Scrabble Strategy for Beginners
Justin Kazmark lead an enthusiastic group of Scrabble beginners through the fundamentals of the game, which is basically memorizing list after list of words you’ll either never use or didn’t know you could use in Scrabble. He showed us several of his own portable Scrabble boards (quite of few were on lazy susans) and also an official game timer.
The proper way to determine the first turn, Justin explained, was to lift the bag of letters above your eyebrow before picking your letter. After the other person/people pick their letters, whoever’s letter comes first in the alphabet gets to go first. The first turn, as it turns out, is pivotal in deciding the winner — the first player often gets the upper hand by playing the double word score.
The most profoundly useful tool Justin taught us was the “RETAIN plus (blank)” anagram. Memorizing the words that can be spelled with the letters R-E-T-A-I-N, and one more letter, allows you to “bingo” your seven letters should you be so lucky to have them all at once. “RETAIN+I”, for example, spells “INERTIA”.
The complete list of lists of words Justin has given us to memorize:
Two-letter words (example: OI)
Four-letter words than can be formed from three-letter words (example: ACT > TACT)
Four-letter words with three vowels in (example: OBOE)
Five-letter words with four vowels in (example: AIOLI)
Q words without a U after (example: QANATS)
Words with all consonants (they exist! “CRWTHS” is one.)
Double animal words (example: BUGBEAR)
Acceptable names (example: KELVIN)
Acceptable places (example: CHILE)
Take twos (example: TARTAR)
The AILER bingo stem (similar function as the RETAIN anagram)
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