About a year ago I started playing Scrabulous on Facebook. At first I would call Dad up on the phone and say, "I have XYZ letters and I really think they should make a word". ("XYZ letters" hahahaha That makes me laugh. But I digress.) Later I started double checking myself on wineverygame.com. After I would finish my play, I would check my letters to see if I could have gotten a bingo. Usually I can tell when my letters ought to be able to make something, and the frustrating thing is that more times than not, sure enough, they WOULD have spelled a bingo. I don't get so annoyed when it's a word I don't know but I do beat myself up when it's a word I do know - or worse - an easy word. So I don't check very often anymore. Every once in a while, when I KNOW there has to be a word and I can't see it, I might go check afterwards. But I'm really too lazy to be bothered - plus it's kinda depressing.
Facebook Scrabble works well for me because it won't accept words that aren't legit - which does happen to me on occasion. If fact, just the other day I was shocked by a word that ought to exist but apparently doesn't!! :) And I have to admit that I'm forever "trying" words in the dictionary. I've gotten pretty good at assembling words into likely patterns and I frequently stumble onto words I didn't know - I'm sure the purists would be aghast. Today I saw that my letters spelled "STRAWED" so what the heck, I gave it a try and sure enough - I got the bingo. (Sorry Hil.)
When I'm looking for a bingo, I almost always start with the end of the word. I look for common endings and then switch around the other letters in front of that. The nice thing is then you really only need to find a four or five letter word to go in front of ING or ED or IER or whatever it might be. Frequently after having spent a while working with ER at the end of a word, I remember that RE can also be the start of a word. *hehe*
What's amazing to me is how much easier it has gotten to spot bingoes. Now my big frustration is that I'll find the bingo in my rack but then there's no place to put it on the board. Sometimes I'll have really great letters and can find several bingoes, but no still no place to put any them. That kills me.
So anyway, I'm going to pass along the tricks that I learned from my dad. I think there are different strategies but Dad is always going for the bingo. He figures that if you get a few bingoes, you're likely to win the game. So primarily I try to play that way too. I'm not too worried about putting high value letters in primo places (though it's nice, don't get me wrong). If I get an X or a Z or a Q or a J - I always try to get rid of it right away because it's hard to get bingoes with those letters and that's my ultimate plan. I think Dad told me his favorite letters are SEITR and the blank, of course. So I started trying to hang on to those, whenever possible. Later on I read online that the best letters for a bingo are considered to RETAIN + blank because you can get a TON of words out of that. And it's so handy to remember, right?! Of course I'll always hang on to an S too because they're great for placing bingoes.
I know there are other schools of thought out there but there you go...that's mine. Dad told me that Grandma hangs on to UI until the Q gets played. And maybe you should listen to Grandma because right now she's kicking my butt 329 to 164.
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