At the very end of the game, give some careful thought not just to what you want to do but also to what your opponent might do.
It’s useful if you have been tile-tracking – crossing every letter off a prepared list as it is played so that you know what your opponent has at the end. But if you haven’t, at least check if they have the Q, Z, J, X, or a letter that can be tricky to play on a tight board like C or V. If they do and you can see there’s only one place it can be played, block it – that can give you up to twenty extra points, as they will lose the value of unplayed tiles on their rack and you will gain them.
Conversely, if they have a blank, block off the most likely place they can get a fifty-point bonus. You don’t want to get hit with a sucker punch right at the end.
By Barry Grossman
Barry is a leading UK Scrabble player and winner of several tournaments. He is the author of Scrabble for Beginners (Chambers), Need to Know Scrabble, Scrabble – Play to Win and The Little Book of Scrabble Trickster. He has also contributed to numerous other books on the subject of words and word-games, has been a series champion of Channel 4’s Countdown, and has written four comedy series for BBC Radio 4. He lives in Hertford.
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