Having the five vowels on your rack is no the ideal situation to be in. The first time, from my recollection this happened to me, I concluded that there was a conspiracy against me and it was never-ending. Being a novice, I play scrabble from words I learn through the course of playing or in my natural interaction through reading.
For very important reasons, this is a bad idea if you intend to develop and challenge the far more clued up scrabble players on the competitive scene. I cannot overstate my opinion that there is a limit to the the number of words that can be learned by sheer brute force memory.
So this situation led me to investigate the list of sevens that included the five vowels. A quick search produced five words seen below.
EULOGIA
MOINEAU
DOULEIA
SEQUOIA
MIAOUED
The natural progression from this
list is to study the list of eights too. Now how does this work in practice?
The way I maximize the opportunities presented with the five vowels is at first I look out for it. Then I apply the following process.
1. Is it a known bingo from the list of five shown above?
2. Can I make an eight-letter word using five vowels?
3. Can I create a fifth vowel with one on the board already?
4. Can I use my blank as the fifth vowel?
5. Can I use my blank as a fourth vowel and combine with one already open on the board?
This strategy works well if you study and are quite confident that you will recall these set lists. This has worked very well for me and has seen me play DOULEIA a few times. Learning the hooks for the words will always improve your chances of success.
Great scrabbling!
A teacher of mathematics who enjoys playing scrabble, and who has naively saddled himself with the goal of improving his game to an expert level.
