Play Better Scrabble®.

Take a look through these tactics. Then see if you can put some of them into practice.

Whilst you may not become World Champion material, you'll certainly become a much better player.

KNOW YOUR 2 LETTER WORDS

There are 124 2 letter words. If you are willing to learn anything specifically for playing Scrabble then these are the most important words to learn. They are useful to create parallel plays or for squeezing in a good play on a blocked board.

In fact you won't need to learn all of them, as 27 are everyday words like IT, IN etc., which leaves 97. Then there are interjections, contracted forms, tonic sol-fa and letter sounds which you will know but might not think are acceptable plays in Scrabble.

These include:

AD, AH, AR, AW, BI, ED, EF, EH, EL, EM, EN, ER, ES, EX, FA, HA, HM, HO, LA, LO, MA, MI, MM, MO, OH, OO, OP, OW, PA, PO, RE, SH, ST, TA, TI, UG, UH, UM, UN, UR, YO.

That's another 41, only 56 to go now! You might even know some of these, for example OM (an intoned Hindu sacred symbol) or PI (mathematical symbol) but you'll probably just have to learn the rest. When you play with them regularly they will soon become second nature. They are:

AA,AB, AE, AG, AI, AL,AX, AY, BA, BO, CH, DA, DE, DI, EA, EE, ET, FE, FY, GI, GU, ID, IO, JA, JO, KA, KI, KO, KY, LI, MU, NA, NE, NU, NY, OB, OD, OE, OI, OM, OS, OU, OY, PE, PI, QI, SI, TE, UT, WO, XI, XU, YA, YU, ZA, ZO.

DON'T ALWAYS GO FOR THE HIGHEST SCORE

A good starting point to decide where to play, is to ask yourself; what is the highest score I can get? However, it's not the only consideration. You need to think whether you are getting value for the tiles you play and consider what letters you are leaving on your rack.

The best tile is a blank. It vastly increases your chance of getting a 7 letter word and collecting a 50 point bonus. As a rule of thumb a blank should be held unless it increases your best play by upwards of 25 points. Think about setting target scores for the other letters such as S, J, Q, X, and Z.

Try to keep a balanced rack i.e. a rack that has similar number of vowels and consonants. Try to play duplicate letters (if you have 3 N's you may take a few points less in score in order to be able to play one of them.) Try to keep the letters from the word RETAINS on your rack as these are the letters most conducive to making 7 letter words and getting those elusive 50 point bonuses.