The Perfect Rack Balance

Rack balance has nothing to do with having a properly fitted bra...

We should all aim for having a good balance in both life and Scrabble. In Scrabble this means have a good balance of vowels and consonants on your rack and avoiding duplicates. Using the example below, what should you get rid of?

To start with, B’s & V’s can be clunky. (*clunky – a term used to describe a rack of tiles that don’t work well together, eg IIIIBDK). Also having doubles should be avoided so try to get rid of I. Maybe there is an E open on the board to play VIBE.  This leaves you:

On the one hand you are thinking...I can get rid of the V and I but look what you have left. 3 consonants and 1 vowel because of your obsession with keeping the ING. You will be pulling 3 tiles out of the bag. You have an equal chance of pulling 2 vowels/1consonant or 2consonants/1vowel (if there is an equal distribution of vowels and consonants left in the bag)

What happens if you pull IDF. Now your rack is

Not a lot different really. If you still want to keep the ING you are left to play LID or FID and after pulling 3 tiles you probably won’t end with much of a different rack, truth be told.

Rack balance and tile turnover (turnover covered in next blog) work hand in hand. Being aware of one helps the other.

Instead you should play more tiles and get rid of as many as possible. This helps you get a better rack balance and a combination of letters more likely to bring about a 7 letter word. On the first move say you missed LIVING but noticed BLING. Playing BLING has many advantages:

1. Get rid of ING.
2. Good tile turnover.
3. Balance of 1vowel/1consonant left.
4. Could open the board nicely

(When you get more seriously into strategy, rack leaves, open v closing the board etc these opinions might not apply but this blog is aimed at helping newbies get started)

Another really important thing to remember is that only 1/5 of ING words take an S on the end.  So if you don’t know you don’t even have a 50/50 chance of guessing correctly. So just don’t do it. Don’t hold onto ING and don’t chance putting and S on the end if you’re not sure.

To get back to our example. Your rack leave is IV. With an equal distribution of vowels & consonants left in the bag, probability suggests you will pull 2 of each and the last will be either. Nice.

This is where having an idea of what has been played already helps. More practiced players will keep track of the tiles as the game is played but this takes a lot of time and for a newbie the return isn’t worth the effort. BUT it is worth having an overall broad awareness of what’s been played. Definitely keep track of the 10 biggies.

A couple of times during the game have a quick scan around the board of how many consonants & vowels have been played. The breakdown is 56/42 (2 x blanks). It will only take 30 seconds to run your eye back and forth over the board (methodically) and count how many vowels have been played.

If you are half way through the game and 34/42 vowels have been played, the chances of pulling vowels from the bag are less likely and this will affect your rack balance. Similarly, if most of the E’s have been played, hold onto the one you have.  Other scenarios to help your rack balance are:

a. 20 tiles left in bag. 1 x blank, 1 x S & the Z are unseen so could be in the bag. In this scenario don’t be afraid to play a long word, you have a good chance in pulling some nice tiles.

b. 20 tiles left in bag. Q, 4 x O’s, V and W are unseen. You’ve also noted both blanks and the 4 U’s have been played and are blocked up. Unless you have an I on your rack to play QI be wary about pulling lots of tiles from the bag. You could end up with QOOOOVW. What the hell do you do except play VOW and hope for the best.

c. 10 tiles left in bag. You only have 2 vowels on your rack and most of what’s in the bag are consonants. Whatever you do, don’t use both vowels! Play the clunky consonants and hope for the best.

Here is a list of some great vowel heavy (loads of vowels) or consonant heavy (loads of consonants) words allowed in CSW15. Playing these will help your rack balance.

(right click, open image in new tab/window and print)

Finally to summarise rack balance...

1. Aim to have a balance of 3 vowels and 3 consonants on your rack;

2. Learn some of the handy words from the list above &

3. Have some awareness of what has been played to inform your decision of what tiles to play which will in turn affect your tile balance after you replenish tiles.

Check out my other blogs for beginner Scrabblers The Two's & Hooks 

Fini

John The Captain Ryan

PS. If you really want to be schooled on strategy give this THESIS a read.