How to Manage a Rack in Scrabble

In the game of Scrabble, each player draws 7 letter tiles, places them on his or her rack, makes a word with some or all of them, and then draws new tiles to replace those played. While most players think only about the word(s) they can make with the tiles available on their immediate turn, better Scrabble players know how to manage their racks to produce higher scores. A well-managed Scrabble rack can yield as many as 4 "bingos" (plays of all 7 letters), each worth a 50-point bonus.

EditSteps

EditCreating Words

1. Rearrange your tiles on your rack. Much of rack management in Scrabble is based on the ability to anagram words, that is, to rearrange the order of the letters you see into meaningful words. You may find it helpful to move the tiles around on your rack until you see a word that you recognize. As you play the game more often, you'll develop the ability to rearrange the letters in your head.
   
   • When rearranging tiles, it helps to place the tiles where they often appear in words. For example, letters like F and J are more likely to appear at the beginnings of words, so place them on the left side of your rack. But letters like S and Y are more likely to appear at the end of words, so place them on the right side of your rack.
2. Watch for common prefixes and suffixes. Many words are formed by adding either a prefix to the beginning of the root word or a suffix to the end of the root word to change its meaning, tense, or part of speech. By recognizing these prefixes and suffixes when their letters appear on your rack, you can begin to make meaningful words out of the string of letters in front of you.^[1]
   
   • Common prefixes: Common antonym prefixes include UN-, IN-, IM-, DE- DIS-, MIS-, and NON-, with IG- a less common antonym prefix. Other common prefixes are EN-, used in words such as ENGAGE and ENROLL; RE-, used in words such as REBUILD and REPLAY; and PRE-, used in words such as PREPARE and PREPAY. When you find a prefix, you can move the tiles that make it up to the left side of your rack.
   • Common suffixes: Common plural suffixes include -S and -ES, with -EN a less common plural suffix. (Keep in mind that there are only 4 S's among the 100 Scrabble tiles, so you won't always want to try to make the plural form of a word.) The suffix -ED indicates past tense, the suffixes -ER and -EE identify people, -ER (-IER) and -EST (-IEST) identify comparatives and superlatives, and the suffix -ING can be added to verbs to make them into gerund nouns or participle adjectives. When you find a suffix, you can move the titles that make it up to the right side of your rack.
3. Look for other common letter combinations. Identifying blends, digraphs, and diphthongs such as CH, GH, OO, PH, PY, TH, TY, WH, and STR can also help you find words in the tiles on your rack. If you can't make a word that uses these combinations right away, you may want to hold onto the letters until the opportunity to play them comes up.^[2]
   
   • Once you find them, you can place these letter combinations on your rack in the place where you would most likely find them in the word, such as WH or STR at the beginning, OO in the middle, and TY at the end.
4. Familiarize yourself with common compound words. As you start to recognize common letter combinations used in words, you'll eventually start to recognize entire words themselves on your rack. The next step is to start putting small words together into compound words, either with 2 words found on your rack or with a word on your rack and a word already on the board.
   
   • For example, if you can find both LOW and DOWN in the letters your rack (with a separate W for each word), you can make the compound word LOWDOWN. Or, if the word HEAD is on the board, you can turn it into GODHEAD or BULKHEAD if you have the appropriate tiles on your rack and there are enough free spaces ahead of the H.
   • Related to this skill is the ability to recognize words within words. With some practice and the right letter tiles, you can expand PRAISE into APPRAISER or LIST into ENLISTEE, possibly even using both triple-word spaces at once.
5. Strike a balance. Learn to balance the score of the letters you play against the quality of tiles remaining on your rack and prospective words that can be made using the letters you play. As you start becoming more familiar with the words you can make in Scrabble, you need to start evaluating how well you can continue to make good plays while preventing your opponents from making major plays on your words.
   
   • Some Scrabble players prefer to emphasize improving the selection of tiles on their racks through strategic play, while other players rely more on the layout of letters on the board.
   • Whichever style of play you prefer, it helps to keep tabs on how many of each letter have been played and how many are left. If 11 of the 12 E tiles have been played and you have the last one, you may want to hang onto it to give yourself more options to play.^[3]

EditGetting High Scores

1. Know when and how many tiles to exchange. Knowing when and how many tiles to exchange can help to maximize your score. If you can't make a word out of the tiles you have, you can exchange any or all of them for new tiles, at the cost of your turn.^[4]
   
   • When exchanging tiles in the early game, you'll want to exchange as many tiles as you can to try to get an S or a blank.
   • In the middle of the game, you'll want to hold onto to a medium or high-scoring tile to have a better chance of making a high-scoring word.
   • Near the end of the game, you'll want to discard high-scoring tiles unless you see places on the board you can play them with the right additional letters.
2. Learn which letters are more likely to appear in bonus words. The distribution and point value of Scrabble tiles are based on the relative frequency of each letter's appearance in English language words. Thus, the more common the letter, the more likely it will appear in a 7-letter word or can be played in a word that will earn double or triple word score value.^[5]
   
   • Hold on to the more common vowels and consonants for later and play the less common ones early on.
   • The most common vowels, in order, are E, A, O, I, and U.
   • The most common consonants, in order, are S, R, T, N, L, D, G, B, M, P, H, W, F, Y, C, V, K, X, J, Z, and Q.
   • Be aware that the above lists are influenced by what other letters you have on your rack. For instance, if you have an H on your rack, you'll want to hold onto it over a Y. Note that not all expert Scrabble players agree on the letter rankings shown above.
   • Also keep in mind that letters that haven't been played will influence which tiles you should hold on to and which you should play. You'll want to keep track of the number of U tiles and hold on to yours if you see the Q tile hasn't been played (and also memorize Q words that don't use the U, such as QI and QAT).
3. Hang onto your blanks. Treat the blank tile as the most common letter and hold on to it until you need it to complete a bingo or other high-scoring word late in the game. (If you have both blanks, you have an 80 percent chance of making a bingo word.) Because a blank tile scores 0 points, you won't be penalized if you're caught with one or more at the end of the game.^[6]
   
4. Keep a good mix of vowels and consonants. Strive to have a mix of vowels and consonants at all times, but your rack should favor consonants over vowels. Try to have 4 consonants to 3 vowels or 5 consonants to 2 vowels. This makeup will make it easier for you to form words that will score bonuses on the board or allow you to play all of your tiles at once.^[7]
   
   • If your rack has 6 vowels and only 1 consonant, you should look to play at least 3 of those vowels on your next turn.
   • You can improve your ability to keep a good mix of vowels and consonants by memorizing vowel-rich 4-letter words such as AEON, AIDE, and AREA and 5-letter words such as AERIE, AUDIO, and QUEUE.
5. Play high-scoring tiles as soon as you can. It's generally best to play letters such as J, Q, X, and Z as soon as you can play them to your best advantage.^[8] You may want to hold them a few turns in hope of being able to play them on a premium letter space or in a word that counts for double or triple points, but this opportunity will decline as more tiles are placed on the board. Near the end, it may be better to play the letter off than risk getting caught with it. Also, the low scoring tiles are more likely to be found in longer words than in shorter ones.
   
   • Some players advocate holding on to a medium value score tile, such as B, C, M, or P (worth 3 points), F, H, V, W, or Y (worth 4 points), or K (worth 5 points). Other players advocate playing such tiles quickly to open up more possibilities for making words with 1- and 2-point letter tiles. Also, note that late in the game, the C and V can be as difficult to play as the J, Q, and Z if the board permits only the play of 2- and 3-letter words.
   • You can remember which tiles are the 1- and 2-point letters with the word DEREGULATIONS, which contains all the letters with those point values.
6. Play away the duplicate letters on your rack. Common double-letter combinations such as EE, OO, PP, RR, and TT are more likely to appear in words you can score bonus points on than are AA, CC, HH, II, UU, and VV. If you have 2 or more of these less common repeated letters, play the duplicates off as soon as you can.^[9]
   
7. Learn the most common 7-letter words in Scrabble. It is possible, though rare, to draw 7 tiles at once that form a word. The most likely such word, based on the frequency of its letters in Scrabble, is ANEROID, meaning "without liquid," as in an aneroid barometer. Other words that you can form by playing 7 tiles at once include AILERON, ELATION, INQUEST, JACKPOT, TOENAIL, and TRAINEE.^[10]
   
   • In most cases, you'll only be able to play a 7-letter word if you're the first player to play in the first round. Some of these 7-letter words take an -S plural, however, so you may be able to play them on an open S if there are 7 open spaces above or to the left of the S played on someone else's word.
8. Look for letter combinations that can be built into bingos. Some letter combinations can not only make recognizable short words themselves, but you can find them in longer words. You can find the letters in REST and TRAIN in words such as RETAIN, RETINA, or SATIRE and in RETAINS, RETINAS, and RETSINA (a Greek wine). The 6-letter combination in the word TISANE can also make a bingo with any letter other than J, Q, or Y.^[11]
   
   • Look for letter combinations within your rack and in places on the board where you can use all of the letters on your rack to form an 8-, 9-, or even 10-letter word.
9. Create words from individual letters instead of trying to force certain words. It can be difficult to figure out bingo words, or even meaningful words, from the letters on your rack. Sometimes, the best approach is to brainstorm words that include a few of the tiles on your rack and then see how many of the other letters are present, either on the rack or the board. You may need to close your eyes or look away from the board for a moment to do this.
   

EditTips

• To play Scrabble well, you should develop a large working vocabulary. Some Scrabble players memorize word lists, but these players are usually those who play the game competitively in tournaments. For casual Scrabble players, it's usually better to develop a good vocabulary through more general study and with the purpose of applying it to other activities, such as writing, and for playing in other word games, such as crossword puzzles, Boggle, Jumble, Scattergories, and You've Been Sentenced. You can also play Scrabble solitaire.
• Most of the advice given above will also apply to the Scrabble: Mega Edition version produced by Winning Moves, as well as the original game now produced by Hasbro. The Winning Moves version differs from the original game in that it has a larger game board (21 x 21 as opposed to the 15 x 15 board of the original game) and double the number of tiles (200 as opposed to 100), but the same letter distribution as the original.
• Some of the advice in the steps given above can also be applied to similar word games, such as the Facebook application Lexulous or James Ernest Games' Unspeakable Words. Lexulous differs from Scrabble in that players have 8-tile racks instead of 7-tile racks. Unspeakable Words differs from Scrabble in that there is no game board, players use cards instead of tiles, players cannot build on others' words, and letters score based on the number of angles in the letter.

EditRelated wikiHows

• How to Play Scrabble
• How to Improve Your Scrabble Score
• How to Play Speed Scrabble
• How to Win at Scrabble
• How to Play Squabble
• How to Study for a Spelling Test
• How to Win a Spelling Bee
• How to Challenge a Word in Scrabble

EditSources and Citations

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