Scrabble Tips to Up Your Game

Ready, Set, Go

Nothing is more fun than sitting down to a good old game of Scrabble. It makes a fun way to reconnect with cups of hot cocoa during the chilliest of days and a fun way to bring life to your deck or patio on a summer day, everybody just sitting around ready to make some words and some laughs too.

Having fun with Scrabble should be your first priority and winning second. But hey, it is still nice to win! Let’s talk about some ways you can bump up your game with some pro Scrabble tips.

Get Hooked on Hooks

Much like those lovely tools found on the hands of pirates everywhere, hooks are something you should know about.

Hooking in scrabble is when you attach onto a word that’s already on the board. For instance, let’s take the word “Hook”. Put an S on it and you now have “hooks”. The letter is your “hook” and “hook” is the word you just extended, so it is the “hook word”.

The best thing to do is try and make two words at once. Say for instance the word Hook is on one part of the board horizontally and the word Pup is going down vertically one square away. Put an “s” on the end of “hook” to make Hooks, and you have also made “pups” in the process too. Boom! Two words for the price of one.

Use ALL the Letters!

This tip is two-fold. First, we will advise you to use as many letters as you can. You say “Well, duh, that’s the idea” but it goes much deeper than that. After all there are only 100 letter tiles per silver bag. Therefore, use more, and your opposition have fewer to choose from. Huzzah!

And even though we want you to make big words with many letters, you have to know about the small ones that have big point value. For instance, these are all accepted words in Scrabble: JO, XU, AX, OX, ZA, QI, XI and EX.

You can even make expression words like “Hmm” and “Um”. Use this knowledge to your advantage-use them to make even bigger words on your next turn or just to get rid of those pesky letters we sometimes have trouble making use of.

Be Very Mindful of Blank Tiles

Blank tiles are wonderful to get because there are only two in a bag. This means they have to be treated with care. Use them only to BINGO, that is, create a word that uses all of the seven tiles on your rack. This will get you that amazing 50-point bonus and the right to do a victory dance around your fellow players. These guys are rare, so use them only when the time is right!

Let’s Play NOW

Scrabble is, no doubt, one of the most fun ways to hang with friends and get some laughs going. The more you play, the better you get, so get your friends and play now!