Scrabble: No man ever got lost on a straight road
If you haven’t noticed, the game of scrabble is anything but a ‘straight road’. And maybe that’s why it has so much appeal to millions of people. It takes a combination of luck and skill to earn your way to the highest levels in among the ranks.
Some people (usually those who rarely draw the blanks and Ss) complain that the winners are just luckier at picking the tiles. But seasoned players know the TRUTH: The more you know, the luckier you become.
People (especially those who are new to competitive scrabble) ask me, “Where does an aspiring maven begin to learn the many facets of the game of scrabble?”
There is no quick and easy answer. Multi-taskers and quick-learners will find greater success than others. However, everyone can become a better player than they are today, if they will seriously make a commitment to follow guidelines that I have designed in SCRABBLE 101.
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Those of you who have only played scrabble at home, using only common words from everyday conversations, have been playing ‘straight road scrabble’.
When one attends a club or tournament they will see all of those ‘common’ words used, but in addition, they will encounter other letter combinations that will make one take pause to consider whether it is a ‘legal word’ or not.
Did you know that in addition to common American-English-Words, there are many words from other lands in the OWL2 (Official Word List – 2nd Edition)?
Which of these words are legal to play? _____eau _____shagger _____orangier _____spitoon _____slipout _____overrank _____usufruct _____crypting _____yokemate _____da
In order to win at scrabble in the competitive arena, one has get off the straight road, deke and weave. One has to throw out a believable phoney now and then to keep the opposition on their toes and second guessing. Going hand-in-hand with that phoney, one should also play some obscure words that you have researched and dug up in the dictionary. It could be something as simple as ‘dugs’ or as strange and ‘sferics’. When you can do that you will make your opponents whimper like a little baby; then you will be king.