Scrabble might not be taken seriously in some parts of the world but gradually, people are taking it seriously and it is becoming a competitive game, where pros are battling against each other to find out who is the best. Scrabble is taken most seriously in Africa and it is the African nation, Nigeria that is currently at the top of the ladder. Becoming a pro at Scrabble isn’t easy but we are here with some tips that might be helpful for you to become better at the game:
Word Power
Pro Scrabble players live and die by their vocabulary or Word Power. As the saying goes, ‘He Who Fights By The Sword, He Dies By It’ and the same is the case for Scrabble Players. For any professional Scrabble, having a voluminous vocabulary is very important because you have a vast variety of words from which you can choose.
Any Pro Scrabble player must have a good and voluminous vocabulary, otherwise, it would be not possible to compete against other professionals. This includes learning over 1000 internationally legal two-letter words, and over 1300 three-letter words that are usually overlooked but they can decide a game.
While playing Scrabble at a professional level, you have to play words both crosswise and parallel. In such instances, these two and three-letter words can come in huge. In Scrabble, when you learn a word or know a word then it does not mean that you know its meaning, instead, you know the spelling of the word and that is the thing that matters. Knowing the definition or meaning of the word isn’t important.
Board Vision
Now that you know the value of learning high-value words, you now have to have the “Board Vision”, which is the ability to recognize and spot potential high-scoring moves for you. After you have memorized a few thousand and have built a strong vocabulary, you should now have the Board Vision using which you will be able to identify and spot words by using the tiles on the board and those you have available on the rack and at the same time, looking for an opportunity to maximize your score through premium squares such as triple-word or double-letter.
When you will be playing on a professional level then you should keep in mind that sometimes you might even have to go defensive because other players will also lay down setups in order to trick you and having a board vision means that not only do you sabotage your opponent’s moves but also avoid potential setups from your opponents.
If you want to succeed at a professional level then you must have an excellent board vision that is obtained by playing as many games against tough opponents as possible, practising all the time, and reviewing & analyzing the gameplays of greats. If you are completely new to Scrabble then you can take help from tools such as Scrabble Word Finder that can help you find all the possible combinations from the tiles that you have available at the rack or Word Unscrambler that can unscramble words for you but keep in mind that use these for training and practice purposes only.
Planning Your Moves Ahead
Newbies and Amateurs don’t realize this but Scrabble is played with strategy and one of the strategies is to plan your moves ahead. Most players don’t take this into consideration and they think that the word they combine on the current move is all and it can result in the players leaving three vowels behind while using the other four tiles to build a word, only to get four more vowels in the next turn, which they will most likely miss.
All the pros plan their moves ahead and keep a tally of the letter tiles that are left in the bag. They keep a tight vision on the board and are familiar with how many tiles are assigned to each letter. This can come in handy, especially in end-game situations when there are less than 10 tiles left in the bag. In such situations, you can work out and plan your moves ahead to lock up the board and make setups that will be beneficial for you.
You also manage the score for each turn and use lexical flexibility to balance the score that you would get from the move and also what you would be left with. Although, all of these things are hard and take quite some practice, however, if you excel at these things, it wouldn’t be hard for you to challenge the pros.
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