Patty Hocker/North American Scrabble Players Association
The author competing at the 2018 North American Scrabble Championship in Buffalo, New York.
- I am a tournament Scrabble player, and people often ask me how they can improve their Scrabble skills.
- Any expert will tell you that learning the two-letter words is a surefire way to increase your average score by 50 points a game.
- I compiled a list of the 105 valid two-letter words, which you can memorize to dominate your next game night.
There's no word game more legendary than Scrabble, which has challenged players with its mix of language and strategy since it was invented in 1933.
I take the game pretty seriously - I've competed in tournaments since I was in high school, most recently the North American Scrabble Championship last month in Buffalo, New York.
If you want to get better at Scrabble, whether it's to compete in tournaments or simply win your next family game night, I have one simple piece of advice for you: Learn the two-letter words.
There are 105 two-letter words in the Official Scrabble Players Dictionary, ranging from common words like "at" and "my" to esoteric ones like "qi," defined as a vital life force in Chinese tradition, and "xu," a monetary unit of Vietnam.
New Scrabble players are often surprised to learn that slang words like "yo" are acceptable, as are interjections (ow, um, sh), the tones of the musical scale (do, re, mi), and the phonetic spellings of letters of the alphabet (ar, em, es).
Learning the two-letter words is especially important because they help you score huge amounts of points with just a couple of tiles (see a great example here). Expert players say knowledge of the two-letter words will boost your average game score by 50 points.
Here's the full list of all 105 valid two-letter words. Take some time to learn them and you'll be dominating game night in no time.
