Board games remain a tradition of family nights in most people’s households.

Playing these games allows family members to spend time together, and depending on the game it can help you exercise your brain and learn something new.

Scrabble is a very popular word game where you are given a set of different letters and are required to make up words with the letters you have available.

Top Strategies for Winning Scrabble Every Time

Different words and letters will give you different scores. It can be frustrating constantly losing to your friends or your family members, therefore, in this article, we will provide you with top strategies for winning scrabble every time. This way you will be sure to enjoy every minute of family game night.

Use Small Words to Your Advantage

People often think that using long and complicated words is the key to winning Scrabble, although this is not necessarily the case. Smaller, two-letter words can help you just as much. If you have not mastered the game, it is important that you start small before you decide to bring out the big words.

Add Prefixes and Suffixes

Prefixes and suffixes are the addition that is placed before or after a word, such as ‘post’ before a word or an ‘ing’ at the end.  Just by doing this step with these types of words, you can create a brand new word and score yourself some extra points. This can lead you towards winning the game.

Create Difficult Words Upfront

There are certain letters, like Q, X, K, and Z that make us feel stuck in the game and that we tend to leave till the end, in the hopes of coming up with the next winning move. However, it is important to note that this move may result in you losing points unnecessarily.

Coming up with Q words without the U is a sure way to get points and get ahead of the other players. Try to create these difficult words upfront so that you have more chance of winning.

Look for Hooks

In the game Scrabble, the term ‘hook’ consists of a letter or letters that you can place to a current word to create a brand new one. A good example is adding ‘g’ to ‘ghost’, creating a new word. Doing this is a very easy method to secure you a few additional points, just make sure you pay attention to the words that exist on the board already and be creative.

Don’t Waste the S

The letter S is not very prevalent in the game Scrabble, with only four of them available to all players, therefore the ability to turn a word into a plural is highly sought-after. It is recommended that you hold on to the S until it will make a significant difference in how many points you can get.

Preferably, you should not use your S until you have a Bingo—earning that can score you 50 points, by utilizing all seven tiles on your board in one word only.

Get a Little Help When You’re Stuck

This one may seem a little bit like a cheat move, but it is not. It is natural that sometimes you may need a little extra help when playing word games, especially if you are stuck.

Even though the whole point of the game should be to learn and have fun, it can be difficult achieving this when you feel stuck with the letters that you have and unable to create new words.

If this is the case, it is suggested you use an unscrambler tool for the words and letters. This essentially allows you to add letters to a website and it will come up with different words for you.

You can either use this to your advantage during your game, where all the players are allowed to use this tool, or you can use it as a practice tool to help you expand your vocabulary and create more words on your own next time you play.

Look for double and triple-letter tiles

When you start to get the hang of Scrabble, you’ll realize that it’s not just about playing the most words, but rather, where they’re placed. For instance, if you have seven letters that can form two different words, the order of the letters could matter when it comes to landing on certain tiles. The word ‘player’ and ‘replay’ can have completely different scores depending on where the ‘y’ lands on the board.

Fortunately, if you need help getting started, you can use an online tool like Unscrambled Words to specify if you need a word to start with, end with, or contain letters in a certain order.

Play Defensively

In order to secure as many points as possible, you’ll need to take full advantage of premium squares. This is so that you reduce the other player’s chance of doing the same. These premium squares essentially enable you to double or triple the score you can get for one word, meaning that you get extra points quickly.

If you are the one playing first, think about playing defensively and note that you are allowed to play a word with a maximum of five letters straight in the centre of the board and reduce the chances of opening a double word square to your adversary. 

Study the Dictionary

At the end of the day, Scrabble is a word game and if you really want to win on your own, it is important that your vocabulary is up to scratch. Although reading the actual dictionary may not actually increase your Scrabble score, the game usually comes with a dictionary where you can learn what words are allowed and can secure the most points.

By doing this, you will also memorise different words that you can use at the next family game night.

Playing Scrabble may sound more difficult than it is – if you feel that you are stuck, make sure to follow some of the strategies discussed above so that you can earn yourself some extra points and increase your chances of winning next time you play. 

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