This page describes which '''[[Collins]]'''-only '''words''' are '''important''' for a an [[TWLOTCWL|OWL2]] player to learn, and is part of our introduction to[[SOWPODS|Collins (SOWPODS) in North America]].
== How many more words are there, and what would I need to learn? ==
Technically, of course, you don’t need to learn anything!(All OWL2 words remain valid.)
In practice, of course, there are some useful basic words to start with.
Because CSW contains all the TWL OWL2 words, you can continue to playthe same game, and anything that was good in TWL OWL2 remains good. Andbecause the fundamentals of the game have not changed, the kindsof words that are the most useful to study in TWL OWL2 are also the bestto study in CSW. Thus the player who has studied the 2s, 3s, JQXZwords, some 4s, high probability bingos, etc., can continue to usethe same methods for CSW.
So how many words are there? In total, the TWL OWL2 contains 178,691words. CSW, meanwhile, contains 267,750. About half of these are9–15 letters, and while some 9s can be useful, the vast majority(about 98%) of the gain is with the 2–8s. TWL OWL contains 83,667 ofthese, while CSW has 30,908 more. This means that, for approximatelyevery 3 TWL OWL2 words, there is an extra CSW word.
However, it is likely that you didn’t start out playing TWLOWL with the intention of learning 178,691 words. Likewise, you canplay a good CSW game without needing anything like the extra 30,9082–8s that are actually present. In fact, you can play a decent gamewith just the 2s and 3s. Sounds unlikely? Well, the thing to rememberof course is that 'every word you know from TWL OWL2 is still valid'!So, as we have already seen that three quarters of the words areTWLOWL2, you are already three quarters of the way there. And in manycases, even more than this, because there will be a choice of moves, many of which will be OWL2.
So, what should you actually study? Here are some lists. In somecases we’ve presented just the most useful words from a list,but you can see the full list by following the link in the heading.
== [[Two-letter words]] ==
Start with the 2s. There are 23 of these:
NY OB OO OU PO ST TE UG UR YU ZO
While that’s not too many, you probably won’t rememberthem all straightaway (I’ve played in the [[WSC|Worlds]], and Icertainly didn’t remember the 2s in one sitting!) They’lljust become a natural part of the game over time.
== [[Three-letter words]] ==
Following the 2s, there are 277 3s. The most useful 3s are:
EXO AIA WOX ZEX REZ BEZ WOF WAI OOF ZHO JAI ZEA JIZ TIX AUA RIZ HOX DZO ZEL FAW IWI WEX YEX OYE NOX AUE UEY TEX LUZ AYU
Obviously, like in TWLOWL2, you don’t have to be 100% on all the3s before continuing! While ZIZ may come in handy some day, thechances are, various 4s and bingos will come up first.
The next most useful words are the same as in TWLOWL2: short words withmany vowels, high-scorers with J, Q, X and Z, some of the mostuseful 4s and 5s (words which are likely to be much better thanother moves if you have those tiles, such as FAUVE or...), highprobability bingos, dump-words such as 4s with 2 Is, and, of course,words with Q but no U.
== [[Vowel dumps]] ==
; 2s :EA EE IO OO OU; 3s :AIA AUA AUE; 4s :EUOI HIOI VIAE HUIA EVOE EOAN ONIE UVAE EINE MOAI...; 5s :AIDOI AINEE AULOI OUIJA ZOAEA ZOOEA; 6s :EUOUAE ZOAEAE ZOOEAE; 7s :ETAERIO AIERIES OLEARIA EATERIE EUGARIE EQUINIA DOULEIA AURELIA MOINEAU DIANOIA...; 8s :ERIONITE AEROTONE ETAERIOS AEGIRINE DOUANIER TAENIATE AEGIRITE AURELIAN INAURATE OLEARIAS...
== [[Short JQXZ words]] ==
; J :JA, JAI JIZ JOR JAP JUD..., JEDI JUVE BENJ JEAT JIRD..., OUIJA JEWIE JAXIE EEJIT JIRRE... ; Q :WAQF QUEP QUOP QUAT QUIM, NIQAB QORMA TALAQ QIBLA QUOIF... ; X :EXO WEX WOX YEX ZEX..., GREX FAIX WEXE DIXI LANX..., VITEX JAXIE XOANA VIBEX WUXIA... ; Z :ZO, ZEA JIZ ZEX REZ BEZ..., ZITE ZATI TREZ ZILA ZOOT..., ZOAEA ZOOEA GRENZ AVIZE WAREZ...
== [[High-playability bingos]] ==
; 7s :ETAERIO OTARINE EROTISE AIERIES ORIGANE OTARIES SEALINE OLEARIA RIOTISE OARIEST...; 8s :ERIONITE AEROTONE ETAERIOS AEGIRINE DENTARIA DOUANIER TAENIATE LITERATO AEGIRITE AURELIAN...
== [[I and U dumps]] ==
I: DIVI DIXI FIFI FINI MIHI HIOI WILI SIMI PIPI SIRI ISIT U: PUDU WUDU HUHU KUKU PUKU KUTU KUZU PULU ZULU RURU SUSU UTUS YUZU
== [[Q-not-followed-by-U words]] ==
The basics above are more than enough for a good CSW game. But you may decide you enjoy it, and wish to go further.
The major downside to going further is that it can be difficult tokeep the two lexica separate. Although remembering which of thewords you now know are “new” (think back to the last dictionaryupdate, if you have been playing that long) is not too bad, rememberinga word and remembering which lexicon it is in are not the samething, especially over a period of time. Those CSW words may comeback to haunt you a few months down the line!
But nevertheless, some people have high [[CSW Ratingsratings|ratings]] atboth TWL OWL2 and CSW, and one can get to quite a high standard quitequickly.
Chosen correctly, it can be shown that learning the top XX1% of thewords when ordered by playability is equivalent to learning XX25% ofall the words. So , for the 2-8s, learning the top XXXX 300 from CSW is effectivelylearning XX% one quarter of all the words newly allowed by that lexicon. This top XX25% (or any other fraction) can be accessed byplayability in Zyzzyva.
==Collins Cheat Sheet==
I have incorporated the above into a [[Cheat Sheet]], that is
designed to be used by new-to, or occasional player of, CSW. It
resembles the NSA’s “Important Words to Raise Your Score” sheetthat was given to new members, except that it concentrates in on CSWwords. Currently, it It is not available for download, because it isa bit too much like just making available a published word list,but NASPA may planned to make the sheet available. I will also send it on[[Nick Ball|request]]: it’s just a PDF filefor download from this wiki.
There is also a Cheat Sheet Part 2, which contains a useful array of the hooks to CSW 2s, and the full set of CSW 4s.
For those who literally want all the The full set of extra CSW words, check out is available via <a href="http://www.lulu.com/product/hardcover/bobs-color-british-bible-2007-hardcover-%28sowpods%29/5345269">Bob’s British Bible</a>.
==Zyzzyva==
Finally, while the lists above are niceuseful, is there any word studysoftware for CSW? Well, the The current best answer is the same as for TWLOWL2: [[Zyzzyva]]. This can easily be setup to supply the regular set of TWL OWL2 words, and, in addition, theCSW words. The latter can be marked with a # sign to distinguishthem, and searches can be conducted so that only the CSW words arereturned, or, if you want to leave them, the CSW words can besuppressed. One can also, for example, require the correct lexicon as part of a quiz answer.
To set Zyzzyva up with CSW, go to Zyzzyva→Preferences, select“General’ in the left navigation bar in the resulting pop-up window,check the box “Load Lexicons’ if it is not checked, and click onEdit. In the “Select Lexicons’ window, click the toggle button inthe leftmost column (“Default”) that is next to CSW. The button oneto the right should then be checked, but grayed out. Then, checkthe box in the second column (“Load”) next to “OWL2+LWL”. Do<i>not</i> check any of the other boxes, which should all be empty.Finally, click OK. The program may need to rebuild the database,which will take a few minutes. The settings as given are tellingZyzzyva to be CSW by default, but to remember which words areCSW-only, i.e., still good in TWLOWL2. You can get at just TWL OWL2 byrequiring “In Lexicon’ TWL OWL2 when searching, or ignoring the wordswith a # mark.
If the CSW words are not already marked by a #, go to Zyzzyva→Preferences, click on “Word Tables’ on the nav-bar, and edit accordingly.
If this fails (I haven’t run through it myself, because mycopy is already set to CSW), or you need more information, pleasecheck out the [http://www.zyzzyva.net Zyzzyva site],or the Yahoo Groups [http://groups.yahoo.com/group/zyzzyva-users zyzzyva-users] emaillist, because they know a lot more about it that I do!.
Comments concerning this page may be directed to [[Nick Ball]].