At 5pm on Christmas Day, the usual noise in my house disappears as we prepare for our yearly family Scrabble contest, where the competition is fierce.
While the winner gets to scoff all the purple ones in the Quality Street tub, the loser has to tackle the mountain of washing up.
It is, without doubt, my favourite part of the day – and I’m not alone.
Recent research suggests that six out of ten individuals believe Christmas wouldn’t feel complete without engaging in a board game or two. It appears that some people, like television host and financial expert Martin Lewis, approach this tradition with a high level of seriousness.
‘I am ridiculously competitive,’ he admits. ‘I love to play, and I do like to win.’
Lewis, 52, even proposed to his wife, Lara, in 2008 – by spelling out ‘Willyou’ and ‘Marryme’ – during a game of Scrabble.
With Christmas looming, Sarah Rainey prepares for her family’s annual board game showdown
‘Board games bring everybody together,’ he explains. ‘There’s companionship, and being competitive.
‘I loved it when I was a kid, I love playing against my grown-up friends, and I love playing with my daughter [Sapphire, 12].
Lewis shared, “During our game, I guide my wife on playing and teach her tactics because developing strategic thinking is a valuable life skill.”
Now Lewis is sharing the secrets of his success in a one-off programme, Martin Lewis – How to Win at Board Games, on ITV next week, to which the Mail has been given exclusive access.
So which properties should you buy first in Monopoly? What ‘power words’ should you memorise in Scrabble? And which magic number can help you beat your kids at Connect 4?
How to pick Monopoly’s prime locations
Monopoly was launched in America in 1935, and is now a global phenomenon, with 275 million sets sold.
For the game that, famously, nobody ever finishes, there are several hacks to help you win. The first is understanding probability.
‘With two dice, seven is the most common roll – you have a one in six chance of getting it,’ Lewis explains. Next most likely are six and eight, then five and nine.
Know this, and you can predict the chances of your opponent landing on a particular location on their next go, thereby helping you decide whether you should snap it up while you can.
However, Lewis also says you should never just buy locations at random. From the start, you need to think about your ‘acquisition strategy’.
‘First, you want to get a set [of streets] to develop,’ says Lewis. ‘An alternative is to buy one of each different set so your opponents can’t develop, as you need to own them all to build on them.
‘So it’s not just about what you buy for yourself, but what you buy so they can’t.’
Next, you need to think about building those houses and hotels.
Martin Lewis takes to the Monopoly board in ITV’s How To Win At Board Games
‘The return from developed properties is so much better,’ Lewis says, as befits a personal finance expert.
He recommends releasing cash by mortgaging properties that aren’t in a set so you can develop those that are more quickly. But don’t be tempted to build hotels right away. Why not?
Three houses, Lewis explains, is the ‘sweet spot’ that will earn you the most from the game. This is all to do with the rise in rent from one to three houses.
‘When you buy one house, the return on investment [or ROI, comparing what you paid to what you get back in rent on each property] is 26 per cent,’ he explains.
‘With two houses, it’s 56 per cent. With three, it’s 110 per cent – that’s a massive jump between two and three.’
But the incremental gain of putting a hotel on isn’t so good.
That said, it’s still worth having hotels if you have the money, as it will maximise your income.
Which colour location will earn you the most money? Once you’ve got hotels on them, Lewis says the light blues – The Angel Islington, Euston Road and Pentonville Road – are the most profitable when it comes to comparing purchase cost to rental income.
But the orange streets are, in fact, the best locations to buy. They may be more expensive, but are the most likely to be landed on.
This, explains Lewis, is all to do with Jail: the most-landed on space on the whole board.
Players can be sent there when instructed by a Chance or Community Chest card, by landing on the ‘Go to Jail’ space, by rolling three doubles in a row, or simply ‘Just Visiting’ on a normal roll.
Orange properties lie six, eight and nine spaces from Jail – the second, third and fifth most common rolls of the dice.
So, chances are, you’ll go direct from Jail to an orange location.
Finally. if you don’t want the game to go on for ever, then ditch the tradition of putting money from fines onto the ‘Free Parking’ square. This isn’t an official rule, and only prolongs play.
‘It’s inflation,’ Lewis explains. ‘You’re putting more money into supply. Taking money out of the game means it will end quicker.’
The secrets for Scrabble success
Astonishingly, Lewis has played his wife more than 1,200 times at Scrabble, and routinely beats her, with an average score of 407.4 versus her 365.5.
He knows because he keeps a spreadsheet of results.
And they’re not alone in their obsession. Some 2.5 million sets are sold every year and celebrity Scrabblers include Madonna, Jennifer Aniston, Sharon Stone, and King Charles and Queen Camilla.
In his board game show, Lewis turns to Brett Smitheram, Scrabble world champion and UK grandmaster, who’s got an average score of 625, for tips on improving his game.
‘Scrabble does have a luck element to it, but there is also a rack management element,’ Brett explains to viewers.
Luck, of course, is all to do with which letter tiles you draw from the bag. Rack management means keeping an eye on the seven letters you have at any time.
Scrabble fans include Madonna, Jennifer Aniston and King Charles and Queen Camilla
Tip number one is to keep as many letters that spell out RETAINS in your rack at all times because they’re the most versatile, says Brett.
If you can’t get a decent score with the letters you have, don’t be afraid to change them: you can use your turn to replace any number of tiles with new ones from the bag.
You might sacrifice a few points, but it increases your chances of getting a ‘Bingo’ – when you use all seven letters in one turn for a 50-point bonus – in future.
Another crucial tip is to memorise as many two-letter words as possible: there are 127 in total.
Lewis says these are the ‘building blocks’ for big scores, meaning you can interconnect words using lesser-known combinations like ‘Mm,’ ‘Es’, ‘Ky’ and ‘Qi’.
Three-letter words are also useful, but you don’t need to learn them all, just the ‘power tile’ words – those involving high-scoring letters, J, Q, X or Z.
Examples include ‘Jud’, ‘Qat’ and ‘Xis’, and you can find a full list at scrabble.collinsdictionary.com.
Rather than thinking of Scrabble as a word game, Lewis says, it’s better to think of it as a numbers game. ‘It’s [about] calculating where to put your letters to maximise your score and memorising all the acceptable words.
‘It doesn’t matter if you don’t know what the word means; it just matters if you know the combination of letters allowed in a row.’ Another tip is not to get obsessed with triple word scores.
‘Towards the inner board, you can play seven letters over two double-word scores for a quadruple,’ Lewis explains.
‘And if you can create an eight-letter word [by joining all seven of your letters to another word on the board] to go over two trebles, you get a nonuple [nine times your score].’
Crack the Connect 4 code – and win
Often thought of as a children’s game, Connect 4 – which involves slotting yellow and red counters into a 6 x 7 rack to get four in a row – is anything but.
‘Played right, it’s a rapid-fire test of tactics,’ says Lewis.
Invented by American psychologist Howard Wexler in 1973, today fans include the singer Beyoncé, who claims she has never been beaten. So how does she do it?
First, it’s important to avoid your opponent getting a ‘double open three’.
This is when three counters are placed together – horizontally, vertically or diagonally – in the centre of the board, so a winning four can be achieved at either end. You can also get a ‘split three’, where there’s a gap between two counters and another of the same colour, leaving a prime space for a fourth counter to be inserted.
Once you’re adept at spotting rows of three, it will become almost impossible for your opponent to get one past you.
Martin Lewis, right, tries out a giant game of Connect 4 in the ITV programme
And watch for the ‘danger space’ – the one just below where you’d put a counter to get four – because if you drop one there, you’ll give your opponent an easy win.
‘If you’re going first, always start in the middle,’ advises Lewis.
‘Don’t give anything away, and don’t be forced into going too quickly. It’s not a timed game, so slow it down and think carefully.’
The ultimate aim, and a power play that’s difficult to beat, is to build two intersecting threes in the shape of a seven (see picture, above): three diagonally upwards from the base, with the top counter joined to another two of the same colour. ‘The other colour then has no choice but to block the four [on the horizontal plane of the seven], but if it does then you win [with four on the diagonal plane].’
Cluedo card trick
The game, which has been sold in the UK since 1949, works by moving around different rooms in a ‘house’ where someone has been murdered.
Players try to guess who committed the crime, in which room and with which weapon (based on three cards placed in an envelope at the start).
A paper grid lists all of the characters, rooms and weapons down the left-hand side, with space for players’ names to be filled in along the top.
As players start guessing, use others’ answers to denote which cards they have, and make a note on your grid.
By paying attention, and crossing off cards you know are in other’s hands, you will be able to work out the solution by process of elimination.
A tip to confuse your opponents is to ask if they’re holding a card that you have – making them think that card is possibly in the envelope.
Top tactics for Risk
Risk, one of the most popular games in history, was invented by a French filmmaker in 1957 and involves claiming territories and placing defensive armies around a world map.
Generally, people aim to take Australia early in the game, as it’s easily defended, but South America is also small, easy to take and has only two access points for attack. Next targets should be Africa and North America (each have three access points). Only aim for Europe (four) and Asia (five) towards the end of the game.
Attack conservatively, one territory at a time, and only when your armies outnumber defending troops. A rule of thumb is to have twice as many armies, plus an extra one for each territory you want to conquer. When it comes to defence, focus on your borders; troops in internal territories are wasted.
Ticket To Ride tips
In the original Ticket to Ride – which was released 20 years ago and has sold 18 million – players compete to build train routes between major cities, drawing cards from the centre and placing coloured train cars on the board.
The key is to pick a high-scoring long route (ie, Seattle to New York and LA to New York) then collect smaller routes that are easy to complete.
Pick up as many train cards as possible in the first few gos, once you know the colours you need. Monopolise one colour so others can’t get it.
Stake a claim on the cities with limited rail connections, and take the start and finish of your route early. However, throw your opponents off – and block their route – by avoiding a linear path.
This also puts you in the running to win ‘Longest Route’.
Martin Lewis – How to Win at Board Games, ITV1 and ITVX, December 17, 8pm
