When you're playing competitive Scrabble games, it's not recommendable to play Words With Friends at the same time. Although we can't deny that the latter is fun and great if you're trying to kill time, learn new words, play with friends, and make new ones its gameplay doesn't match up to the former. Scrabble certainly deserves to be on top of the word game pedestal. Now that we have you curious, why avoid WWF if you're a Scrabble player that competes in tournaments?
Words With Friends is like trial and error
One of the things that made Scrabble popular is the challenge option, which obviously does not exist in Words With Friends. Simply put, this happens when you “challenge” a word played by your opponent. If the said word does not exist in the Scrabble dictionary, then your opponent will take back all of his tiles and lose a turn. This leaves no room for error on the part of the challenger.
In Words With Friends , a player is allowed to try putting whatever tiles on the board until he comes up with a word. When you play an invalid word, the system simply tells you that it's not allowed and therefore, you try to create new words until you pick one that's valid.
Subtle, yet telling, differences
Just compare a Words With Friends board with a Scrabble one. You'll see a major, yet always overlooked, difference. The bonus tiles (the colored ones with double word, double letter, triple letter and triple word multipliers) are laid out differently.
Aside from the board, the letter tiles are also different. There are some letters whose values and numbers have been changed. Also, there are four extra letter tiles in Words With Friends at 104, while Scrabble still retains its 100. Although non-competitive players may not notice it, this aspect could impact the game in a big way.
The long wait
If you're playing Words With Friends, you could just make your opponent wait for a day or two before going back to the game, just because you feel like it. You can also just sleep the game off and come back to it the following morning, when your mind and body are refreshed. This in turn gives the impression that Scrabble is all fun and games. In a leisurely and family level, it is, but if you look at it in a competitive scale, you'll certainly get the short end of the stick.
Your opponent will certainly get annoyed if you took more than 10 minutes to decide which word to play. In tournaments, all decisions you make must be played within a reasonable time frame, although what's reasonable varies most of the time.
The words and updates
Ever since the inception of Words With Friends, Zyga has made numerous updates to the game, may it be fixing the user interface or by adding new words as it sees fit. Even if the game is created in partnership with Hasbro, North America's licensed Scrabble distributor, the dictionaries they use are different. You'll be surprised that a word you played in Scrabble isn't allowed in Words With Friends, and vice-versa. This could actually cross out your chances in a competitive game.
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