KILLER WWF (Words With Friends)

I have enjoyed a considerable amount of success playing WWF, which is a Scrabble variant, and I would like to write down a few thoughts to help other people to improve their game.

This paper is NOT being written for those who have never played WWF before, and it is also NOT intended to be the ultimate winning strategy, because there is no way to guarantee you will win every game, but perhaps 95% of them.

I would also like to preface this paper by claiming that if you play WWF with players who use computers, robotic programs, or other anagramming cheating devices, you will beat 100% of them 100% of the time.

This will NOT be a lengthily treatise.









INTRODUCTION:

Scrabble has jealously guarded its trademark over the years, so companies like Yahoo and Zynga have developed Scrabble clones or variants, very similar to the classic Scrabble game in order to avoid being sued. Yahoo's "scrabble" is called Literati, and Zynga's "scrabble" is called Words With Friends, or simply WWF.

All three games have a 15 x 15 grid, and the official Scrabble grid is a bit different from the other two grids, because it has the triple word boxes in the very corners, rather than a few boxes away, where Literati and WWF put their triple word boxes. Also, Literati allows for more than two players in a game. The tiles (i.e., letters) from Scrabble and WWF are identical, with only two blanks allowed, while Literati allows for 4 blank tiles, at least one of which is automatically given to each player on the opening rack. The titles in Literati are generated randomly according to their frequency of occurrence in the English language, while the tiles in Scrabble and WWF are fixed and predetermined, with the rarest letters such as QJXZ generated only once.

I will not say anything more about the basic rules or set-up of the game. The winning strategy for each of the three games is identical.









THE THREE MAIN STRATEGIES:

Of course the main purpose of all three games is to win, i.e., have the highest number of points at the time one of the players uses up the last tile, or when no more moves can be made by either player. If you need any more information about the basic rules of the game, this paper is not for you, and I would suggest you play the game a few times to learn the basic rules.

There are three practical strategies to winning, and most players think there is only one, which is why they lose. The three strategies are, in alphabetical order:

ANAGRAMMING
BINGO BUILDING
DEFENSE (grid control)

Most players never understand anything beyond anagramming and concentrate on anagramming, often using electronic devices, which is why they lose. BOTH of the other two strategies are MORE IMPORTANT then anagramming, so I will list and deal with them in order of importance:

1) DEFENSE (grid control)
2) BINGO BUILDING
3) ANAGRAMMING









DEFENSE (grid control):

Like football and chess, the game of WWF is not won, but it is lost, by defensive mistakes. Good players take advantage of bad players' moves, in which bad players' mistakes allow good players to place bingos onto the grid and make triple word score moves. Defense is by far the most important of the three strategies. Most players lose because, in their zeal to make high-scoring words, short of bingos, they open up the grid to their opponents higher-scoring moves, such as bingos or triple word scores, and they also carelessly use their valuable bingo building letters such as SETARINDOL.

If you are winning a game, your main concern should be that your opponent should NOT be able to catch up with you easily, so your main strategy is to close off the grid so he can't attach a bingo, or make a triple word score. You MUST assume he is an outstandingly good player, even if he isn't. Even if you are losing, you must close off your grid from your opponent's future possible bingos or triple word score move. And mostly, you must resist the temptation for a high-scoring play if it opens up your opponent for an even higher scoring one.









BINGO BUILDING:

Generally speaking, he who gets the most bingos, wins. Another general rule, true almost all the time, is that you should never lay down a blank tile unless it is part of a bingo. Once you have a blank on your rack you can build a bingo in about 1-3 moves by using or discarding rarer tiles, usually using them, but more rarely, discarding them. It will take a couple of more moves to build a bingo if you have no blanks in your rack.

A good general rule is: SAVE THE SEÑORITA. In other words the eight letters that comprise the word señorita out of the total of 26 letters in the alphabet, comprise well over half of the letters used in the English language, crosswords, or Scrabble. Specifically, the 10 most common letters to save for bingo building, in this order, are S-E-T-A-R-I-N-D-O-L. A good general rule is that if you have seven of these 10 letters, and no repeats, except for possibly an S or an E, and the ratio between vowels and consonants is approximately 1:1, YOU PROBABLY HAVE A BINGO! If one of your tiles is a blank, and you have six of the above 10 letters (no repeats except for S and E, 1:1 ratio), you probably have many bingo combinations!

Of course, you should place your bingo on the grid, perhaps using an 8th or 9th letter from the grid or simply laying down a seven letter bingo by virtue of a two letter hook up. Of course you must be careful to place the bingo in such a way that it strengthens your defense (grid control), rather than weakens it.

WHAT IS BINGO BUILDING? (another explanation)

If you do not have the capacity to use all 7 of your tiles in one move (i.e., bingo), then ask yourself this question : "How many of these 7 tiles do I have to play as a move, or much less likely, discard, in order that I might draw unknown but probably common replacement letters which would ensure the greatest probability of a bingo on my next move?"

Once you ponder that question deeply, you will then be able to mentally rank your seven tiles in order of the most desirable, to the least desirable, to use as a move or discard. Usually that is about 2-3 tiles, all of which are either high scoring letters or duplicates.

If you ask yourself this question before every move you make, you will have multiple bingos per game!









ANAGRAMMING:

Anagramming is mentioned last because it is the least important of the three strategies, although most stupid players think it is the only strategy. All three scrabbloid games, Scrabble, Literati, and WWF, use databases of officially allowed words, and all of these databases are slightly different. It is important for you to find out which database your game uses, e.g., OPSD, SOWPODS, OWL, and many variants. WWF uses ENABLE. Even if this cannot be determined, remember you can always play a game in which unallowed word placements are not penalized. Many players use anagramming devices, and you can usually tell who they are after a few moves. The anagramming devices may tell the player what the best highest scoring possible move is for that particular play, but it cannot tell him what the best defensive strategy or bingo building move would be. These players are often called cheaters, but remember two things:

1) You can always use an anagramming device too.
2) People who use anagramming devices lose, because there is no electronic device or program to help them in the defense or bingo building strategies, BOTH of which are far more important than simple idiot anagramming. Usually the highest scoring move totally destroys their defensive and bingo building strategies which are far more important than high scoring 5 or 6 letter words.









SHOWTIME:

Well at this point you might be saying, "Gee, this sounds like it might be good general advice, but what should go through my mind every time I look at a fresh new rack of letters?"

Excellent question, but by far the hardest to answer precisely. Here is my suggestion and description of what goes through MY mind in every new move:

Remember in every move you want to do three things, in order of importance, especially if you are winning, but also if you are losing.

1) Improve grid control (defense) so your opponent cannot lay down bingos or triple word score moves.

2) Build bingos by discarding rarer letters that are not in SENORITA or SETARINDOL

3) Get a lot of points (point amassing)

The first item, grid control, is competitive with the second and the third, but the second and third are not only complementary to each other, but also the same, because using the rarer letters produces a higher number of points. So the main focus will be on the first item, improving defensive grid control. You should lay down letters which cannot allow your opponent to attach bingos to, such as the letter C, which is the best bingo buster of all, because it is much more common than the letter V, the letter V, the left side of the K, and the left sides of J,Q, and Z, as well as any other letter which cannot join with another letter to form an allowable two-letter word.

You should also remember that bingos can attach to your grid by two methods, one is by incorporating it into an 8th or 9th letter which is already on the grid, but the most common way is to lay the 7-letter bingo side-by-side touching another letter or two already on the grid to make a legal two letter word. The 7-letter lay-downs are much more common than the eight or more letter bingos. Another general principle is to assume that if you give your opponent the opportunity to make a triple word score move, HE WILL, so please protect against this also.

The decision to focus on strategy one, two, or three, depends entirely on the individual situation at the time it is your turn to make a move. This is the hardest part of the algorithm, which cannot be taught easily, but here is the general rule which is the entire 15-word summary of this paper:

MAKE THE HIGHEST SCORING MOVE WHICH ALSO STRENGTHENS YOUR GRID CONTROL AND BUILDS YOUR BINGO !!!

CONCLUSION:

Understanding these three important strategies, 1) DEFENSE (grid control), 2) BINGO BUILDING, and 3) ANAGRAMMING, and using them regularly, and also understanding the algorithm which should go through your head for each move, 1) DEFENSE, 2) BINGO BUILDING, and 3) POINT AMASSING, in that order of importance, will allow you to win over 95% of all your games, as I do. Why only 95%? Because other people already know these valuable tips and they just may be a little luckier than you. Also remember, that if you see that you are going to win a game by more than a hundred point margin, or you have doubled your opponent's score, it is considered humane courtesy to resign on the last move. If the game looks like it will go down to the wire, fight like the devil and mercilessly crush the mother fucker.

WWF superstar killers are NOT geniuses, they are just regular people who know all these principles, and are quite experienced at using them.