Over the past few weeks, Words With Friends-mania has consumed my office. It never seems to get old having multiple games of Scrabble going with my friends where turns can be taken at your own pace. Through this experience, I’ve learned a lot about my coworkers as people. They’ve also learned one thing in particular about me: I’m a calculated and cold-blooded Words With Friends player.
While I’m far from a Scrabble champion, I’ve played enough Scrabble in my lifetime to understand some of the game’s beneath-the-surface nuances. If you’d like to learn some of the strategies and tactics I use to infuriate my coworkers, read through this guide!
Scrabble is a Game About Points First
My favourite Words With Friends moment occurred a few weeks ago, when one of my coworkers threw down the word “Matzo” and began bragging through the chat about how amazing his 19-point “Matzo” was. In response? I put down “JO” for 22-points. After seeing what I’d done, my coworker said he almost threw his phone across the room in anger and disgust. While having a large vocabulary helps, that along won’t win you games. As with any game, you need to approach the game strategically in order to get the most out of your turns.
Always Be Mindful of the Bonus Tiles
Bonus tiles are your best friend and your worst enemy. When it’s your turn to move, you should always look to leverage the bonus tiles to score as many points you can within a given turn. Oftentimes, a word with a lot of letters will score less than word with a few letters placed above the right bonus tiles. The inverse holds true as well, as you don’t want to make bonus tiles immediately available to your opponent, either! It’s a tricky balance, but over time, you’ll learn how to maximize your opportunities while minimizing theirs.
Think At Least One Move Ahead
In Scrabble, it’s very easy to get lost in the now. You’re either in a situation where you can’t wait to spell out this one word you’ve had stored in your mind, or are anxious to just put anything on the board because your tiles suck. However, if you don’t think your move through, you may be setting your opponent up with a game-changing opportunity. Risk management in this game is critical. Before you commit to a word and a placement, think about the opportunities it will create for your opponent. If the risk is high, it may be best to go with a word that gets you less points in order to prevent your opponent from scoring big on their next turn.
Two-letter words are a critical part of the Scrabble experience. They’re most handy to get you out of a jam, but they can also score you a boatload of points if you have the words placed on the right bonus tiles. My signature two-letter word is “XI”, though “FE”, “JO” and “QI” are also awesome for scoring huge in otherwise awkward situations.
Scoring Multiple Words in One Turn
The easiest way to do this is by pluralizing a word with the letter S and starting a new word with S to score both words at once. However, there are a ton of creative ways to score with multiple words at the same time, with an example pictured above. When I play, I constantly look to score with multiple words at once for two reasons:
1. Maximize your point opportunities
2. Minimizes the amount of openings you leave for your opponent if you space it right. The above picture is a great example of this.
Don’t Fear the Weird Letters
When you have letters like Z, Q and X in your stash, don’t jettison them the instant you have a chance just so that you’re not stuck with them at the end. High point value letters are game-changers, and you’ll want to maximize your use of them at the right times on the right bonus tiles. Hold onto them until you can score big!
Try and Try Again
This is a cheesy tactic, but it works in most computer-based versions of Scrabble and Words With Friends. With a computer as the judge, there is no penalty for experimenting with your letters. The computer will simply say no and your opponent will never see your tiles. If you’re in a jam, or want to land that big bonus but aren’t sure what you can do with your set of letters, make stuff up. Spell out things that sound like words to you and you may get lucky. I’ve used this tactic many times to score huge with the most asinine words that no one has ever heard of thanks to a lucky guess. I know it’s a cheap tactic, but don’t hate the player, hate the game.
In Third Person 
Looks like this game has more strategic elements to it than I thought, wonder if someone has written a strategy guide by now….
I’m sure there are hundreds of Scrabble guides out there. There’s a ton of strategy to that game if you were to get into it with any sort of seriousness.
I see, looks like I don’t give enough credit these days.