Lesson 1: Learning the 2-letter words - the consonants

Learning all of the two letter words is the most important and therefore first lesson anyone should undertake to improve their scrabble.  Many more plays can be made by attaching a play to an existing word using a two letter link, which gives more scope for play and (particularly when the two letter play contains a high value letter such as J, Q, X or Z) considerably more points per turn.

There are 124 two letter words that are permissible in the SOWPODS dictionary.   They are:

AA AB AD AE AG AH AI AL AM AN AR AS AT AW AX AY BA BE BI BO BY CH DA DE DI DO EA ED EE EF EH EL EM EN ER ES ET EX FA FE FY GI GO GU HA HE HI HM HO ID IF IN IO IS IT JA JO KA KI KO KY LA LI LO MA ME MI MM MO MU MY NA NE NO NU NY OB OD OE OF OH OI OM ON OO OP OR OS OU OW OX OY PA PE PI PO QI RE SH SI SO ST TA TE TI TO UG UH UM UN UP UR US UT WE WO XI XU YA YE YO YU ZA ZO

You could, of course, just learn this list by rote.  It takes some time, but this is how most scrabble players approach the 2-letter words.

However, I prefer to break the problem into two parts.  Notice that there are many words beginning with A, E, I, O, and U.  Each of the consonants starts a relatively small set of letters, but there are of course more consonants than vowels.  We will therefore split learning the 2-letter words into two lessons:

- Learning the consonants
- Learning the vowels

Lesson 1:  Learning the consonants

If we remove the words beginning with a vowel we are left with 66 words, almost exactly half of the original list:

BA BE BI BO BY CH DA DE DI DO FA FE FY GI GO GU HA HE HI HM HO JA JO KA KI KO KY LA LI LO MA ME MI MM MO MU MY NA NE NO NU NY PA PE PI PO QI RE SH SI SO ST TA TE TI TO WE WO XI XU YA YE YO YU ZA ZO

The key to learning this list is to notice patterns between certain letters - and that these patterns are split into 'vowel pairs' and 'non-vowel special words'. 

Pattern 1:  B, D, H, P, T

B, D, H, P and T are five letters that take A, E, I, and O, but do not take U.   We also have to remember that BY and HM are non-vowel special words in this set.  (note that no other consonant takes A, E, I, and O but not U - this is true of all patterns)

Pattern 2:  The New York Pattern (N, Y)

N and Y take A, E, O and U, but not I.  We also have to remember the non-vowel special word NY - but this is easy as it is the two letters in the pattern!

Pattern 3:  The Kilo pattern (K, L)

K and L take A, I, and O, but not E or U.  Also remember the non-vowel special word KY.  I like to remember 'a kilo of jelly'...

Pattern 4:  The choir one-offs (CH, QI, RE)

There is only one word beginning with C, Q and R, which are CH, QI and RE.  I remember this as the choir rule, as CHQIRE looks (and I imagine sounds) a bit like choir.

Pattern 5:  Mummy takes all

M goes with all the vowels, and also takes MM and MY as non-vowel special words.  Note that all the pairs in the word MUMMY (MU, UM, MM, MY) are allowed.

Pattern 6:  The power pairs (plus W)

Power tiles J, X and Z, and the letter W all give two options and only two.   You will have to learn them, but once you know there are only two, you can work it out more easily.  The words in this set are JA, JO, XI, XU, ZA, ZO, WE and WO.

Pattern 7:  F and G complements

F and G share the vowels in order;  F takes A and E;  G then takes I, O and U.  We also need to remember FY.

Pattern 8:  The awkward S

S doesn't fit any of the obvious patterns above, so one has to just learn SH, SI, SO, and ST

Once you've learned these patterns, practice running through the alphabet, skipping the vowels, to state which pattern each letter sits in, and then reel off the permissible words.  I found that within a couple of hours I had mastered this list. Good luck!

Next up - Lesson 2: the 2-letter vowels