H is for HOOKS!

It's time again for the ABC Wednesday entry, where I try and cover some of the basics of competitive scrabble, while somehow trying to relate it to the current letter of the week. Up this week: G!

 

We've already gone over 'fishing', which is a generally bad practice, however 'hooks' are definitely good to know. A 'hook letter', or 'hook', is a letter that will spell a new word when it is played with in the front of or at the end of a word already on the board. The most commonly used hook is S, of course, which is usually added to the end of a word. For this reason, most people will hold on to an S until it can be used to score a decent amount of points.

Knowing hooks can make the difference between having a place to put that great word or having it just sit on your rack. It can also gain you a turn if your opponent tries one that isn't good. (In competitive scrabble, you lose your turn if your opponent 'challenges' your play and the word isn't acceptable.) This most famously occurs in competitive games with -ING words; it's often difficult to remember which ones take an S and which don't. Adjectives are another culprit of the attempted S additions. More on that later...

The fun part, though, is learning some of the more unusual hooks (usually 'front hooks' that completely change the word when added to the beginning) and then surprising your opponent with them. Here's just a few words that you can add an S to the front of that you may not know about:

MAZE, HEAL, WASH, EDGY

CREAK, LATCH, WAGER, WIVES

just to name a few. 

To end, here's a quiz: which of these words take a S back hook in scrabble?

WEIRD

FEEDING

OUTER

PARKING

STRANGE

SURFING

Answers in the comment section...

Of course, I haven't even touched on all the words you can add 'Y', 'D', or 'R'  to, as well as the many other aspects, but you get the idea. When you see a word on the board, the first thing you should think is, 'what letter can I add to the front of back of that?'