How to Win at Words with Friends 2 Without Paying Any Money

Ever been confronted with a seemingly unbeatable opponent in Words with Friends 2? Someone who always seems to place exactly the right tiles in exactly the right place on every single move…

You might assume that the best way to win a game of Words with Friends 2 is to create the longest words – but this is far from true. As you’ve seen in tactics one and two, the trick to winning is to maximise your score and minimise your opponents, and it has as much to do with mathematics and strategy as it does with words.

The truth is there are two key reasons that some players excel in Words with Friends 2:

They know the tactics we’re about to explain in this post
They are cheating!

So, without further ado – here is how to win at Words with Friends 2!

Tactic 1

Play to the triple letter and triple word scores

The key to winning Words with Friends is to maximise the words you play on triple letter and triple word scores. These tiles have the power to boost your score massively, and when played together, can unlock huge scores, even with relatively mundane words.

Powerful Words with Friends players consistently create, or trick their opponents into creating, opportunities to play the triple letter and triple word scores in one go.

A perfect opportunity to play the triple letter and triple word combo AND a two letter word across the ‘E’ in ‘MAGE’

Prevent opponents from playing triple letter and triple words scores – take defensive action when making your play
Trick your opponent into opening up a triple letter and triple word combo opportunity

Tactic 2

Extend your opponent’s words

The most valuable tiles in the game are the letter which let you extend your opponent’s words – ‘S’, ‘R’, ‘D’ and the blank tiles.

When extending their words you essentially get the scores for two words – the word you have extended and the word you play off of it – maximising your score for the turn and often opening up the board.

Remember, Word with Friends 2 allows plurals and different tense of the verb. You can also use rarer letters to extend words – for example by adding a ‘F’ to ‘END’ to create ‘FEND’

This tactic is even more effective when you can extend their word onto a scoring tile, which you’ll receive the benefit of twice!

This straightforward word extension both boosts the player’s score – with another ‘S’ they could have created ‘SHES’ and ‘TIES’ as well!

Save ‘S’ tiles for opportunities to extend your opponent’s words
Prevent opponents from extending your words by choosing words that are difficult or impossible to extend
Maximise scores by extending onto a scoring tile

Tactic 3

Use two letter words wisely

Think of the humble two letter word as your best friend in Words with Friends 2. Two letter words are essential to open up gaps on the board, thwart your opponents attempts to stop you hitting certain tiles and maximise your score.

The range of two letter words you can play go beyond ‘it’, ‘to’ and ‘so’ – there are loads of combinations, and the best players use the full range to their advantage.

Two letter words are commonly used to play a side-by-side word – and there’s no limit on how many tiles you end up playing side-by-side. And don’t forget, you get scores for both your word, and the two letter words you have played.

There are some powerful two letter word combinations which can score up to 11 points by themselves: ja, jo, qi, za, xu – all are accepted by Words with Friends and can boost your score!

Words with Friends Two Letter Words — This early two-letter word combo means the players ends up scoring for three words – they could have boosted this further by continuing the play across the ‘TEM’ of ‘TOTEM’ with the right letters.

Play words side-by-side using two letter words
Test different two letter word combinations, even if you don’t think they are a real word
Remember the high scoring two letter words, especially when getting rid of your last few tiles towards the end of the game.

Tactic 4

Bigger isn’t always better

It’s tempting to play to longest word you can in order to maximise you points – especially if you’ve only got low scoring tiles on your rack. But unless you’re playing all 7 tiles (which gets you a decent 35 point bonus) it can often cause more harm than good.

You see, your score is only as good as your opponent’s next score, and long words can create opportunities for your opponent to hit scoring tiles to boost their own score.

Instead, it can be better to play defensively and block your opponent from reaching bonus tiles or otherwise creating a higher scoring word (such as by extending your word)

The long word here ‘DODGEMS’ is well played, as it extends ‘FLEW’ and gets the 35 point bonus for using all 7 tiles on their rack! However, it does open up opportunities for their opponent to play onto the high scoring tiles – but this is risk measured against the 87 points they have managed to score with this word.

Play defensively – the longest word isn’t always best.
Your score is only as good as your opponent’s next score – close opportunities for them to hit bonus tiles.

Have we missed any tricks you use to win at Words with Friends 2? Let us know in the comments!

if you enjoy Friends 2 you should try word search from cool math games