The popularity of scrabble has not waned in the 70 plus years since it was invented.  Scrabble is one of those games that becomes a little bit addictive once you start playing and you just have to keep playing to see if you can better your scores and score more bingos (7 letter words).

In the last few years it has become possible for players to play scrabble online and there are various online scrabble clubs where you can play against friends and complete strangers around the world.

One of the keys to playing a good game of scrabble is to know the short words that can be used – so you really need to memorise the 2 and 3 letter words that are allowable. There are obviously a lot of 3 letter words so that is going to be a harder task than remembering the 2 letter scrabble words which are (and these differ depending on if you use US or UK English):

Aa, ab, ad, ae, ag, ah, ai, al, am, an, ar, as, at, aw, ax, ay

Ba, be, bi, bo, by, de, do, ed, ef, eh, el, em, en, er, es, et, ex

Fa, fe, go, ha, he, hi, hm, ho, id, if, in, is, it, jo, ka, ki

La, li, lo, ma, me, mi, mm, mo, mu, my

Na, ne, no, nu, od, oe, of, oh, oi, om, on, op, or, os, ow, ox, oy

Pa, pe, pi, qi, re, sh, si, so, ta, ti, to, uh, um, un, up, us, ut

We, wo, xi, xu, ya, ye, yo, za

The most important ones I find to remember are qi, xi, xu, za, hm, sh as these can be really useful when you have high scoring letters and you want to place a word both vertically and horizontally.

Another tip to remember in playing scrabble is to always use your S advisedly as it can really get a you a good cross score – don’t waste it on a single word but instead use it to pluralize another word while  also setting up your own word.