Winning a game of Scrabble doesn’t just come down to luck. You need to have the vocabulary, skill, and learn well-known strategies to beat your friends at this board game. Every player may have some tricks up their sleeve, and it will likely take you some time and dedication to come up with your style of playing the game. If you’re wondering how you can take it to the next level, here’s how you can level-up your scrabble strategies.
Add to Your Vocabulary
No matter how many tricks that you memorize, a surefire way of getting better at playing Scrabble is by learning new words. There’s a ton of ways you can do that, the easiest of which being leisure reading. If you use an e-book reader, these devices usually have a built-in flashcard system that adds new vocabulary whenever you look up a new word. After you’re done reading, you can revise these words, and mark the ones that you’ve memorized as mastered.
Another easy way to add to your mental dictionary is by highlighting unfamiliar words in a paper lexicon. You can start by difficult letters such as X, Z, and Q, and memorize as many words as you can. These can come in handy the next time you or your friend draw a challenging tile. There are also online SAT mock tests online that you can take, which help you learn words by placing them in the right context.
Use an Unscrambler
While it may sound like cheating, unscramblers are a great tool for beginners who still haven’t wrapped their heads around the intricacies of the game. Unscramblers work by suggesting words according to the letters that you’re working with. You can also use this tool at FastWordUnscrambler.com while you practice playing the game. This Scrabble helper gives you a list of words that you can make from the letters that you have.
As you use this tool more often, you’ll notice how quickly you learn hidden words, too. Learning the skill of anagram solving is how professionals win Scrabble, and there’s no better way to hold your own in a board game than by learning from the masters. These hidden words are not always found in dictionaries, either, as some of them are part of older English dialects. It doesn’t matter how old a word is; if it’s an English word, it works.
Use Small Words
Using two-letter words is a quick way to build up points in the game. These words can be as simple as a preposition. The trick here is quite different from other challenges because you likely know the word, but it never crosses your mind that you can use it when you need to. You can look up lists of two or three-letter words online, and memorize as many as you can. Use these to your advantage when you’re playing with an opponent who normally underestimates you, and you’ll find that you will beat them in no time.
Add Prefixes and Suffixes
Adding prefixes such as “anti,” and suffixes such as “ing” is an easy way to manipulate your opponent’s own moves and gain extra points. You’d be surprised how you can also get away with bluffing, and surprisingly, bluffing is allowed in a game of Scrabble. If you make up a word by adding a believable suffix or prefix, and your opponent doesn’t call you out on it, you’ll still earn points.
Practice on Your Own
If you have no one to practice with, you can still play a game of Scrabble online or through apps. These apps allow you to connect with other users to play the game, or have you compete with a computerized opponent. The latter, of course, is always more difficult. However, in most online games, you’ll likely be able to tweak the difficulty depending on how good you are.
If you’re a beginner, it’s always advised to start practicing the game on easier levels. Skipping a level may end up discouraging you altogether. You don’t have to free up time to play the game, either. You can simply play on a bus ride, on bathroom breaks, or a few minutes before bedtime.
As fun as a good game of Scrabble can be, it can also be a little frustrating when you draw challenging tiles or run into a difficult combination of letters that you’re not sure how to deal with. If you follow our simple guide, you’ll learn how to come up with your own strategies, and boast your own unique style of winning the game.
