Starting Scrabble Study

I felt that a comment left on the previous post deserves a lengthy answer, so I'll give it its own post.

Randy writes:

Hey Mike (Quetzal),

My name is Randy and I've been playing recreational scrabble for years, but ever since I found out about ISC (rated around 850) I've been playing more and more games. With more frequently play, I've considered making the effort to start studying word lists eventually make a jump to tournament play. I get the impression that you were recently in a similar situation as me, so I was wondering you had any insight or advice for an aspiring player. Anyway, I always appreciate reading a good scrabble story. Keep up the good work! :)

Randy, you are right in that I was in a similar situation as you. When I look back on my past blog entries, I find that I was just getting into Scrabble about a year ago. And here is a screen shot dated August 6, wherein my ISC rating is 886. So in a year I've moved up from around 800 to my current 1400ish rating.

I do study word lists. I have got to where I just love making note cards. Maybe in a couple days, I'll write how I now do them. But I think you want more general advice on how to undertake Scrabble study.

I think the first thing is to find some inspiration. I highly recommend the book Word Freak by Stefan Fatsis and the movie Word Wars. They introduce you to the wild wacky world of tournament Scrabble.

While those are great sources of inspiration, the most indispensable book as far as practical Scrabble knowledge is Everything Scrabble by Joe Edley and John D. Williams. I was given a copy of it after playing in my first Scrabble tournament. I've read it cover to cover several times, and I still refer to it.

Everything Scrabble has a great discussion of how to study Scrabble. There's also a few helpful websites to get you started. So that I don't reinvent the wheel I'll simply leave you some links.

Big Doggy's hints helped me out early on.

"G.I." Joel Sherman has some hints for Scrabble newbies.

Here's a discussion on Verbalobe as to which words to study, and in what order. Basically, learn the two letter words first. Then tackle the three letter words, especially the ones that can be formed by adding one letter to a two letter word. Then learn the four and five letter words that have either a JQX or Z in them. Then learn some stems like SATIRE and TISANE and you'll be in the 1200s on ISC before you know it.

You will also want some tools.

In order to generate lists, you will need LeXpert.

When you start studying stems, you'll find that Metagrams is a great website. Registration is free.

Also, check out all the sites in the sidebar of The Elusive Quetzal. Scrabble Junction has a whole bunch of useful links.

I would also recommend finding a Scrabble club to play with, if at all possible. If you want to play in a tournament, you'll have to get use to playing with a clock, calculating your own score, playing on a real board, and playing real people face to face.

And remember that by 2006, the new dictionary will be the tournament standard. So you might want to get a head start on those new words too, like QI, ZA, and PE.

But most of all, have fun. Studying Scrabble words can be fun as long as you don't stress out too much over it.