Get your game face on. Here’s how to win with words this summer

We do love a board game here at The Simple Things, and we see no reason not to continue playing board games just because the warmer weather is here. Weren’t the best days at school those summer days when you were allowed to take your work outside onto the field, after all?

So gather up your scrabble, Cluedo and Monopoly and take them out into the garden. A bit of fresh air should inspire your gaming brain and if you’re lucky, the sun will addle your competitors’ brains, giving you the edge.

To give you a headstart on all the fun, we’ve collated the highest scoring words of every length in Scrabble. Learn these off by heart and don’t tell any of your gaming competitors.

Nine letters

An EXOENZYME is an enzyme that is secreted by a cell and functions outside of that cell. On the Scrabble board (without any double or triple letter word scores, even) it will win you 30 points.

Eight letters

SOVKHOZY - the plural for a state-owned farm in Russia. Earns 30 points.

Seven letters*

The highest scoring seven-letter word in Scrabble is MUZJIKS. The word refers to Russian peasants, particularly pre-1917 and scores 29 points.

Six letters

Slightly disappointingly, the highest score achievable is for MUZJIK (see seven letters), which scores 28. If you feel that’s too much like cheating you could try QUACKY for 24 points.

Five letters

ZIPPY (as in speedy) will score you 21 points (and get rid of that tricky ‘z’.

Four letters

Cleverly, QUIZ earns 22 points, giving you more bang for your buck with four letters than you could earn with five!

Three letters

You’ll score 19 points with ZAX, which is a tool for trimming and puncturing roof slates. So now you know.

Two letters

Both ZA and QI will score you 11 points with only two tiles. We were suspicious about ‘za’. Apparently, it’s a shortened term for ‘pizza’, which sounds highly dubious to us, but it is in fact in the Scrabble dictionary. Qi (pronounced ‘chee’) is, of course, the vital force that is inherent in all things, according to Chinese wisdom. You can add an ‘s’ to both Za and Qi, too, and it wouldn’t be qi-ting at all!

*Don’t forget if you play all seven of your tiles at once you earn an additional 50 points.

If you’re really struck by the idea of outdoor board games, buy our August ‘Pause’ issue, which has instructions on p124 for making your own giant outdoor Scrabble set.

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