magic twelve

faqir (Hindu/Muslim monk)
qadi (Islamic judge)
qaid (Hindu/Muslim priest)
qabala (religious teachings)
qanat (irrigation system)
qat (a variant of the Catha edulis spelling)
qi (energy)
qindar (Albanian currency)
qoph (15th letter of the Hebrew alphabet)
qwerty (keyboard style)
sheqel (ancient currency)
tranq (sedative)

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I have this fallacy where I believe my Scrabble prowess is legendary. I score around 300 consistently, which apparently is just an average score fit for a Scrabble novice. Now that I know this, I have started to practice Scrabble a bit more, downloading the Scrabble PLUS game and starting to train minor tactics that may be helpful. One of such is memorizing the magic 12 words (these can be plural-ized to make the magic 16) that use a q without a u, a technique that most championship players say is key.

Apart from that it's strategy in placement and usage of letters, memorizing a ridiculous amount of 2 and 3 letter word combinations, and knowledge of small words that effectively score the most points. I can tell I have a lot left to learn, which can be said for almost anything I attempt to undertake.

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Fantastic words:
cwm (Welsh valley)
dzo (cross between a yak and a cow)