Scrabble is all about the "twos" and "threes", as every world champion eight-year-old knows. Such as "eau" and "aue" – the all-vowel words that fit between bigger words and scoop up big points without using too many tiles.
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The tip comes from young Ronnie Bennett, who travelled to Melbourne from Canberra for the 2015 Australian Scrabble Championships held at Essendon's Windy Hill club over the long weekend.
As a six and seven-year-old he twice won the best player under-eight at the world youth championships. And he will be at the world youth championships in November, which are being held in Australia for the first time since 1999.
It is an exciting year for Scrabble with a new word list due out in September and Perth hosting youth and adult World English Language Players Association championships later this year. A record 150 players from around the world – including the enigmatic three-time world champion Nigel Richards – would convene on Perth for multiple tournaments with up to $10,000 in prize money. This year's games were the first to be managed by the grass roots players association rather than the game's owner, Mattel, or other commercial organisations.
Meanwhile back at Windy Hill, Ronnie said he prefers Scrabble to the popular app Words With Friends because it accepts more words. He was just one of 160 people who played 24 games over three days. They came from all around Australia, plus nine players from overseas, and played in a room overlooking the football field with city views in the background. It was quiet as 80 games played out simultaneously with just the sounds of gentle mumbling and rattling as people shook a bag of tiles high in the air.
A new Melbourne-based champion emerged from the tournament with 29-year-old Peter Kougi winning 19 out of 24 games.
He played a tough game against the higher-ranked Cameron Farlow, but won with a narrow victory of 420 points to 415 after pulling both blanks out of the bag to play the winning word "tuner" for 24 points.
"It is the first time I have been leading the nationals. I have played in many nationals before, this is about my eighth. I seem to be drawing very nice letters, a lot of blanks and s's. That's probably the main reason that I am doing so well," he said.
Mr Kougi works as a bookkeeper for his family's furniture business during the week. He was now preparing for the world championships using a word study program called Zyzzyva, developed by the North American Scrabble Players Association.
"I am studying seven- or eight-letter words based their probability of coming up on your rack," he said.
Meanwhile, Lorraine Thomas had the highest-scoring word of the tournament with "craziest" for 221 points. She hit two triple word scores, which multiplied her word score nine times, plus a bonus 50 points for emptying her rack.
