Word Addict: secrets of a world SCRABBLE champion

TALAQnoun, a form of divorce under Islamic law

I looked for highly improbable nine- and ten-letter words, very awkward eight-letter words. I couldn’t see anything and decided just to score and empty the bag. Now I just wanted Lipe to play something boring, not try a ridiculous bonus word that I’d have to wait a few seconds to challenge and wait for a big red cross to come up. He played DENSE. I played BARFS, making (HYENA)S. He then went out with ET. He had 414. It was 438 for me. I was World Scrabble Champion 2014.

Scrabble™ Terminology (#ulink_fafa3e26-43bb-5b60-8be3-1a8cf97168d2)

Before we get into the meaty stuff, there are some terms to explain. Firstly, there’s the notation for describing where moves are placed on the board uses a grid reference. On the board that follows the game started with DOG, placed at H7a. That means row H, column 7. The lowercase ‘a’ means the word is played across the board (horizontally), as opposed to down (vertically), which would be represented by a lowercase ‘d’. Underneath DOG is HONOUR, which is described as a parallel play because it runs parallel to the word DOG, making DO, ON, and GO. HONOUR is played at I6a.

If we wanted to play the word STRAW from I12d, i.e. pluralizing HONOUR to make HONOURS, that would be described as a hook. The word HONOUR can also be said to have been hooked or to have taken an S hook. Occasionally the terms front hook or back hook are used. The S in HONOURS is a back hook because it adds to the back. A front hook would be extending GO using an E to form EGO.

Premium Square Abbreviations

Also note that there are a few lettering notations with words. A bracketed letter or letters mean those that are already on the board. So if we wanted to extend HONOUR to HONOURED it would be written as (HONOUR)ED. Playing DREW through the R in HONOUR would be D(R)EW. Blank letters are represented as question marks in text, and when played as a letter they are printed in grey, for example the word ST?RTED with the blank as an A.

Tile tracking is commonly used in tournaments and often automated in computer games. If you were tile tracking by hand. you would start a game with a sheet of paper with a list of 100 tiles in a Scrabble set. As each tile is played on the board you cross it off the 100. The letters that aren’t crossed off are often referred to as the unplayed tiles. There are also the tiles on your rack to consider. Taking these off as well leaves what are called the unseen tiles. Computer versions of Scrabble will typically display the unseen tiles.

Rack management is an umbrella term to cover the skills of an advanced player when they balance their tiles. This includes playing off duplicates, excess vowels, or consonants, and otherwise breaking up awkward combinations. So a player with good rack management will be more likely to preserve a playable or friendly set of tiles for the next turn.

Pre-endgame is considered to be the period when there are one to seven tiles in the bag. Endgame is when there are no tiles in the bag. Late game