Average Rating: 
Rating:  - The Best Companion for Any Scrabble Player
I have enjoyed playing Scrabble for many years, but it can also get very frustrating when you get a rack of tiles that seem totally useless (like mostly consanants or mostly vowels). Since purchasing the Official Scrabble Player's Dictionary, I may still get frustrated at times, but now I have a much better resource for figuring out what I can do with seemingly useless tiles. (This dictionary has been especially useful when I want to place a word parallel to an existing word on the board and create one more more two- to three-letter extra words in the process.)The font used in the dictionary is very easy to read. Words defined may be limited to between 2 and 8 letters, but at over 100,000 entries (including unusual words not defined anyplace else, like "brr"), this dictionary cannot be beat for playing Scrabble. I spent a little more money to buy the hardback edition instead of the paperback one: it's much easier to inspect the pages of a dictionary when you don't have to fight the binding to keep the book open to one place. You might need other useful resources when playing Scrabble, but none are as good as the Offical Scrabble Player's Dictionary. I give it a rating of 5 stars!
Rating:  - What were they thinking!
I got a chance to learn "competitive Scrabble" from a friend who is a nationally-ranked player. She insisted the road to success in Scrabble (not a burning ambition with me, but interesting nonetheless) is to learn a series of two and three letter words that look like cheating but are apparently real words to the dictionary people. In the older edition, these were separated out so you could spend your time memorizing them. This edition only has them listed alphabetically. So for ending arguments that EX and EL are indeed legal words in Scrabble, it's fine, but lacks that formerly valuable tool. Well, semi-valuable. If you get too good, your casual Scrabble-playing friends and family stop playing with you. This didn't happen to me, but I've heard that it happens.So for home players who love Scrabble, this is a good reference. For competitive learning, get an older version.
Rating: - Good word list, but incomplete
The Official Scrabble Players Dictionary, 3rd edition (OSPD3) is more valuable as a list of acceptable words for use when playing Scrabble than it is as a dictionary. That being said, it is not totally useful as a list of words. The 3rd edition updates the word list from the 2nd edition, but leaves out offensive words, to allow the dictionary to be used when playing with children. If you don't mind not having offensive words in your Scrabble word arsenal, then this book is fine for you.However, if you want your word list to be complete, then you need the Official Tournament and Club Word List (OWL), which is available only from the National Scrabble Association. Unfortunately, you need to become a member before they will sell you the book. It doesn't contain definitions, either, only a list of 2- to 9-letter words. And, you still need Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, 10th Edition to get the longer words.. .. Now that you know how to collect all the words allowable in Scrabble tournament and club play, know this: Your friends and family will complain when you try to use many of these words! The official word list is a compilation of all the words from the 10 most popular dictionaries that satisfy the conditions listed in the Scrabble rules for acceptable words. So, some dictionary has defined ED to mean "education" (presumably from phrases like "special ed" or "driver's ed"). However, it's not considered an abbreviation because that dictionary didn't specifically mention that it's an abbreviation. Also, foreign words are unacceptable, but there are a lot of words of foreign origin that are acceptable (CHEZ, CIAO, CASA, etc.), and spellings of foreign letters (ALPHA, BETA, XI, QOPH, etc.). And good luck explaining that KUE is "the letter Q". So, if you need a list of a lot of words that are appropriate for school or family play, get the OSPD3. If you want definitions, (What the heck is a JNANA, anyway?) get the OSPD3. If you want to use lots of swear words and derogatory names, don't get the OSPD3. If you want an official word list, get the OWL and MW's Collegiate Dictionary, or find a word list online. If you want to tick off your opponents with your immense vocabulary of useless words, any of these word lists will work great.
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