So you want to play a tournament?  That’s fantastic:

As a new player, here are the words that are most important for you to learn if you want to be a competitive tournament Scrabble player:

1.  Learn the two letter words solidly.  Tournament Scrabble players know the two letter words like the back of their hand, and almost never make mistakes on these words.  These words are essential for parallel plays, which will constitute roughly half of your plays, especially as a beginner, as this is the best way to score with high point tiles or with imbalanced racks.

You’ll need to play all of these frequently, and any invalid two letter words will be challenged off by your opponents, so you’ll want to know these words well.  Getting used to finding parallel plays with uncommon two letter words and playing them frequently is one of the key difference between Scrabble novices and tournament Scrabble players.

1. Learn the three letter words.  While not as essential as the two letter words, the three letter words help players make parallel plays and get rid of inflexible letters off their rack in pursuit of a bingo.  Pay special attention to 3 letter words with a high point tile, as these words tend to show up all the time.

Just like the two letter words, most of your opponents will know all the three letter words, but occasionally, players will make mistakes on these words.  While there are only about 70 uncommon two letter words which can be learned in a few hours, there are closer to 700 uncommon three letter words, and as such, learning the three letter words takes far more effort.  Making a mistake on these from time to time is nothing to be ashamed of, but if you want to *win* your first tournament, you’ll probably need to avoid making mistakes on three letter words.

1. Short vowel dumps.  One of the biggest problems that you’ll run into is a vowel-heavy draw or rack that can cripple your rack, often for several turns.  While exchanging is often a good option, especially if you are unable to score 15 or more points or clear your rack of most of its volwels, it is better if you can play off vowel-heavy racks, especially before those racks become completely unmanageable.  

While learning these words is often not a challenge, sometimes finding these words in your rack can be, especially since they often involve making several parallel two and three letter words.  Finding a word like AECIA on your rack is already challenging enough when seeing AACEI on your rack, but it can be even more challenging when you also have an O and U as your two remaining tiles and need to parallel TH with the I and A on your rack to attain a decent score.

1. Learn the short JXQZ words.  As a new player, these high point tiles can be extremely powerful, as they can easily net 30 or 40 point scores: if you know the words and can find them on your rack.  Without learning these words, these tiles can become extremely clunky and can stop you from scoring or balancing your rack, prohibiting you from playing a bingo.

Again, the challenge with these words is finding the words, particularly if they are 5 or 6 letter words, and especially when the JXQZ are in the middle of the word.  Words like NINJA or PIQUE may be relatively common words, but they tend to be difficult to find as most players generally expect to find the J or Q at the beginning of words, rather than in the middle.  Like vowel dumps, this can be especially challenging considering you will have other letters in your rack, especially since many of these words are somewhat obscure and have unusual letter constructions.