Mark Nyman - SCRABBLE® Secrets: Own the board

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HarperCollins Publishers

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Third edition 2018

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Written by: Mark Nyman

Source ISBN: 9780008290221

Ebook Edition July 2018 ISBN: 9780008290238

Version 2018-08-03

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Mark Nyman is the antithesis of a Scrabble geek! He is a man from the real world who happens to be one of the greatest Scrabble players of all time. In this gem of a book utilising a mixture of mischievousness, wit and masterful expertise he is able to showcase the game as interesting, enjoyable and enormous fun.

I met Mark in 1992 when awestruck by his wordgame abilities in an international tournament in Bangkok. I will always remember his kindness in addressing my newbie questions at length. He helped to inspire me to devote myself to learning the game and just two years later we faced each other in a professional game in the USA. He won!

Though aimed at the beginner, there is something for everyone in this revised and updated edition of Scrabble Secrets from what to do with too many vowels, what prefixes and suffixes to look for and pertinent advice about those valuable tiles the S and the blank.

Marks skill extends well beyond vocabulary and strategy, however, to such subjects as handling winning and losing, maintaining a poker-face, skulduggery and even the question of cheating. We also find out why he hangs around the bathroom in between important games

Scrabble Secrets and its 100 plus top tips will delight you and hopefully encourage even the most casual player to consider taking the game more seriously by joining a club or entering a competitive tournament.

Gerry Carter

1998 Asia Pacific Scrabble Champion

Gerry Carter is the originator of the Facebook Forum Scrabble International

Scrabble study always starts with the two-letter words. The most useful of these are the ones with the highest-scoring letters, i.e. the Q and Z . So lets begin with the three most useful words in Scrabble:

So if an I , A or O is directly below or to the right of a triple-letter square, you could place the Q or Z on it and, if you can go across/down with the same word, a potential 62 points can be picked up, much to the consternation of your opponent!

A common myth amongst Scrabble beginners is that the longer the word, the higher the score this is not necessarily true at all.

You may AGONIZE for as little as 17 if you dont make good use of the premium squares, whereas as in secret 1 a simple ZO or ZA might get you 62 on the same turn be economical with your tiles.

S , C and P respectively are the most common starting letters and together comprise over a quarter of the words in the dictionary. So when moving your rack around its a good idea to put them at the beginning a profusion of words arise from such useful prefixes as:

SEMI- , SUB-

CH- , CO-

POLY- , PRE-

Whether or not to insist on knowing the meanings of words played is a controversial topic and can lead to lots of arguments.

The official rule is that you dont have to know them, but some people still think its just not right. If you are playing at home and insist on knowing the meanings it can lead to trouble because its a moot point how close you have to get to the exact definition. For example, you may play ZLOTY knowing its a type of currency, but your opponent may insist on you explaining from which country it originates. If you dont know, will they let you have the word?

These inconsistencies can cause a fallout, so far better to stick to the not having to know rule for peaces sake. Its great to find out the meanings, but when there are 157,000 Scrabble words with 9 letters or less, it would take an incredible mind to know every meaning as well as every word.

Personally, I would rather learn a new word than a meaning of an existing word I know (shock horror), but I do enjoy picking up some of the meanings along the way. Former World Champion Pakorn Nemitrmansuk from Thailand struggles with fluent English and doesnt bother with the meanings of the more outlandish words.

On the other hand, Scrabble is a great learning tool for improving vocabulary, so at the end of the day its whatever floats your boat. Just dont sneer at your opponent if they dont know a definition unless you think theyd do the same to you.

The six-letter combination PARDON goes with every vowel to make an unusual seven-letter word and thereby give a possible 50-point bonus:

By the way PARDON ME is an anagram of POMANDER and I PARDON ME is an anagram of MEROPIDAN a bird of the bee-eater family and PROMENADE ap-piers to be an anagram of PARDON MEE .