'Word Up' Tactics

In general there are two forms of strategy, that facilitating clearing the grid, and that concerned with building giant words. Playing with the focus on clearing tends to reduce the chance of finding a big word, and vice-versa. Usually, good players can do one or the other, elite players can do both, and noobs can do neither. Inevitably, there is an element of luck to clearing the grid, but with appropriate tactical awareness and anticipation, the top players can clear on more than 75% of the games, while maintaining respectable scores.

Building giant words is the easier strategy to understand, though a harder result to achieve than simply clearing, since there is more luck involved in spotting the potential for a big word, having the right letters in play, and being able to bring them together. Furthermore, the tactics involved can be easily learned by building medium length words and progressively extending the length with more experience. Thence we concentrate here on skills needed for clearing.

The best chance of clearing in the 'endgame' is with 9 letters, in a 3x3 square, with 3 to 5 non-identical vowels. All clearing tactics mentioned below are designed to maximize the chances of clearing, by getting as near to this arrangement as is possible in each game. The Dirty Dozen-esque rhyming subtitles are purely mnemonic.

Tactic One : Qs are done
From the beginning, the Q-U situation should be assessed. This means identifying, for each Q, the best U to pair it with, and how to get them together. You do not necessarily have to take the Qs out immediately, as long as you know they are safe, i.e. they will be easy to get together with Us as you go along. If it looks hard, try and get rid of as many Qs as possible, and then consider shuffling. If there are more Qs than Us, you will need to make QWERTY.

Tactic Two : Vs are poo
The next obstacle that may be in your way is that the letters on the particular grid can be quite nasty, or badly mixed, i.e. lots of high-value consonants together. This is easier fixed sooner rather than later, so early in the game, attempt to use the high-value uncommon consonants (ZXJKV) in decent-sized words to get the best benefit from them. Ls are over-valued in Word Up, so try and get good words with them, especially double LL words.

Tactic Three : Shape is key
After about half or two-thirds of the grid has gone, the shape of the remainder becomes an important factor for clearability. Usually, there will be a little clump of letters in the bottom left corner that are stretching further away from the main bulk of the grid. If this problem is not dealt with, a 'tail' of tiles develops in the bottom left corner, and since these letters don't have many adjacent letters to connect with, it can be hard to make words to get rid of them. So to avoid this difficulty, take some words in the bottom left, to deal with the stragglers. The same applies to the top right corner of the remaining bunch, but is slightly less important than the bottom left.

Tactic Four : Vowels galore
With good shape and good letters, everything in the garden might seem lovely, but there is still a possible mishap with vowels. Having too many, or too few vowels (either overall, or in particular portions of the grid) will cause your efforts to fail. But as before, if the problem is identified early, it will be solved more easily. If there are too many vowels, try to take vowel-heavy words like ROUE, LUAU, ETUI, OLIO. If there are few vowels, go for words like LBW, HMM, SSH, GYP, etc.

Tactic Five : 3s survive
If the previous four tactics have been well employed, you should be able to get down to about 15-20 tiles left with a good, squareish shape, nice letters, and a good vowel ratio. The penultimate step is simply statistical; the best chance of clearing involves having the number of remaining tiles a multiple of 3 (e.g. 9, 12, 15). So if you have, say, 16 tiles left, you should try and take a four letter word to leave 12 tiles. It is certainly possible to clear without doing this step, but it is slightly less likely.

Tactic Six : Spot the fix
Having got down to the 'end-game' (9 or 12 tiles left), it only remains to spot the combination of 3-letter words that will correctly use up all the remaining tiles. This is the point at which time, luck, and vocabulary is most required. Time: try and leave around 20 seconds to find the solution, by performing the previous steps promptly. Luck: the quality and distribution of the letters will play a part, but all you can do now is stare. Vocab: a knowledge of uncommon 3-letter words is very useful here (consult the list on the VB website). If you can't see a way out, try shuffling, or use 'help' (it may suggest a word you hadn't seen).

'Unknownpseudonym' has taken a video of himself hacking out a clearance; not precisely textbook form, but still a useful example.

There follows an example game with explanations of how and why certain words were taken to achieve desirable consequences.

Example Game

Stage 1



Six Qs, identified with Us.

Stage 2



4 Qs gone, 5th Q safe, 6th Q will be dealt with next. Right-hand-side looks bad, not many vowels. Potential problem in bottom left corner with JBWV, so take VIBE, SOON, JAW.

Stage 3



Left is nicer, except for Q so that's next. Want to take stuff away above the Q, so take BRR on the right (since uses no vowels), then TAN on left with T under X, and then FORKS to get Q to U.

Stage 4



Qs now safe. Small 'tail' on bottom left, so burn it with TAX and PAN. Then take QUAYS, QUOTA.

Stage 5



Shape quite square, could be better but had to get Qs out. Now burn worst letters. Take PUTTY, YEWS (killing tail on top right), GRAVY, YAK, VIE (this builds HYMNS).

Stage 6



Count tiles, 6 left. HYMNS would leave 11, so just take HYMN to have 12, multiple of 3. Take AIM on bottom left to prevent tail. Now 9 letters, 3 vowels.

Stage 7



Spot solution, quite easy. If you couldn't see it, probably take STY first, then shuffle.

Stage 8



Word Up equivalent score of 1962 pts.