Scrabble Gobble

Unlike most hyperactive people who prefer ball games, I like to play Scrabble instead. If you are not familiar, it is a board game that revolves around smart formation of words making use of certain areas in a board that could elevate your score. 

I could not remember when I started to learn and like the sport but I'm sure I played during high school days  as well as on College Intramurals. For me, the fun part is when your tiles give you different words each time and it's challenging because random draws of letters could either be great when you're seeing words out of the combinations or frustrating when you get mostly vowels or consonants. And everytime you do a Scrabble turn (the time when you get to form a valid word out of all the 7-letters you have), you feel like you're in Cloud 9! Well, at least that's how I feel each time. How about you, co-Scrabble enthusiast or curious and perhaps will soon be one?

Things you need to play Scrabble

The following items are usually sold by set:

• Scrabble board
• Tiles (the letters you attempt to form into words)
• Tile rack (where tiles are placed in an organized manner for you to find it easier to try combinations for words)

Extras:

• Score pad (it is where you keep track and write down yours and your opponent's score per turn)

• Timer (in my experience, we usually use a chess clock for time limit pressure that makes the game more challenging)
• Official dictionary (this is where a challenged word is looked up to verify whether it's valid or not)

Scoring

You will see highlighted squares on the Scrabble board namely:

• Double-letter score

This square is useful when you have a letter that's worth 3 or 4 like B, C, F, H, M, P, V, W, Y. The letter's point value will be doubled.

• Triple-letter score

If you have letters like K, J, Q, X and Z which values range from 5 up, place it on this square. Triple point value for corresponding tile used.

• Double-word score

When you have a word composed of letters that are not worth much, you can form say a 5-letter word and make sure one of those letters touch the Double-word score square so the total points will be doubled.

• Triple-word score

It would be a lot better if you get to use the Triple-word score square (works the same way as Double-word score but your score gets tripled instead of just doubled) so you garner a bigger score.

Tips

•  Memorize the 2-letter words in the Scrabble dictionary. They're helpful when you're finding your letters difficult to form words.
• Be familiar with 3, 4 and 5-letter words.
• Study words that uses the 10-point value letters like Q and Z.

Ready to get started? Find a match (be it a person or computer), play and enjoy! Hmm, Scrabble yum!