Sowpods Scrabble Tips

Or should that be Eyrie? Well luckily there's lots of ways to spell the word for an eagle's nest in Scrabble. Especially if you are using the most up to date Collins Scrabble Words (CSW) for 2012. You can spell it: AERY AERIE AIERY AYRIE EYRIE EYRY A very handy bingo can also be made using the letters AEEIIRS: AIERIES

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

AIRIEST and STONIER are two of my most played bingos, just thought I'd say that. Ones I have only played once (so far) include JONQUILS, UNSTATE and KATYDIDS. Jonquil is another name for the daffodil or narcissus. Below is a katydid.

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.

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.

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

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...