Many times in the past I have been asked which letters I consider to be the most and least useful in Scrabble. My answer is normally “it depends” since Scrabble is a game of so much variety that each time you play will be unique. That being said, the Ss and the blanks, being the most fruitful for the all-important 7-letter words certainly rank right up towards the top of the list.
For top Scrabble players (and anyone trying to increase their scores) my advice is always to try to think a bit bigger. Don’t just focus on single tiles, but instead consider your letters in combination. Just like in everyday life, a team is usually stronger than an individual – in Scrabble terms this is what we call “synergy”.
The most extreme example of synergy is the Q. By itself, it’s a terrible tile. Sure, it’s worth 10 points, but it’s so unhelpful that it can often block up your rack while you wait to offload it and frequently you either score very little in doing so, or you sacrifice a load of points waiting for something special to come along. Combine it with a U (and a few other vowels) and suddenly the troublesome letter becomes a powerhouse, easily scoring 60+ if, for example, you bridge it from a triple letter score to a double word. Get that Q on the triple, and even a lowly QUIET will score you 68 points.
Other sets of letters than combine so naturally well that we see them all the time in English include the “obvious” ING or IEST, but consider TCH, RCH, NCH too. The B is an ok tile, but combine it with ALE and suddenly you have ABLE – really useful and flexible for 7 letter words (how many seven letter words can you think of that end in –ABLE?). L and N aren’t natural bedfellows (how many words with LN next to each other can you think of? Not many is the answer…unless you have a vulnerable ulna) but INGLE and ANGLE give a huge number of options.
So, in future when you are considering what letters to play, also think about those you are keeping – will they play well together to maximise your score next move too? Perhaps it’s worth sacrificing a few points this time to retain a combination that really pack a punch for the future. Can you keep the CH together? Rather than keep just the S, could you hold onto IEST?
At the opposite end of the synergy spectrum, keep an eye out for those sets of letters that work badly together regardless of what else you keep. My personal least favourite pair by far is WU (although with the new UWU, that’s a bit less of a concern!) but BP, VU and the even worse VUW are to be avoided whenever possible. If you get caught out, some handy words which might help include WUDU, PEBA, BAPU and VROUW, but you will find it much harder to grab the big points if you hang onto these nasty sets. (You will notice that the U features frequently in these worst combinations – some players have suggested it might even be worth considering increasing its value to 2!)
Today therefore my advice to winning more games and racking up more points is this – get your letters to work together for you by building synergy and removing clunky combinations. A few moments’ thought will reap significant benefits in your games.
By Brett Smitheram
Brett Smitheram is the UK Number 1 rated Scrabble player, former World Champion and has been ranked in the World Top 10 for more than 20 years. Originally from Cornwall, he now lives and works in London as Head of HR for an energy company in Canary Wharf.
All opinions expressed on this blog are those of the individual writers, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions or policies of Collins, or its parent company, HarperCollins.
