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What are Benjamins?

A Benjamin is a three-letter extension to the front of a five-letter word. Quite why it’s called a Benjamin is somewhat lost in the mists of time – possibly after a French player of that name who specialised in playing them. They are particularly useful when the opening move of… Read More

What are premium squares?

If you look at a Scrabble board, you will see some rows and columns have both premium-letter squares and premium-word squares. When a double- or triple-letter square and a double- or triple-word square are three or four spaces apart, you have a chance for a really big score if you… Read More

Opening and closing moves

An important point to grasp in Scrabble is the notion of open moves and closing moves. Sometimes a move will open up an area of the board, making it possible to play a seven- or eight-letter word when it was not possible before. This would be an open move. Other… Read More

Words from Africa

Some very interesting words come from Africa, with all sorts of unusual letter combinations that can be useful in squeezing a high score from a tricky rack. South Africa, whether from Dutch-origin Afrikaans or native African languages, gives us these: NARTJIE a tangerine… Read More

The letter K

The K is a sort of semi-power tile. At five points, it’s not worth as much as the J, Q, X and Z, but it’s worth more than anything else. It appears in four two-letter words, KA (one’s spirit or life force in Ancient Egypt),… Read More

Tile placement

Where should you place your tiles? Scrabble often doesn’t boil down to which words you play, but where you play them. A key point is to try to avoid placing vowels next to premium squares. If you put an I next to a triple-letter square, your opponent may have the… Read More

Using mnemonics to remember longer words

Some people remember sevens and eights with mnemonics to help them get bonus words. Let’s say you have the six letters DELORT and one other. You see that makes five one-point tiles and the two-point D, and you wonder if these relatively common letters might form a seven-letter word with… Read More

Using mnemonics to remember words

Some players use mnemonics, little mental shortcuts, to remember words. You can remember the spelling of EUOI by thinking of: Excessive Units Of Intoxication In a similar way, JIAO, a Chinese unit of currency, can become: John Is Always Out And… Read More

Using blank tiles

Scrabble is the only time in life when drawing a blank is good news. Ideally, use it to play all seven tiles for a bonus fifty points. Let’s say it is the opening move of the game. Your rack is EIKLTW and a blank. You might think: “Well, the K… Read More