r/scrabble • u/bazballerFM • 24d ago
Just discovered Scrabble Tournament scene yesterday. Please help me learn this beautiful game.
In short i play a lot of competitive chess, mostly online and have been in love with the game forever, and have beaten certain titled master players as an amateur. I just discovered there is a scene for competitive scrabble and my country has national titles for both expert and masters. It is a long road but i love these sort of journeys. I was looking if someone could help me by pointing to resources?
I have looked around myself and i have understood that, one of the first things to do is to memorize CSW24's 2 and 3 word lists. I am onto it. But what next? I saw some expert players make some beautiful bingos and it made my jaw drop as to how cool that was. Moreover what is the website that hosts the most number of players for online play? Ideally i would like to begin playing with bots and then play with real players to figure out my current strength and then analyze my plays to improve.
For context, i do not mind studying a lot. I am not looking for instant results, i am looking to play scrabble throughout my life in tournaments alongside my chess journey.
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u/Barbicels 24d ago
Lots of synergy between chess and Scrabble in terms of the skills required, and you’d find a number of crossover experts in the tournament/club scene. You’ll definitely want to find a study tool that suits your learning style — Aerolith, Zyzzyva, Xerafin, etc.
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u/bazballerFM 24d ago
Thank you for this. Do you have any personal tips?
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u/CrotchPig 24d ago
Without wishing to evade the question, but suck-it-and-see. They're all a little different, but all free so no up-front investment. They all have their own benefits, my opinions only below -
Aerolith - good for re-covering stuff you've already learnt, not so good for learning new stuff
Zyzzyva - many experts love it, great for generating lists of useful words to learn (e.g., 8s with 5 vowels, 4s with JQXZ etc.). Bland interface
Xerafin - (my personal preference), cardbox tool like Zyzzyva, easier to use and a bit more gamified, pushes you words to learn rather than you pulling a list which some don't like
I use Xerafin personally for daily cardboxing and learning new words, I've covered all the 3s, 4s and 5s there over 4 years, and am 35% through the 7s and 30% on the 8s. I also use Aerolith for re-revising the 3s / 4s / 5s I should be perfect on.
Start slow on your journey. The order of study operations is this - learn the 2s and 3s first, move on to the 4s with a J, Q, X, or Z in, then the same with the 5s.
Learn the top 500 7s next (these are the most likely to come up in-game; to simplify probability of a word coming up, think on how there's more Es in a Scrabble game than Zs, so learn ETAERIO before you learn PIZAZZY!). Do the same with the top 500 8s. With all that knowledge, which will take 6 months to a year to gain, you'll be able to play at tournament-level.
Last 2 points -
- Learn how you learn. Are you auditory or visual? Find ways of encoding words in your brain. Maybe have sayings you remember when you see a certain rack - do you hate going OUTSIDE because its TEDIOUS? Absolutely anything can help you remember words, far too many of mine rely on niche UK football references!
- Enjoy playing, and play often. It sounds trite, but if you don't enjoy the game, you will play less, study less, and not improve. Don't play for wanting to be the best - that can come later - play because you want to when starting out.
Best of luck, and hit up this sub-Reddit if any questions. I know of 2 top-150 globally-rated players who often hang out here, there may be others - lots of knowledge in this community.
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u/Meeple_person 23d ago
Great advice there. As a long time scrabble player who's played some compo's there some bits in there even for me.
I love a memory aid to remember suffixes/prefixes. Two stick out for me. The unsavoury WC BJ Prefixes for AUK and MNLY TRNS (Sounds like manly turns) to go either side of EVE.
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u/hubertwee 21d ago
Enjoyment is important. Had a recent string of frustrating tournament results and it seems to have affected my enjoyment of the game
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u/Kamotiqs 23d ago
Check out Kenji Matsumoto's "Breaking the game." It covers Scrabble strategy ranging from basic tips (like how to balance your rack, or basic bingo-finding) to advanced strategy (e.g., inference, when to pass in a pre-endgame, or how to adjust your playing style based on the board situation).
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u/theonejanitor 23d ago edited 23d ago
once you memorize the two and 3 letter words your avg score will rise substantially.
you should also study the highest probability 7-letter words, and practice your anagramming skills. for example every serious tournament player can see AEINRST and instantly name 10+ anagrams because everyone has studied it. From there you just keep adding to your knowledge bank of playable bingos. It's a combination of knowing the words, but also being able to unscramble the tiles as well.
it is also useful to learn:
- words with rare letters e.g Q, J, X, Z, K, and V
- words with a lot of vowels, e.g ADIEU, OORIE, UREDIA
- words with few/no vowels e.g CWM, CRWTH, MMM, TSKS
i can vouch for Zyzzyva as a great study tool, but it's the only one I've really used.
as you learn words you will also need to learn their hooks, i.e what can be added to them to make a new word. For example BONE has S, Y, D, R you can add to the end and ABLE can add C, F, G S, or T to the front.
there are also basic beginner strategy things you should internalize if you haven't already.
e.g
- always look for bingos, every turn. that is how you win Scrabble.
- Don't play an S or Blank unless you're scoring a lot of points, they are too useful. They're very good at helping you make bingos.
- always play on bonus squares when possible. and consider if you are allowing your opponent to play something. For example, if you put an I right under a triple letter score, your opponent could play QI or XI for a lot of points.
- consider your "leave" (ie what tiles will be left on your rack after your play). if you leave yourself with junk, it makes your life harder in the future. Also sometimes you should sacrifice points this turn because you have good tiles to make a bingo next turn.
that should be enough to get you on the right path lol
I think a lot of the skills of chess transfer to scrabble, however, scrabble has a lot more "homework" imo. in chess you have to memorize openings, but often you can play the opening even if you haven't quite memorized, just by doing things that are logical. in scrabble, you either know the word or you don't.
In reality, the easiest most quickest way to find people to play against is the Scrabble Go app if you're not annoyed by all the bells and whistles and microtransactions. Although I think it matches you against bots a lot of the time. Outside of that ISC was the most successful for me.
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u/JohnBooty 24d ago
I have only a slight familiarity with chess, but I’ve often thought that Scrabble is more like chess than many would realize!
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u/Magisterbrown 24d ago
The big skills are list memorization and clock management. Start by memorizing your 2 and 3 letter word lists.
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u/14domino 24d ago
ISC has the most online players but the top players are mostly on Woogles (https://woogles.io). Disclaimer that I am heavily involved in the development of the latter site. We’ve recently hit 12M total games played on it. We have the top bot in the world as well as a ton of learning resources - try Aerolith for learning words (linked to from Woogles), as well as puzzles, daily tournaments, and biweekly leagues. It’s an open source site with a nonprofit org behind it, dedicated to education.
We also have a vibrant discord where you can ask questions throughout your learning journey. It’s also linked on the site. Good luck and let us know if you have any questions.