I play Scrabble electronically on Facebook with several friends. I usually have 2 – 5 games going simultaneously.

When I started playing on my iPhone the app came with the “Teacher” button which one can touch after playing and it shows you what the best move would’ve been. I like the “Teacher” especially when it confirms that my move was the best available. Today I played CRIB, and POUTIER, two plays that the “Teacher” confirmed were the best possible plays. More often than not, it shows me the plays I missed.

Scrabble players need to know words. I started keeping a list of words I missed so I could learn from my mistakes. BINGOS are when all 7 tiles are used in one turn and 50 bonus points are awarded. Some of the BINGOS I’ve missed recently are ELUTIONS, AIRTIME, CODROVE, HAGADIST, TEOPANS, NERITIC, MEDIATED for 89 points, and ONDOGRAM for 96 points. Quite often it looks like there’s too many vowels to come up with a word, and I’ve missed ALTHAEA, AEROGELS, AGAMETE, EMERITI, and ROSOLIO. I played PRIMED and missed RIMPLED. I played ENTAIL and missed INERTIAL. In one horrible game where I was losing 24 points to 117 I played RAZED for 34 points, which is a good score, but missed on CRUZADOS for 90 points!

Sometimes I miss obvious compound words like: FIREBIRD, PREDRY, and INFALLS.

If you can’t BINGO then you want to play short words in strategic locations involving Triple Word and Double or Triple Letter tiles. The highest scoring letters are Z, Q, X, J, V, W and Y. On my list of missed opportunities are: JINNI, AZOO, AZUKI, JEEZ, QUAI, QUINSY, YUTZ, RIOJA, LEVY, ZONARY, VROUW, ARVO, WITAN, and REMIXT.

I know all 101 2-letter words, but knowing 3-letter words is extremely important so you know how you can play a word by adding one letter to a 2 word. I need to study these. I’ve missed: NOO, ELD, TAV, NAE, EDH, and MAE.

Other words that I’ve missed playing are: PANTO, LAARI, LIGER, BLUME, OGHAM, LORAN, PARAE, SEAWAN, BEEDI, INBY, PAVIOR, INDRI, GAED, EPEE, TENCH, OHIA, ROLF, DEFI, AJEE, HOLLO, BETH, FOHN, KEPPEN, PREE, PERUKE, SIREE, TAIGA, HAEMAL, CETANE, TABU, LOCI, GYRON, VEGIE, and HEME.

I write them out here so by typing, I – a visual learner – can learn and hopefully remember to play them next time so the “Teacher” won’t beat me and there won’t be anymore “Could’a, Should’a, Would’a.”