Better Know a Letter - Z

In the first installment of Better Know a Letter, Will breaks down one of the highest-scoring tiles in the game of Scrabble - the Z. How many stars out of 5 do you think the Z will get from Will?

[cindyoconnellHealth]

My best "Z" score was 212 with "braziers" landing me on two TW and the "I" on a double tile points for a bingo. Ironically, it was within my first 10 times playing on the Scrabble app 3 years ago. I haven't beaten that yet, but I did get 167 score a few games later.

[tozin]

i like how he put a trigger warning before doing math

[BLSKYZ]

Thanks for this awesome video. It’s great having more scrabble tutorials.

[Adyj-zxol]

Hello, Will. I've played Scrabble for a while, and am starting to get better at it. I liked this video a lot. One thing I do want to ask is how the Z's value changes between dictionaries. For example, I know that Collins has ZA, ZE, and ZO as two letter words, making scoring so much more opportune than in the Naspa dictionary. Would you rate the Z a highers score if not in Naspa?

[kylecobb]

Finally got around to downloading Scrabble Go today and got my first 50+ pointer with Jazzer, so I like the Z for now

[Benjy]

I remember someone playing “boo” on the top of the board. I fished twice and ended up playing bamboozled on there… triple triple, Z on the triple letter (words with friends)… the points were enormous - almost 400 points.

[paulgallen]

Great video Will. I'll vote for H.

[MrGanzGeheimnisvoll]

amazing infoz :D
cant wait to see the "S" cuz asking myself: is the "S" is the only 5 star letter?
even if i a german-dictionary newbie-patzer, i like to enjoy ur contend and try to transpose ur infos to the german-lang. typical german schachtelsatz ;)

[judycole]

Great Video - my favorite letter - the P

[DadgeCity]

Reminds me that someone's alphabet countdown went viral.

[maxybg]

3:04 But how do I get that version then??

[zidane]

i mean the zy combination isn't really that surprising. dizzy, crazy, fizzy, fuzzy, lazy, jazzy, snazzy are some i can think off the top of my head

[lauriepittari]

Mommy once earned so many BINGO wins that they complained.

[cherylmailloux]

Omg I know I've done it so many times on Scrabble go...because I am th Scrabble Queen!!

[joeydewitt]

Abbreviations can now be used in scrabble? Za? I thought it was dictionary words only. Are we gonna play proper nouns and slang now too?

[kevinleeds]

Assuming "more often" means "more frequently" in the graph at 4:10 (consonants appearing with Z) - this is gathered by running over the lexicon once? Is it weighted by playability, as in a simulation? In the vowels graph (preceding) - for short words intuitively ZA could be weighted higher than OUZO but I don't know how that is shown in the graph if at all. Playability is very interesting to investigate and I wonder about the possibly over-randomized set of positions used to determine playability (it might be dangerous to under-randomize them but cross-tables might be an excellent source of sample games) (usually playability is found by doing speedy player quackle sims, as far as i understand it, but it's missing from zyzzyva now & that question has always been a mystery to me)

[lennydowntown]

My favourite letter to get in Scrabble is the Z

[eve_the_eevee_rh]

3:54
N: Am I a joke to you?

But fr, why wasn't N mentioned? It has a higher percentage than Y

[jamburga]

I think we should do letter R next ok?

[hongxiawang]

I will start calling pizza za in honor of the word