Using the Blank Tile in Scrabble

Using the Blank Tile in Scrabble
Hi! My name is Andy Strohl and on behalf of Expert Village, in this clip we will be discussing the blank tile in Scrabble. Don’t forget to check out my work at www.strohldigital.com. So we’ve discussed the tiles and some of the intro to the game of Scrabble. I want to discuss in this clip primarily the blank tile. This is sometimes confusing for a lot of new players. This tile has no letters on it at all. This is part of the game. In fact it is referenced on the board itself under letter distribution. It tells you exactly how many there are, there are 2. This blank tile is exact of that. It is what ever you want it to be. It can be a q, vowel; doesn’t really matter. The point of the tile is to give you a little more flexibility. Maybe perhaps later in the game or anywhere in the game when get stymied there are no points associated with this square. So if you use this as a q, you cannot assume 10 points in addition to your word score. You have to use this as a 0. There is also some disparity as to whether or not you can change this letter once it is down on the board. So for example if I play it as a v in give, can a player then come down vertically and play it as another letter to form a word for them. The answer is no. It is a v and it is always a v. It is a v with absolutely 0 value whatsoever. I simply add up all the points of the other letters in the word and that is my total for that word itself. So that is the blank tile. A great spot to use this is to use it as an s off a very large word that was formed earlier in the game; something like quagmire or something that is a huge letter or word score. You can just tack this on and get exactly what your opponent got for the word.