How to Get a High Score in Scrabble

We love Scrabble! It is one of our favourite family games to play together on a winter evening beside the fire, or recently in the iphone version as Words with Friends. Sometimes while waiting for our order to come in a restaurant, we take turns passing the iphone across the table to play the classical 7-tile word game that is a variation of a collaborative crossword puzzle.

So what are the tricks of the experts? How does a person play high score scrabble and get to scores over 300 in a game of Scrabble?

1. Learn the Official Word Lists for two-letter and three-letter words. These are lists accepted by competitions as legitimate words in international Scrabble tournaments. If you know these words, moves open up for you where you can play one set of tiles, and count the words both ways.

2. Learn the Official Word Lists for the words that have Q not followed by U:

Buqsha (s)

Qat (s)

Qaid (s)

Qoph(s)

Faqir(s)

Qanat(s)

Tranq(s)

Qindar(s)

Qintar(s)

Qwerty(s)

Sheqel (Sheqalim)

Qindarka

Qiviut (s)

Suq(s)

Umiaq(s)

3. Use S to make two words at once--pluralize one word while you form another at right angles.

4. Look for Hooks, or ways you can add to words played to form new words. Here are some examples:

bar(bell)

hand(y)(man)

tam(e)(d)

(re)peat

5. Aim to cover a bonus tile at every move. These include double letter, triple letter, double word, or triple word. Some players have covered two triples with one seven-letter word, thus earning the "Triple-triple" score, which effectively earns 9X the score of the face value of the letters played.

6. Aim to play a 'Bingo." Use all your seven tiles at a move, and earn the bonus of 50 points. If you are playing the nine-tile game, playing 7,8 or 9 tiles earns the bonus 50 points.

7. Mix your tiles up often and look for new combinations that might form words. Common clusters in English are: br, ch, cl, dle, ed, ent, ful, ght, ing, nk, kle, mis, ism, ium, mb, mp, nd, pr, rl, re, str, th, un, ive, and ous.

The highest score recorded was 830 points in a freak game by two recreational players who are not competitive players and not especially good. Michael Cresta, a carpenter, and his opponent, Wayne Yorra, a deli attendant at a supermarket, played their record-breaking game in October, 2006, in Lexington, Massachussetts. The players set two other records with that game, as well: the most total points in a game (1,320) and the most points on a single turn, for Cresta's word QUIXOTRY, which was a BINGO, covered two triple word bonus squares, and used the high scoring Q and X tiles. Read more details here.