Scrabble Word of the Day -- PERV

Here's another word for getting rid of those "V" tiles ... but watch out. It's NOT in the OSPD 3rd Edition. You've got to have the 4th edition, and if you're playing in tourneys and clubs, make sure to wait until they've started using the new dictionary (2nd edition for clubs).

Anyway, the word is PERV -- one who has been perverted.

Scrabble Memory Tool

If you ever want to learn something with a lot of words or names, using different memory tools can help. For instance, you might have used My Very Elegant Mother Just Sat Upon Nine Porcupines (or something along those lines) for the order of the planets when you were young. (First letter of each is the first letter of each planet, in order.)

I came up with one such tool for memorizing 3-letter SI+ words. All 3 letters in each word is used, in alphabetical order of the SI+ words:

My SIBling makes me SICk with her SIM City SINs. She SIPs far too many hard drinks, and -- SIR -- my SISter SITs on SIX men's laps at once!

The words:

SIB
SIC
SIM
SIN
SIP
SIR
SIS
SIT

With enough of these tools in place, you can make it easier to memorize the 3-letter list!

Bonus Words of the Day with Z

Ok, sometimes I have ideas for a Scrabble Babble entry and I don't want to risk losing it by waiting till the next day. This is one of those days, so here's a bonus entry.

When you're got Z on your rack, you want plenty of ways to play it to improve your odds of scoring big. Almost anyone who's been playing with a Scrabble dictionary for a while knows the word ADZ. But did you know that you can play that with an E as well? That's right, you can play:

ADZE

Here's another good Z word to know:

AZO

Scrabble Words of the Day -- +AJ

When a J is played in a Scrabble game, it can often clog the board if you don't know plenty of words using J. So while I'm more into learning words by playing a lot rather than by memorizing lists, I think certain lists ARE useful to know.

There are 3 words of 3 letters each that END in J, making this a useful list to know. The 3 words are:

HAJ
RAJ
TAJ

An easy list to remember.

Scrabble Word of the Day -- POH

One of the great ways to rack up points in Scrabble is to use the tiles F, H, and W on Double and Triple Letter (or Word) tiles. Play them in two directions and you easily score 20+ points.

As a result, certain words show up a lot on the Scrabble board, and one of them is "OH". So today's word of the day is POH -- in other words, you can play off OH in another direction by adding P to the beginning.

Scrabble Tip

Boy did I make a booboo in a Scrabble game yesterday, and I had to fight hard to come back and take the game. It's one of those somewhat obvious things, but at the same time, I thought I'd mention a couple of specifics that made my move particularly bad.

The generally bad choice I made was to run a word up vertically to the top left of the board so that my top tile lay between the 2 triple-word-score (TWS) tiles, both unplayed. We know that this opens up an enormous turn for the opponent -- if he can play a BINGO in addition to your tile, he can hit both TWS spots for a 9X turn.

What made my play really bad is that my top tile was the letter R -- an easily useable tile -- AND ... we were more than halfway through the game with NEITHER blank showing up. My opponent had both, played something through my R onto both TWS tiles, and scored 131 points.

If you're going to play into the middle of 2 TWS spots (both unplayed), keep in mind that: 1) it had better be a very good play if you're going to take the risk; 2) try not to play tiles (between the TWS spots) that are easily used for your opponent's word; 3) consider how likely it is for your opponent to have blanks, S tiles, and other easily used tiles.

Scrabble Words of the Day -- PER Hooks

It's always a good idea to know words that you can hook off the short, more common words, mainly to open up your options and also to score in two directions, especially if you've got a bonus tile available. So here are a few words you can play off the simple word "PER" by just adding a single letter:

PERI -- (and you can hook off this with PERIL)

PERK -- (and you can hook off this with PERKY)

PERM

PERT