Scrabble end of game strategy

Should a tile be placed on these squares, the value of the tile will be multiplied by 2x or 3x. Some squares will also multiply the total value of the word and not just the single point value of one tile. Double Letter Scores - The light blue cells in the board are isolated and when these are used, they will double the value of the tile placed on that square.

Triple Letter Score - The dark blue cell in the board will be worth triple the amount, so any tile placed here will earn more points. Double Word Score - When a cell is light red in colour, it is a double word cell and these run diagonally on the board, towards the four corners.

When a word is placed on these squares, the entire value of the word will be doubled. Triple Word Score - The dark red square is where the high points can be earned as this will triple the word score. Placing any word on these squares will boos points drastically. These are found on all four sides of the board and are equidistant from the corners.

One Single Use - When using the extra point squares on the board, they can only be used one time. If a player places a word here, it cannot be used as a multiplier by placing another word on the same square. Without looking at any of the tiles in the bag, players will take one tile. A blank tile will win the start of the game. The tiles are them replaced to the bag and used in the remainder of the game.

Every player will start their turn by drawing seven tiles from the Scrabble bag. There are three options during any turn. The player can place a word, they can exchange tiles for new tiles or they can choose to pass. In most cases, players will try to place a word as the other two options will result in no score. When a player chooses to exchange tiles, they can choose to exchange one or all of the tiles they currently hold.

After tiles are exchanged, the turn is over and players will have to wait until their next turn to place a word on the board. Players can choose to pass at any time. They will forfeit that turn and hope to be able to play the next time. If any player passes two times in a row, the game will end and the one with the highest score will win. When the game begins, the first player will place their word on the star spin in the centre of the board.

The star is a double square and will offer a double word score. Broadly speaking, you can think of Scrabble strategy in one of two ways: an open board and a closed board. This approach might work if you have a particularly impressive vocabulary. You can capitalize on super long words with lots of bonuses. A closed board stands in stark contrast, keeping all the words as cramped together as possible.

Prioritizing Scrabble defense, this approach leaves fewer opportunities for big plays. Rather, you focus on how 2-letter words can help you win by better controlling the game board.

Slow and steady wins the race. Double letter score, triple letter score, triple word score… These are all good things. Two letter words are crucial for spotting advantageous places on the board to build your words. And while you may be tempted to think that big words with lots of letters are the key to victory, advanced analytics have revealed otherwise. In recent years, there has been a big wave of highly successful Scrabble masters from countries like Nigeria and Thailand.

Rather than building up big vocabularies, top players simply memorized words without caring what any of them meant. Native English speakers gravitate toward familiar words. By comparison, non-native speakers can focus on all the words, even more obscure ones. In particular, their biggest Scrabble defense was memorizing as many 5 letter words as they could. They took a closed board strategy, minimizing opportunities for triple letter and triple word bonuses. By playing shorter words, they saved more letter tiles in their racks.

This reduced randomness, compared to clearing your rack every time you played a bingo. To keep your opponent from putting the two together and scoring loads of points, try placing it in the least advantageous area of the board. This will make it harder for your opponent to form words taking advantage of bonuses such as triple-word and double-letter. You should also know the hooks of any word you play.

This is a fundamental part of Scrabble strategy, as placing a word like Quit on the board creates an opportunity for your opponent to create Quite by adding only one letter. Another important tactic involves memorizing words known as bingo stems. This gives an award of 50 bonus points in addition to the value of the created word. Scrabble bingo stems include words such as Retina, Satire, and Tisane.

In the case of Tisane, any letter except for Q, Y or J will give a player a bingo opportunity. Just keep in mind that the letters will still have to be arranged properly, and creating words like Entasia or Acetins will require some study on the part of the player. You can also memorize seven-letter Scrabble bingo stems.

This will allow you to clear all the tiles in your rack by adding them to a letter already in play. Besides memorizing stems, a number of additional Scrabble bingo strategies also exist. For example, experienced players may keep three-letter and four-letter combinations in their rack that commonly allow for bingo. Working with ING is recommended for novice players, as less letters have to be arranged four instead of seven.

You should not play off these letters without getting a significant reward in return, as accumulating them can lead to a quick 50 point swing.