PAINTER is a great set of letters to find on your rack. As well as the obvious word it also makes REPAINT and PERTAIN. Sometimes you can’t fit any of those words on the board, but if you can play through another letter this combination makes some interesting 8 letter words. In particular I like the fact that it makes a word with each of the vowels. PAINTER + A = ANTIRAPE Concerned with rape prevention PAINTER + E = APERIENT A laxative PAINTER + I = PAINTIER M

One of my previous blogs was devoted to 5 letter words that have 4 vowels. However for the less experienced scrabbler there are probably more opportunities for keeping their rack balanced by playing a 4 letter word with at least 3 vowels. There are 99 words that fall into that category. It feels as though at least one of these words is used in every game I play. They are almost like the basic building blocks of scrabble. Do you know all 99 of the words that have been used to

K probably isn’t studied as much as the J, Q, X or Z. The list of words with those letters is a bit smaller than those with a K making them easier to study. e.g I looked at 4 letter words and found there were only 25 words of that length with a Q, 87 with an X and about 140 for J and Z. In comparison there are 659 words of 4 letters that include a K. A much more daunting study project. So rather than try to provide you with an exhaustive list I have chosen 20 words including

There are a few words that end in a double I. The 5 and 6 letter words can be good dumps for some awkward letters. Some of the 7 and 8 letter words are quite common letters that would make great bonus plays if only the unusual ending was easier to spot! AALII A tropical tree FILII Sons GENII Very intelligent people MEDII Middle fingers MODII Roman units of measurement for grain. RADII Arm b

Back to some high probability words for you in this time. However rather than cover the very well-known lists of SATINE, SATIRE and RETINA, we will have a look at another that is only a little less probable, but includes quite a lot of words that may be unfamiliar to intermediate players. This is the LADIES list: LADIES + A = ALIASED LADIES + B = BALDIES, DIABLES, DISABLE LADIES + C = SCAILED LADIES + D = DAIDLE

I would be the first to admit that the list this time isn’t the most high probability words that you will get to play frequently, but maybe it will give you some insight into the weird way my mind works. An advert on TV mentioned a type of dried chili called CHIPOTLE. I knew the word, but it occurred to me that it would be very difficult to spot that at scrabble. Further investigation revealed it had an even more interesting anagram – HELICOPT – which means to travel by helic

Waitangi Day was this week. So keeping in theme with that I thought I would start by pointing out that MAORI is not an allowable word because it needs to start with a capital. There are in fact two words that you can make out of those letters: MOIRA Fate or destiny in ancient Greek religion MORIA Folly or foolishness The two combinations are different in their plurals. As you might expect from something Greek MOIRA pluralises with an i for MOIRAI whereas