There are basically two ways to play Scrabble on your computer:

1. Play against the computer using a software package such as
   Networdz, or others produced by the Scrabble manufacturers, or
2. You can play with other players connected through the Internet.

It is important that when configuring either the software or the settings, that you choose the SOWPODS (combined North American/British word list- also referred to as OSWI - Official Scrabble Words International) so that you will be playing with the same word list that is used in our club meetings and at tournaments. Choosing another word list will invariably lead to confusion!

There are various sites at which you can play Scrabble on the net. The committee members of WSN have checked out a few of these (by no means all!) and have found that the International Scrabble Club (ISC) website has a number of features that makes it appealing, and as such, we have adopted it as our "preferred" website.

On ISC you can:

• Play games of varying length from 3 minutes to 40 minutes;
• Chat to your opponent while you are playing;
• Add people to your "buddy list" so that you can be notified when
  they are on-line;
• Analyse your game afterwards to check out those "missed
  opportunities";
  
• Observe other people's games, including many players who are
  highly ranked, international standard tournament players.
  

In addition, its easy to use and quick to download, and its free! By paying a modest annual subscription fee you can access extra services.

ANALYSIS SOFTWARE

There are various software packages that you can use to help you improve your Scrabble. One of the best is a program called LeXpert.

In the "Word Search" function, you can:

• Type in the letters on your rack and find out if you have any
  bingos. You can also see a list of all the allowable words that can be made
  from that rack;
• Look for words of a particular pattern; e.g. all 8 letter words
  ending in U (there are 30), all 7 letter words beginning with A and ending
  in IA (type in A????IA) (there are 45!), all 4 letter words beginning with
  POO (D,F,H,K,L,N,P,R,S,T).
• You can generate quizzes for yourself on set criteria, such as High
  Probability 7s, 7 letter words with 5 vowels etc;
• You can generate study lists based on set criteria.
  

Often at club meetings we will have LeXpert running so that we can examine games afterwards and see what possibilities there were during the course of the game. Often LeXpert will reveal simple words that were missed during the course of play that would have made a big difference to the scores. If you're keen on improving your Scrabble, we believe that you will find LeXpert a valuable learning aid.

LeXpert can be downloaded free here.