What are your best study skills?

What word lists should I study next to improve my Scrabble skills?

• So far, I already know the list of 2's, almost all the 3's, q w/o u, satine stem, and satire stem lists. I also know the top 50 to 100 or so 7-letter bingos in order of probability. I am wanting to go further, though. What list should come next to best help me improve? Should I continue learning high-probability 7's? High probability 8's? (how many?) Learn more of the stems lists (easter, retina, etc)? Learn the 4's? Study all the 4-5 letter words with z,q,j,x? Eventually, it pays to know them all, but I was wondering which lists would be best to focus on and in what order for best improving my game? Or does it depend on other factors involving my personal preference (not the answer I want to hear -- but if you feel that's the best answer, please share and elaborate). Another way to put it, perhaps, is what lists offer the most bang for the buck (time spent studying) after the lists I have already studied?

• Answer:

  First off, stem 7's are overrated. For every stem set (say SATINE), you do get a few indispensable bingos like ATONIES and ISATINE - but much of the rest is fluff. Do you really need to know ANESTRI if there are (without studying) 3 or 4 anagrams you'd see anyway? Stem groups are full of wasted memorization. Like buying a CD for 1 good song, and the other 14 songs do nothing for you. If you analyze a strong computer program's bingos, only 38% of them are 7's. About 60% are 8's. Learn high probability (well, preferably high *playability*) 8's...the best 3 are AERATION, AEROLITE and INERTIAE. 4's and 5's, yeah, they're pretty essential. Especially how they hook (and conversely, make special note of the safe hookless ones, or downright weird ones like GARDA that hook only as GARDAI). I'd advise not to learn huge chunks at once. Learn 20 4's, then learn 20 5's, then 20 8's, then 20 more 4's etc. Mix it up. Variety makes it more interesting (and anything that makes such a dull exercise as memorizing words more interesting is a good thing).