Using Aids While Playing

[3dnf]

I know this is really weird, but I suck at finding eights compared to finding sevens, so I was wondering if I could use a different colored tile on my rack to visualize the eight letter word to anagram it. Do you think it would be within the rules to use another bag to take tiles from to anagram with?

- Ted

[ar-raqis]

No, that would be pretty flagrantly illegal, not to mention confusing. See rules IV.B.4.b. (Racks with More Than Seven Tiles) and IV.C.3. (Tiles from an Adjacent Game.)

Seriously, just go on jumbletime and practice like everyone else.

[medropout]

No, that would be pretty flagrantly illegal, not to mention confusing. See rules IV.B.4.b. (Racks with More Than Seven Tiles) and IV.C.3. (Tiles from an Adjacent Game.)

Seriously, just go on jumbletime and practice like everyone else.

I don't see it as being that clear-cut, though his idea of using an alternate set of tiles would probably bring down the wrath of IV.C.3. What if the placeholder you're using isn't a tile, but a bright orange piece of plastic slightly larger than a tile, and you wrote on it with a dry erase marker? What if you use a scrap of paper?

[TheLamb]

If you need to visualise all eight letters together, I suggest using a clipboard with scoresheets that have scribble space. Write out the 8-letter alphagrams.

[ar-raqis]

I was responding to the original question as stated. Scraps of paper are unwieldy and difficult to shuffle, and I wouldn't know to obtain a tile-size dry erase slab. Those suggestions don't seem like they would be illegal, but they do seem like even more impractical uses of one's preparation and game time.

Like TheLamb, I too scribble stuff on my scoresheet (and sometimes put alphagrams or potential plays in the ISC command line.) That should ideally be only an adjunct to a mostly mental play-finding procedure, if you aspire to expert status. I don't even shuffle much now.

[3dnf]

Yeah, good call to both of you