Loose Lips Sink Ships

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NPR’s All Tech Considered blog examines the strategy behind winning Words With Friends.

As the point spread exceeded 100 points, it made me think: Is there more to Words With Friends than the ability to string words together with letter tiles? Turns out, there definitely is. After browsing YouTube, I came across several strategy videos by William Spaniel, a political science doctoral student at the University of Rochester who studies game theory. He also authored Game Theory 101: The Basics.

One of his big tips: Think about trying to limit how many points your opponent scores on you.

“When you play random games against players, you see a huge separation between bad players and average players,” he says.

The bad players, he says, aim to make the longest words and score a lot of points. But better players try to restrict their opponent’s access to big-money bonus spaces, particularly triple letter and triple word score spots.

“If you make a bad mistake about that, that can be the end of the game right there,” he says. In one of his YouTube videos, he says that 80 percent of the game revolves around the triple letter and triple word spots — and the spaces connecting them. —Whitney Blair Wyckoff