Bonus Words

In Scrabble if you use up all the letters on your rack in one go you score 50 extra points, known as a bonus word score or in the United States, a bingo. Any letter or combination of letters that gives you an edge in achieving high word scores are important. Letters helpful to achieving bonus word scores depend on the number of times the letter appears in the dictionary and the number of words over seven letters long that can be achieved.

Having said this it is possible in Hotspots to configure the board differently to Scrabble. If the game is configured with lots of high scoring squares and high scoring tiles making bonus words might not score many extra points. It might be more important to keep high scoring tiles and play them on those high scoring squares - good if you do not like finding long words but know many 3-5 letter words.

Winning at Scrabble

There are many issues to consider in a Scrabble game. The best players form their own winning strategies rather than depending on received wisdom. The previous comments are only there to make a player more aware of issues they may not have recognised before. Books on Scrabble strategy, though offering advice applicable to strategy in games such as Literati and Hotspots, are assuming a standardised English dictionary, typical Scrabble board configuration and distribution of letters. Variables such as the letters left in the game, the board positions, available hooks and type of opponent may change everything. Be wary of assumptions, every game is different.

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