Joe Edley

If you love Scrabble, really love Scrabble, then this book is a must-have.

Obviously, it contains the usual advices when it comes to seriously improve your game e.g. how to control the board; how to boost your scoring average by simply knowing the allowed 2-3 letter words; how to use power tiles (the blanks, S, J, Q, X and Z) at your best advantage etc. However, it also goes further than that, something that demarks it from other manuals of the sort.

First, it contains very nice exercises to show more practice your skills. This book is not only a lecturing on 'how to', then, but also and above all about putting learning into practice until you have this 'AH! AH!' moments. The tricks given about rack management, for instance, are absolutely brilliant and definitely changed the way that I personally play! Then, and more to the point, it debunks a few silly myths about Scrabble geeks, such as the view that theirs is merely about learning long lists of intricate words. As the authors rightly put it, it's bogus as anyone can get 25 to 30 points average and per turn, and, even, score bingos/ bonuses merely by using some common sense when handling letters. Put like that, it might sound highly over-optimistic. It's not. Again, it comes down to rack management and a few other tricks regarding 7-8 letter words at least. I for one had never scored a bingo/ bonus before reading this book, despite playing quite often. I have now scored a dozen ever since.

All in all, then, here's a fantastic and very efficient guidebook to have at hand. My only issue was that it's about American English whereas I personally play using British English. Some of the words given were, therefore, useless to me. Having said that, Scrabble is not about memorizing words but about a way of thinking about words. The advices offered, then, remains highly relevant if you truly want to upgrade your game. Highly recommended... if you're a Scrabble geek! show less

A fun book to take you further into the world of Scrabble. As more people are discovering Scrabble through family game nights and online applications like Facebook, this book helps improve your game and explains some of the background and history of Scrabble. It discusses rack balancing techniques and how to score those high point Bingos.

This book gave me a complete understanding of how Scrabble can be played. It changed my game and made the playing of it even more enjoyable. The book helped me become aware of the two-letter words and how to increase my chances of using all the letters on my board in a single turn. It has since been updated.

If you love Scrabble and you'd like to practice on your own so you can wow friends with impossibly high scores, this is the book for you!