Scrabble Strategy Guide - 01 - Intro

[@creativecompanion]

My grandparents played Scrabble most nights after dinner for nearly 40 years. They passed away a few years back. My mom just gave me their Deluxe Scrabble board dated 1977. Now I'm sharing it with my kids; four generations connected by one Scrabble board. It is an honor to perpetuate the Scrabble tradition. Thanks for your videos.

[@Jozaia]

This is a very helpful video that I have found pleasure to have come upon. I've just started playing Scrabble with my fellow college mates, and I'm looking to learn and pass on what I can in order to make our games more interesting and overall enjoyable. Your knowledge and expertise on the game just from this one video is already most helpful in helping us reach our goals. Hopefully you continue to make more of these Scrabble strategy guides!

[@PDonovanTango]

Watching your series, thanks alot! One word of advice, "defence" is the act of taking a fence down :) Defense is the correct spelling!

[@curran919]

@spaekster Good question. Its any open row or column that you could easily play a bingo in. An S or E that has 8 open squares immediately to the left or above it are good examples. Look at the board at 2:20. A,B,F,P,S can be hooked before LIGHTS. Since row 2 is completely open, that's a great bingo lane. Row 4 and columns at K8 and M8 are also bingo lanes. I'll talk more about these later.

[@curran919]

@pamom59 well, there definitely isn't an easy answer. There is one five letter word, TAFIA. The leave of OU is very undesirable. Leaving yourself with 3 vowels is not an option, but there are two 4-letter vowel dumps, AUTO [afi] and IOTA [afu]. You retain a decent vowel-constant ratio, but the F is not the best consonant to have (especially early in the game) and each word scores a measly 8 points. For eight points, you should give yourself a stellar leave.

[@curran919]

@pamom59 To get rid of your F, FOU and OAF are your only options. You leave yourself with three vowels and the T. Not nice, but you ditch your F and get a decent score. OAF prevents the double A, but disliking U's is one of the few lessons that you learn early in scrabble that holds true almost indefinitely. I would peg them similarly. Of course, without a play with good offense and leave, the best option may just be exchanging and keeping AT (or AIT, IT are close).

[@gejyspa]

@curran919 The reason that MINIMISATION is not good is because of the source dictionaries for OWL and LWL (long word list), which together make up TWL. OWL has words of up to 9 letters long and their conjugations, pluralizations, etc. These are from American Heritage College Dictionary Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, Random House Webster’s College Dictionary Webster's New World College Dictionary. LWL comes solely from M-W, which while it has MINIMISE, doesn't have MINIMISATION.

[@arunan99rs]

nice tutorial definately subbing..hey man i qualified for WYSC last year and i wanna do the.zame this year.. plz dovawesome tutorials like this so i can learn..gonna become a master this year just the thought of it makes me scared lol

[@2011Tatin]

didn't know there were people who are so into this game

[@jimvenetosgolf]

Great instruction, I appreciate the help.

[@scpedicini]

@curran919 I think minimisation is valid in SOWPODS, and also works on the UK version of Lexulous as well.

[@JennyJardin]

Could you do a video on using the Internet Scrabble Club? It's not very user friendly. Perhaps show how to set up a match; common commands, etc.

[@JETZcorp]

I challenged my mom, who has been playing Scrabble VERY competitively with my grandmother for about 40 years, to a game of Words with Friends. At first I did quite well; I was impressed with my first over-30 word and then more so when I laid down a 68. A few hours later, mom laid down "TONTITE" with a TW and two TL tiles, which I believe came to 83 points. Final score, I lost 349 to 441. Not bad for my second-ever game of Scrabble, though!

[@curran919]

@pamom59 So between TAFIA [18], FOU [12] and ex(AFIOU) [0], they all simulate very close to eachother. As beginners, Joe Edley insists the if in doubt (and the closeness of this simulation infers that you should be!), you should take the points and go for TAFIA. This may not be the first word that you may know, FOU should be, but in the end, I would go with an exchange.

[@pamom59]

Hi Curren. Thanks for your lesson on opening moves. I would love to see more examples of opening moves. Say my opening board is OFAAITU (real example). What word would you make and why? Thanks!

[@ParkerAnderson2024]

I get to about mid game and I start to crash. I appreciate these tips.

[@falbarran33]

so·lu·tion noun \sə-ˈlü-shən\ : something that is used or done to deal with and end a problem : something that solves a problem : the act of solving something : a correct answer to a problem, puzzle, etc.

[@gungungunawan6299]

this one work :P facebook.com/1137611209591990/photos/a.1137622039590907.1073741828.1137611209591990/1137622009590910/?type=3&pidid=274d0433-a89d-4056-a1b5-377ee960d58c Scrabble Strategy Guide - 01 - Intro

[@deborahmartin1557]

Frank Albarran has a

[@curran919]

@MrBrain4 Poppycock! Minimisation is a recognized english/canadian spelling (it is even on wikipedia)! I thought TWL was supposed to be independent from o/ou or ize/ise?

[@pamom59]

@curran919 thanks I loved your answer. I actually played the word "TOFU" which was a good score but left me with AAI. my opponent proceeded to bingo playing the word PANTILE across the top (IT, LO, EF) can you believe it?

[@Codybanksguy]

what were the two names of the programs you mentioned in the beginning of the video? :)

[@curran919]

@Codybanksguy QUACKLE (quackle.org) for simulation and playing against a robot and ZYZZYVA (zyzzyva.net) for word studying, etc.

[@MrBrain4]

MINIMISATION is not valid in TWL06. Might be good in SOWPODS perhaps. Try MINIMIZATION instead. :-)

[@njerzynek]

b and c are not in 2 letter word list? ch, be, ab, bo, by

[@somebody9033]

ba, be, bi, bo, by

[@somebody9033]

He said V and C Plus he's american - they use TWL dictionary SOWPODS IS BETTER!!!

[@njerzynek]

make sense

[@JGunit]

*cant

[@VirtuallyMore]

why are you holding the camera?

[@austinjonestyler]

you still here?

[@MrBrain4]

Yeah, it probably should be valid, but the Scrabble dictionary is notoriously inconsistent. You could probably devote an entire lesson to some of the more notable weirdnesses in the dictionary.

[@scho0420]

VEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE brah

[@al_linton_]

scrabble forking