Setting up a triple without handing it over

Picture a triple-letter square sitting empty, two rows below a word that's already on the board. You can't use it this turn; nothing in your rack reaches it with a letter worth tripling. But you can spend this turn making sure that next turn it belongs to you, and that your opponent, who can see it just as clearly, can't take it first.

That's a setup, and it's one of the few moves in the game that's about the turn after next. Done well, it turns a medium play now into a heavy play later. Done carelessly, it's a gift with your name on the card.

Distance is the first test

A triple square is only in danger if a word can reach it. Words reach squares by length and by hooks, so ask the geometric question first: what would a play onto that square have to look like? If the nearest played letter is five squares away, a reply needs a long word or a lucky hook, and your setup has room to breathe. If a word already ends one square short of the triple, it's not really your setup at all. It's an open door with a welcome mat, and anything you build near it is decoration.

The setups that work best live at awkward distances: close enough that your planned word arrives next turn, far enough that the reply would need a specific word shape the board doesn't offer. One square of difference in that gap is often the whole play.

Your setup has to earn its turn

Here's the shape of a sound one. You play a short word that ends one step from the triple, on a line where the only way through to the square is a word starting with a letter you're holding ready, something common in your rack and uncommon in theirs. Your play scores respectably on its own, because a setup that scores nothing is just a skipped turn with extra steps. Then your next word lands its best letter on the triple: a ten-point tile tripled is thirty points before the rest of the word is counted, and even a four or five on there changes the turn's weight.

Two parts of that have to hold at once. The setup play must score if the plan dies, because plans die. And the payoff letter must be one you're keeping, which means the setup play can't spend it. Setting up a square for a Z you've just used in the setup is the classic own goal.

Test it against their best reply

Before you commit, don't ask what your opponent will probably do. Ask what they could do at most. What's the best play that takes the square, or blocks it, or scores so heavily beside it that your payoff shrinks? Work it out with the tiles they might plausibly hold, not the tiles you hope they hold.

If their best reply can't reach the square, or reaches it with a letter worth two points, your setup stands. If their best reply is a long word straight through it, your setup is a rumour, and the right move is to take your points somewhere else this turn.

Blocking counts as a reply too. A word parked across your lane, one that uses none of the square but seals the line, kills a setup as dead as stealing it. If the block is cheap for them and obvious, assume you'll see it.

The setups that pay because the reply can't use them

The safest setups have a lock on them. Three kinds recur:

• The square can only be used by a word running one way, and the letters that way are letters the board has mostly spent.
• Using the square forces a cross-word, and the cross-word needs a letter that's nearly gone from the set.
• The square sits where reaching it scores little for anyone but you, because your payoff letter is the heavy one and the common letters are worth almost nothing tripled.

In each case you aren't hoping your opponent doesn't notice. You're relying on the board making the reply bad even when it's seen. Noticed and still safe: that's the standard to hold a setup to.

Price the whole thing honestly

Add it up before you play. The setup turn's score, plus the payoff turn's score, against two ordinary turns played elsewhere. If the pair only wins by a point or two, the risk isn't priced in, because a setup can be stolen, blocked, or stranded by your own next draw. Setups should win clearly or not be played.

And the moment the board changes, re-price it. A setup is a plan about a board that no longer exists after your opponent moves.

Mark the board before you play

The Pangramist Scrabble-style finder lets you mark premium squares on the board you're reading, triple-letter included, and search with those squares in mind, so you can see which of your rack's words would actually land a heavy letter on the square you're setting up. Run the setup play and the payoff play through it before you commit to either. If the payoff word isn't there, the setup is a story you're telling yourself.

Scrabble is a trademark of Hasbro, Inc. in the United States and Canada and of Mattel elsewhere. Pangramist isn't affiliated with or endorsed by either, and its word list is ENABLE, a public domain list, not the official tournament list.