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Collins links

From NASPAWiki

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This page provides links related Collins, and is part of our introduction to Collins (SOWPODS) in North America. For brevity, we will refer to the North American and International lexica as NWL and CSW respectively.

Since once can obviously find much material online by web-searching "Scrabble", "Collins", etc., we limit the selection to the most useful links for the player new to CSW.

These links are all up-to-date for CSW21 unless otherwise noted.

General

Scrabble General worldwide site for Scrabble
NASPA North American Scrabble Players Association
WESPA World English-Language Scrabble Players Association

Playing Guides & Books

Some of these are not up-to-date for the current CSW, but the effect is minor

Breaking the Game Cutting-edge Scrabble strategy, puzzles, etc.
Word Basic Scrabble strategy
Scrabble Solved Advanced strategy
101 Ways to Win at Scrabble Recent British book
Scrabble Secrets Another one, by 1993 world champion Mark Nyman
How to Win at Scrabble From 2004, but comprehensive guide to high level play
The Scrabble Player's Handbook Free online PDF
Word Addict: Secrets of a World SCRABBLE Champion Recent world champion's story, with game insight

Software

Quackle Widely used software that can be configured for Scrabble
NASPA Zyzzyva Widely used word study software
Collins Zyzzyva Version that does not contain NWL, but has more comprehensive definitions for CSW, spanning 2-15 letters
Woogles Online play, including CSW, human & computer players, live games, chat, tournaments, etc.
Aerolith Online game to practice anagramming, in NWL or CSW
Tournament Shell Tournament directing software that can do NWL or CSW
Director! Another tournament directing software, more graphically based
Elise Another word game playing software
WHAT Another word finding software

Word Lists

Collins Cheat Sheet Part 1 Useful CSW-only words for handy reference: 2s, 3s, high probability bingos, the 52 2-8 letter words only in NWL, etc.
Collins Cheat Sheet Part 2 More useful words: hooks of 2s, all the 4s
Collins Official Scrabble Words Official CSW21 book. Also available here for a 50% discount, using code SCRABBLEWORDS50 until Dec 31st 2022
Collins Scrabble Dictionary 2-9 letter CSW21 words, with short definitions
Collins Ultimate Scrabble Dictionary and Wordlist Still CSW19 rather than CSW21, but includes 10-15 letter words in addition to the 2s-9s
ABSP words by category Extensive sets of lists by many definition-based categories (languages, food, etc.) Select the "Words" dropdown menu from the website's top menu bar.
Winning Words Set of books with useful categories by part of speech, etc.
Anagram Cartoons Book Anagrams + cartoons valid in NWL and CSW

Tournaments & Ratings

NASPA tournament calendar Official calendar of rated NASPA tournaments, both NWL and CSW
Cross-Tables Tournaments, ratings, results, etc. Front page has good visual list with obvious icons showing that a tournament is NWL or CSW
NASPA SOWPODS ratings Description of the CSW ratings, with results
WESPA ratings World ratings

Etc.

This list is far from complete, for example, there is a lot of other online video content like twitch.tv.

Collins Scrabble Players Online pro-CSW in North America community
Transition from NWL to Collins Second online community
Dweebovision Videos of CSW games with clear and insightful commentary
Word Buff Lots of word-related material
Learning Scrabble Words Blog entry on learning Collins words

Please direct comments about this page to its author, Nick Ball.