? Is it really just rote memorization done everyday with spaced repetition?

[@wanderer15]

Yes, many people (myself included) find this method very effective! Of course, it's most effective for words that don't follow "traditional" word forms - you can still use normal anagramming techniques for a lot of words.

[@yeahmangamer]

Our profile pictures are very similar (great video btw!)

[@wanderer15]

Disembodied heads ftw

[@carteryott7710]

Is it necessary to study the hooks? I’ve know about 1000 7s and 8s but I’ve been learning them with their hooks.. should I keep doing this or is it not that important?

[@wanderer15]

Something I like to do with hook recall is - if I can anagram a word and remember its hooks correctly, I let it advance to the next cardbox. If I can anagram a word but can't recall its hooks, I manually move it down back to the original cardbox or maybe even down one. If I can't anagram a word at all, it drops back down to 0. Hooks are surely important, but we all only have so many hours in the day to work with...so if you find it's slowing you down from moving on to more bingos, I think it's okay to cut corners slightly.

[@repacharge6318]

I cant for the life of me find words to actually put in zyzzyva. Do I have to manually type in every 2 letter word into the program just for it to work? Are there any spreadsheets or something like that full of words that I can use to practice? Why is this so difficult?

[@wanderer15]

Zyzzyva should come preloaded with some lexicons. Clicking the magnifying glass to start a search and seeing what you have in the lexicon field is a good start.

[@randomguy9084]

Is there a logical Or operator in Zyzzwa as in I want to search 4 letter words that include either J or Q or X or Z, or do I just have to generate 4 seperate lists

[@wanderer15]

I would do 4 separate lists, but then try to combine in one document, and then do a new quiz, set the field to In Word List, click Edit List, then Open File and find your combined list.

[@randomguy9084]

Thanks!@@wanderer15

[@jakeh4745]

what is the difference between " JXQZ 4s" and "4s with scoring tiles?"

[@wanderer15]

Not too much, really. I happen to define JXQZ as "power tiles" and the 3 and 4 point tiles as "scoring tiles."

[@iwersonsch5131]

Is there also a quiz feature for spotting the short words in a 7 letter rack?

[@wanderer15]

If you start a Zyzzyva quiz with Quiz Type "Anagrams" and Search Specification "Subanagram Match" and enter the 7 letter rack you'd like to quiz on, it'll let you type all the shorter words in a 7-letter rack. If you want to specifically quiz only short words from that rack, you can hit the plus sign under Search Specification and add a new parameter of "Length, Min 3, Max 3" or whatever lengths you'd like to be able to enter.

[@iwersonsch5131]

@@wanderer15 Can I quiz randomly generated racks too? I.e. picking a word from the quiz list and filling the rack with random other letters?

[@debblez]

anyone else watching this at 2 am knowing full well they will never spend a minute studying scrabble words

[@Ascension721]

cant blame you

[@Joseph-j9r7g]

Or just have all the important words tattooed on your arms.

[@doorotabanasik1929]

Can you help me find a triple triple? My rack is TRLOG?I. And the 7th letter must be a P.

[@jaycarmine-l4y]

For some reason the online scrabble will not let me spell down and across but Zoey can do it. The game cheats!

[@jellomochas]

0/10 not enough trolling

[@wanderer15]

At least I had several RETINAS

[@davisgollert4241]

Is there a way to exclude letters on zyzzyva? I’d like to practice the Q words without a U

[@wanderer15]

Anagram Match: *Q (that's asterisk Q), Includes Letters: U, check the box next to "not"