Hi, my name is Gary Moss. I’m a Scrabble junkie, and I direct a weekly scrabble club in Laguna Woods, CA, on Wednesdays at 6 PM at 24112 Moulton Parkway, 92637. I’m a teacher by profession and I teach the online class: SCRABBLE 101.
Follow along with the adventures of JFTSOI, Just 4 The Spell of It!
Hundreds if not thousands of scrabble players face off at clubs across the US and around the globe every day. Most players are very competitive and hate to lose. BUT there is a gigantic ‘luck factor’ in the game of scrabble, sometimes estimated at as much as 30%. First, it has been calculated that whoever goes first has a 10 point advantage. Most important of all is the chance within the random drawing of tiles. He or She who gets the ‘good stuff‘ gets a path to victory.
When you get past all the luck, it boils down to personal word knowledge and memory. ‘THE MORE YOU KNOW . . . the luckier you become.’ http://just4thespellofit.com/learning-tools-and-or-unique-gifts/
If and when you see some guy or gal reading a dictionary, the odds are high that you’re looking at a scrabble freak. The truth is most scrabble players are more intent on recognizing and memorizing the look of words, not necessarily their meanings. Scrabble players look at words differently; they look for patterns; they remember the strangest words, hoping to play them against their opponents in the hope of drawing a challenge and winning it. Would you challenge ZEBRASS? VROOM? AALII? YCLEPT? UNBUILD? TSKTSK? NONEGO?
I have been teaching people the simple tricks used by scrabble champions to be most efficient when studying scrabble words. There are more than 170,000 words on the OWL (Official Word List). You won’t want to waste your time learning words that are ‘PHONY’ (words unacceptable during scrabble play). When you play a phony, and it is challenged, you lose a turn; That will increase your chances of losing.
Some people ask the person nearby for tips. Don’t be misled by some novice. Ask your scrabble questions to a sanctioned director. Take a class like the online class, Scrabble 101. Get a jump start in only 30 days.