Sowpods Scrabble Tips

There are some great ways of extending your vocabulary through playing other games than Scrabble. On Facebook a really useful game is Word Twist which is basically an anagramming game but fun because you get to challenge your friends. At the end you get to see which words you couldn't find in the six or seven letter anagram. On Facebook as well, its worth playing Scramble and of course Scrabulous . By the way, there is a seven-letter anagram in the game shown on the left. Know what it is?

Yesterday I played this game online and managed to get four bingos: BLINDERS, CLANGER, NEAREST and STATING. They weren't exactly clever words but its the first time I managed four in one game. It was a challenge match, so there happened to be three "phonies" - one played by me and two by my opponent. If you can spot them, you could write the answer in the comments section. Click on the board to see a larger image.

EUOUAE

Coming from a vegetarian, that's a bit rich. But I want more pork, or to be precise morepork. Sometimes you come across a word in the dictionary that you just can't take your eyes off. The image is of a morepork owl, native to New Zealand and a protected bird of prey. You'll also be interested to know that they eat hairy huhu beetles. One day I hope to play "morepork" and "huhu" in Scrabble. They are both legal. Failing that, if I don't have eight letters, I could try "mopoke", an alternative spelling.

According to Scrabulous ETAERIO is the most likely seven-letter word to get in Scrabble. It refers to an aggregate fruit, like a raspberry - which is actually lots of little fruits joined at their bases. Another likely word is TAENIAE - the plural of TAENIA which was an ancient Greek hairband. Some other high-probability bingos containing five vowels, in order of likelihood, include: AEOLIAN - relating to the wind (the image is of an aeolian harp - a harp played by the wind) OLEARIA - daisy bush AIERIES - eyries or eagles' nests DOULEIA - veneration of saints in RC Church AEONIAN - everlasting AENEOUS - brass coloured or greenish-gold AREOLAE - coloured rings around human nipples AUREOLE - halo ALIENEE - person to whom a transfer of property is made EUGENIA - plant of the clove family AEROBIA - organisms that require oxygen

I play scrabble addictively online at www.isc.ro as well as on Scrabulous (in Facebook). Since I've been playing online, my ability to anagram in my head has increased enormously. This is probably due in no small part to the fact that I have played 6,400 games as UncleArly and 3,800 games as DJScratch (just to mention two of the handles I use on ISC) and I've just reincarnated as Banoffee (allowable word). Despite this, I still get accused of cheating from time to time - usually by people who have just lost a game. I don't cheat, I just spend some time learning the words that other players use against me, often looking them up afterwards. I also mostly play "Void" games which means you can try out words that you think might be right. The software refuses them if they are not acceptable in SOWPODS (or whichever dictionary you choose to use). Occasionally I play Single or Double Challenge games, where you cannot check the words as you play them. It keeps...

All the three letter words you can play just using consonants. Now these are really worth learning. BRR BYS CLY CWM DRY FLY FRY GYM GYP HMM HYP LYM MYC NTH NYS PHT PLY PRY PST PYX RHY SHH SHY SKY SLY SNY SPY STY SWY SYN THY TRY TSK TWP TYG VLY WRY WYN ZZZ