NSA Club #610, St. Louis, MO

Andy Yates, Director
636-793-3681
618-257-9380
gargoyle124@yahoo.com

Meets Wednesdays, 7:00 PM at the SCHLAFLY BOTTLEWORKS

7260 Southwest Ave. (at Manchester)
Maplewood, MO 63143

There is no membership fee, but we encourage you to patronize our hosts.

Click the logo for map and directions!
OR
check out MapQuest
*Schlafly Bottleworks*
7260 Southwest Ave
Maplewood, MO 63143-2406, US

From the Director:

Coming Soon

Club #610's TOP 10
(by ranking)

Ranking	Rating	NAME
410	1579	HELLE, RAY
459	1544	GUIGNON, WILLIAM
482	1530	YATES, ANDY
-	1503	KLOOS, KENTON
591	1468	BASLER, MIKE
606	1462	PITT, ANDY
829	1352	HEIMAN, SAMUEL
907	1316	GREMAUD, DAVID
977	1282	DRISKILL, SYLVIA
1154	1198	COMPTON, JONATHAN

The National Scrabble Association
For tournament listings, rules, ratings, etc.
(For text-only version, click HERE)
**Jump straight to the ratings for Missouri players!

10 Quick Tips For Beginners

1. On the first move of the game, avoid placing a vowel next to a double letter square. If your opponent has a high value consonant, they can get a quick 30-50 points where they normally might get 25-30.
2. If you are ahead, close up the board. If you are losing, then open it up. Keep in mind that this applies only to beginners. There are far more things to consider before an intermediate player decides to open or close up a board.
3. Never give up. If your opponent can get 100 points ahead in the first half, then you can do it in the second half. Never say die.
4. Don't waste a blank. It is far wiser to get 20 points without a blank than it is to get 35 points with it. Try not to use your blank for anything less then 50 points unless a special situation requires it.
5. Don't waste an S. An S is a very useful tile for creating bingos or squeezing into a tough spot on the board. A good rule of thumb is to keep your S unless using the S is 8 or more points better than your best play without it.
6. If your opponent opens up a triple word score square for you and you can't use it, then you might consider opening up a second one so that there will still be one for you next turn. It's a risky move, but on average it has been found that it is more beneficial than not opening it up.
7. Play better players. If you constantly play people of your own skill level you won't be learning any new techniques. You'll lose many more games, but who cares as long as you are improving?

8. Practice anagramming when you have nothing else better to do. Go out and buy a bunch of those "JUMBLE" books that have page after page of scrambled words which you must unscramble. Taking a plane trip...... bring the Jumble book. Long car ride...... take out the book. Nothing is on TV except Sally Jesse Raphael Or Melrose Place....... Get the Jumble book out. Jumble Time
9. Study some Scrabble word lists. You can also view word lists at Scrabble Club.com or Mike Wolfberg's lists
10. One of the best ways to get better is to go out and buy the Hasbro Scrabble CD-ROM. While not great for Internet play, it can be extremely useful to learn with. Play the computer at it's highest level and when it's your turn hit the "Hint" button. It will list about 10 top moves. Try to figure out why it ranked the moves in that particular order.

The preceding was compliments of

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Within 5 hr. driving radius of St. Louis, MO

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#610 Happenings
Weekly Club Results
Recent Tournament Results

610 Scrabble Chat!

Good Links:

The RATINGS Calculator Page

CROSS-TABLES.COM - just the stats, man
Player histories, profiles, ratings

The Internet Scrabble Club - The best place to play scrabble online

The A2ZWordfinder for Scrabble

Download the SOWPOD, TWL and ODS Dictionaries for free! (All in .zip format) @ PLAY SCRABBLE.COM

Look for The Official Scrabble Dictionary @ AMAZON.COM (June 2005)