Sowpods Scrabble Tips

One combination of letters which seems to come up regularly for me is AEGIRST.  The only word I can usually think of is "Stagier".  After a bit more cogitation I thought of "GAITERS", but that was it. So I decided to look up the combo in "Scrabble Words" and came up with the following list: AGISTER, AIGRETS, GAITERS, SEAGIRT, STAGIER, STRIGAE, TIRAGES, TRIAGES Take a look at the list and then play a game of online hangman  (which I created just for this purpose) to see how many you can remember. OK you are unlikely to lose a life because you know which letters are in the word, but it might help you to remember them for next time! By the way, no I didn't know what most of them meant either.  But I do now :)

Let's say you happen to pull out the most likely and fruitful handful of letters in Scrabble: AEINORT You already have a bingo: OTARINE (like or pertaining to seals) But if you add one letter you can also make the following acceptable words: A aeration B baritone, obtainer, reobtain, taborine C actioner, anoretic, creation, reaction D arointed, deration, ordinate, rationed H antihero L oriental, relation, taileron N anointer, inornate, reanoint P atropine R anterior S anoestri, arsonite, notaries, notarise, rosinate, senorita T tentoria Z notarize

If you are truly stuck for an anagram when playing Scrabble, there are some great sites which offer you suggestions. The most effective of these seems to be http://www.wordseeker.net/ as you can choose which dictionary to use, such as SOWPODS or TWL and it gives you more valid words than the other sites I have tried. Does it seem like cheating? Well, my own take on this is that I work really hard to think of a suitable word when it is my turn, then play the word. Afterwards, I sometimes check up to see what I could have played. For example, today (see image) I had the bingo SLANTER ready to put down but was blocked by my opponent. I was going to put it next to PATE to make SPATE, but he played MOGS. Afterwards I was able to see that I could also have tried ANTLERS, RENTALS, SALTERN and STERNAL. In this case, none of them would have fitted, but maybe I'll remember some of the other words for next time.

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?

Anagrams is a board-free word game that involves rearranging letter tiles to form words. It is very often played 'out of hours' at Scrabble tournaments around the world. The game has various other names, in particular 'Snap Jarnac ' in the UK. The game has been sold separately as a commercial product, but at Scrabble tournaments is typically played by any number of players (typically 4-8) using two sets of Scrabble tiles of different colour. Tiles are placed face down on the table and then turned over one by one, and players form words by combining unused tiles with existing words, their own or others'. Whenever a player can form a word with the tiles in the middle of the table, possibly combined with words that he or another player has already formed, he calls out the word and uses those tiles to spell it out in front of him. If two players call out words simultaneously, the longer word prevails. All words must be at least five letters long and the new word must c...

A couple of handy bingos if you happen to have AEIORST are: OARIEST - like an oar OTARIES - seals with ears And nothing to do with the above, but handy nonetheless is AEROSAT - a satellite

The letters left in your rack after you play a word are called your "rack leave". As you play your game, aim to get the following six letters in your rack: R-E-T-A-I-N With these six letters you can add almost any letter of the alphabet to make a bingo - thus scoring an extra 50 points bonus! Learning the following words could help you increase your score by 50 or more points each time you play... RETAIN + B: atebrin RETAIN + C: cantier, ceratin, certain, creatin, crinate, nacrite, tacrine RETAIN + D: antired, detrain, trained RETAIN + E: arenite, retinae, trainee RETAIN + F: fainter, fenitar RETAIN + G: granite, gratine, ingrate, tangier, tearing RETAIN + H: hairnet, inearth, therian RETAIN + I: inertia RETAIN + J: jantier, nartjie RETAIN + K: keratin RETAIN + L: entrail, latrine, ratline, reliant, retinal, trenail RETAIN + M: meranti, minaret, raiment RETAIN + N: entrain, trannie RETAIN + O: otarine RETAIN + P: painter, pertain, repaint RETAIN + R: retrain, terrain, traine...