Chapter 7 - Some Useful Sevens

There are 24,021 seven-letter bingos. The majority are obscure. So, how does one efficiently learn the ones most likely to be of use in real games? One approach is to study bingo stems, combinations of six letters which will combine with a seventh to form a bing. You've probably already run across the best stem of all: AEINST. If you were to begin the game and those were your first six letters, you could draw anything except a J, Q or Y and plop down a bingo! Theoretically. But in practice, what would you do if you drew an A, E, I or O? Unless you had taken the time to learn ENTASIA, ETESIAN, ISATINE an AATONies, you'd settle for 8-12 points or else fish. Frustrating.

Mike Baron in The Wordbook discusses which stems would be the most productive to study. He basically uses two criteria:

1) What is the likelihood of drawing a 7th letter that will form a bingo?
2) What is the likelihood of having the particular stem on your rack?

Using those criteria, he ranks the top 100 stems and then presents alphabetical lists.

This chapter covers 110 stems, including all of Baron's top 100. The stems are organized in a way designed to facilitate memorization and retention. Specifically:

1) Stems with a common characteristic are grouped (eg AEENRS, AEENST, and AEERST).
2) Anagrams are paired in ways that are likely to stick in one's mind (eg. SPINATE PANTIES or STAGIER AIGRETS rather than PANTIES SPINATE or  AIGRETS STAGIER).
3) Brow-raisers are bolded.
4) Noise is minimized by listing at most two anagrams at the top of the page. (eg. It's more efficient and nearly as effective to learn: "SERIGA EARINGS" rather than "EARINGS ERASING GAINERS REAGINS REGAINS REGINAS SEARING SERINGA".)
5) If there  are more than two anagrams, an attempt is made to choose a pair that maximizes the chance of one of them being playable. (Ideally, the pair would contain a word beginning with a vowel, a word ending with a vowel, a word beginning with a consonant, and a word ending in a consonant. Words beginning or ending in S are valued. Words beginning or ending in C, G, or V are avoided, if possible. When choices are close, preference is given to pairs that sound good.)

At the top of each list one finds:

1) The stem listed with the vowels 1st and consonants 2nd (eg. EIODNR rather than DEINOR)
2) A pair of numbers indicating: a) how many words can be formed from a given stem and b) the likelihood of randomly drawing a usable tile from the 94 remining tiles (eg. "AEIRST (70, 80%)" indicates that if one were to draw randomly from the 94 remining tiles, 80% of the time they would draw a tile with which they could form at least one of 70 possible bingos.)
3) A mnemonic for a particular stem (eg SATIRE for AEIRST).

Toward the bottom of each list one finds:

1) "+:" The draw of a J, Q, X, Y, or a Z usually kills bingo chances. Exceptions are listed under the category "+" rather than alphabetically,
2) More: if there are more than two anagrams for a set of letters, the extra are listed under More.
3) Related Eights: If a Seven can be hooked with something other than a Back-S, the resulting Eights are listed.

Does it take a Back-S? Even if one doesn't know the meaning of a word, one can make an odds-on guess about whether it takes a Back-S or not, because a few endings usually don't take an S, while the rest usually do. A table on page xxx gives detailed information. Following the table is a list of exceptions, words where one would go wrong by making an odds on guess.

A second approach to learning productive bingos is to study the ones that contain common endings or beginnings. consider: AMUSERS, FOODIES, OUTDARE, ROVINGS, UNAGILE, or VIEWER.  All are plausible, but are they legit? Many spell checkers say "no", bt the National SCRABBLE Association says "yes". Chapter 9 considers "Bingo Roots" in great detail and provides a useful reference for short words that combine with the common endings: ABLE, ED, ER, ERS, EST, FUL, LY, IES, ING, INGS, ISH, IST, LESS, LIKE, MAN, MEN, NESS, OUT, and OVER. And the common beginnings: ANTI, BE, DE, EM, EN, IM, IN, MIS, OUT, OVER, PRE, RE, SUB, TRI, UN, and UP.

There is another set of common endings, AL, ATE, IA, IC, INE, ION, ISE, ITE, and OUS, which do not combine so readily with shorter words. 7-10 point Sevens with these endings are listed in the "Common Endings" section of this chapter.

The BIGGIES section covers all new Seven-Letter words containing a J, Q, X, or Z. The likelohood of being able to play a Seven-letter biggie as a bingo is quite low. However, the likelihood of being able to usefully extend an already played biggie is huch higher. thus biggies in this section are organized in a way that emphasizes extension possibilities. Biggies with common endings such as ED, ER, ES, EST, or ING are grouped near the top of the page. Remining Biggies are grouped under an internal biggie, if there is one (eg. QUIETEN, QUIETUS, INQUIET, and UNQUIET are grouped together under the heading "QUIET").

The DUMPS section lists 38 Seven-letter words containing 5 vowels. Nearly all are Brow-Raisers worth learning just for the fun of occasionally turning a vowel heavy riack into gold! Much less useful are lists of 3-I Sevens and selected 6-consonant Sevens.

Learning all of the hooks to Three or Four-letter words will likely pay bigger dividends then learning all of the hooks to Six-letter words, since the opportunity to use them will be much greater. However, learning hooks to Six-letter words is another way to increase one's bingo vocabulary. The HOOKS section of this chapter should prove valuable for those wanting to take this approach.