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Adding Es to the end of words

A more unexpected use of the E is that it goes after a lot of other words to form new words, or, in Scrabble jargon, it is a versatile ‘hook’ (because it hooks onto the word). The large number of these E hooks means you might be able to fit… Read More

Ode to the letter E

Ah, the E, lovely E. The best of the vowels, ranking perhaps equally with the S as the best letter of all. One of the most frustrating things for the Scrabble player is to go rack after rack without an E. Especially as the Scrabble set contains twelve of them,… Read More

Keep scoring

It can be useful to hold on to the one-point tiles AEIOU and LNRST as these are the commonest letters and therefore the ones which are most likely to form a bonus word. But you must resist just blindly putting any of those letters to one side of your rack… Read More

Six letters, all vowels!

We’ve seen two-vowel two-letter words (like AE and OU), three-vowel threes (like AIA and EAU), three-vowel fours (like JIAO and QUAI), and that amazing four- vowel… Read More

Should you change your letters?

Nobody likes having to change letters, but sometimes it’s unavoidable. In most circumstances, if you can score at least twenty, maybe even fifteen, I would say make the move. The rack might just sort itself out – even IJUY might transform into JUICILY or… Read More

The letter D

The D is one of only two letters worth two points (the other is the G), and this indicates its status as not being quite as common as the one-point consonants. Its main use for bonuses is for forming past tenses and past participles of verbs –… Read More

Evaluate your rack

Good players can look at their rack at any given stage of the game and know what sort of move they should be trying to make. Most racks will fall into one of five categories; here’s what you should look to do for each type: Too many vowels: Use one… Read More

Eight-letter words in Scrabble

Just as it makes sense to concentrate on the sevens which contain the commonest letters (AEIOU and LNRST), the eight-letter words with those same common letters are the ones that will pay the biggest dividends. Here are a few likely suspects: LATRINES… Read More