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Are you tired of losing at Scrabble? Are you tired of suffering humiliating defeats at the hands of small children because you simply are not capable of making words longer than three letters? Fear no more, I am here to show you how to win at Scrabble using simple (and sometimes underhanded) techniques.

First, we must discuss basic Scrabble strategy. The key to winning any game of Scrabble is by owning the board. In other words, you must control where words are being placed and position yourself in a way so that you can capitalize on triple word scores, triple letter scores, and double word scores. This often means skipping a turn, or putting down a low-scoring word in order to gain better board position.

There is also a defensive aspect to controlling the board. For example, if you do not have the opportunity to make a high-scoring word, you can always make a small word to "block" your opponent from using a triple-word score or double-word score. By controlling the board, you are controlling the score of the game.

This strategy is well within the rules of the game, but sometimes even having control of the board is not enough to win. When this happens, it may be time to pull out a few tricks. Here are a few things you can do in order to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat:

1. Feel the tiles. When you reach into the bag to choose your letters, rub your thumbnail over the surface of the tile. With a little practice, you'll be able to distinguish between high-scoring letters and low-scoring letters.

2. Hang onto the U's. Your opponent can't make a 45-point word using Q without a U. By holding onto a U and an N, you can often add a prefix to someone else's big word. The same can be done by adding an S to the end of someone else's big word.

3. Bluffing. It is easy to make a fake word, as long as you can offer a legitimate-sounding definition. When your opponent questions the validity of your word 'aquiox', say something like, "Are you serious? Everyone knows that an aquiox is a mathematical term used to describe the circumference of a hypotenuse!" Quickly add that they can challenge the word if they so choose, but if they lose the challenge, they lose a turn.

4. Blank Tiles. There are 2 blank tiles in Scrabble, which are like "wild cards", meaning that they can be used in place of any letter. Most people are unaware that there are only two of these tiles, so you can simply turn over any one of your tiles and pretend it's a blank tile. Your opponent will seldom, if ever, flip over your tile to make sure that it is a genuine blank tile.

5. Be the scorekeeper. It's not cheating if you innocently forgot to carry the one when you added the score.

Learn more about this author, Marlin Bressi.
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