SCRABBLE: Learn To Let Go
A little knowledge can be dangerous and self defeating, especially when playing scrabble Take the letters ‘I’, ‘N’, ‘G’, for instance. The average person, who has a 6th grade reading level, knows that there a lot of words that end with the suffix ‘ING’. Novice scrabble players will frequently identify those tiles on their rack and waste turn after turn, hoping to play that combination on a word.
Gary’s RULE #19: Do not fall in love with any of your tiles.
‘ING’ could be a great find, allowing you to extend a verb, already on the board, to a DWS or a TWS. But, do not sit with tiles for any extended period. They can tie you down.
What would you do if you had 3 esses on your rack at the same time?
Too much good stuff is BAD STUFF. (DO NOT exchange and put esses back into the tile bag. You don’t want your opponent to draw them. WASTE ONE OR TWO of them on a single play and hope to balance your rack when you replenish your tiles.)
The ‘Q’, ‘Z’, ‘X’, and ‘J’ have a special appeal to players because the hold the highest value among the tiles in the bag. Don’t waste several turns trying to achieve the perfect play. Take a good score and keep the game moving.
Some players waste way too much time trying to decide what to play where. Become a faster thinker. Don’t allow the game to slow on your turns. Remember: when your clock is running your opponent is enjoying ‘FREE’ thinking time.
Some players never look at a word list from one week to the next. The better and best players spend a few minute every day with some word list. Even as little as 5 minutes every day will make a difference in you word power.
Novice players are usually less apt to trade tiles when they have a bad rack, for fear of earning ‘zero points’ on a given turn. Better players know that winning the game is related to having balanced racks during the game.
When you trade tiles, what do you trade? There is a correct trade and an incorrect trade. Do you know how to determine the correct trade? That is one of 35 different lessons that I teach in my online scrabble class, SCRABBLE 101. CLICK HERE