How to Win

How to Beat Your Friends in Scrabble: Unconventional Methods

Scrabble is a fun and enjoyable game, especially if you're winning and using a Scrabble helper. That said, beating your friends in the game is a mentally exhausting task, since you need to squeeze out your brain juices and employ numerous strategies in order to do so. The things happening outside the board are as important as what's happening inside it. Why? Well, what you're doing when it's not your turn could mean the difference between victory and defeat. Having said that, here are some unconventional and rarely employed methods that will help in beating your friends at Scrabble.

Shuffle the letter tiles on your rack

A Scrabble helper allows you to shuffle your rack digitally, but  in its absence, you'll have to do it manually. Shuffling the rack allows you to see the best and highest scoring opportunities in your current – and possibly future -  turns. This also improves your word play and anagramming skills, assuming that you haven't played games like Text Twist yet. Remember, doing this could give you multiple bingos as the game progresses.

Skip a turn and look at the whole picture

Sometimes, skipping a turn could pose more benefits than losses. Why? Well, when you're mentally exhausted and if there seems to be no visible opportunity, study the board and skip a turn. Your opponent might be setting a trap, especially ones involving the triple bonus squares right on the edges. Doing this can actually surprise your opponent and may even disrupt his game plan.

Quality of quantity plays

There are some Scrabble players that only play words once every two or three turns. Why? Well, they skip their turns and swap their tiles in the process. They do so in order to create compatible letter tile combinations to score bingos. Although this is not recommended, players like Wayne Yorra have made a living out of it. He once scored a whopping 890 points in a single game. The bulk of his points came from the word “QUIXOTRY”, which gave him more than 300 points.

Only use two to three letter words

Using small words will certainly frustrate your opponent, as small words equate to lesser scoring opportunities. This is an effective way to stop your opponent from using the bonus tiles, and you may even use it to to direct them to the corners, right where the triple word and letter multipliers are. There are actually a lot of two to three high scoring letter words, like Za, Qi, Xi, Xu and Zax. Be sure to take advantage of them!

Use the hotspots – even for low scoring opportunities

In Scrabble, you and your opponent are fighting over the control of the bonus squares. One of the best strategies to employ is to use it every time you have a chance. This will effectively prevent your adversary from using most of the squares, simply because you've used most of them. This in turn will make the game into a low-scoring tussle – the first player that makes a mistake loses.