Six ways to finish closer to the goal

You're solving the boards but landing four or five moves over. These are the usual reasons.

1. Look at the goal before you touch anything

Count the tiles on your rack, then look at the goal number. The difference tells you how much of the table you're meant to rearrange.

• Goal = your rack. You're not supposed to move anything that's already down. Every tile you hold goes straight onto a row as it is. If you catch yourself breaking a run, back up.
• Goal is one or two higher. One small change. Usually a single run split in two, or one tile borrowed from a group of four.
• Goal is four or more higher. Something real is getting rebuilt. Stop hunting for a clever little trick and look for the row that has to come apart.

2. Start with the tile that has nowhere to go

Most boards have one. Find it first, because it decides everything else.

The comfortable tiles will still fit later, whatever you do. The awkward one won't, and it's the one telling you which row needs to change shape. Sort it out first and the rest usually falls into place by itself.

3. Don't place a tile just because it fits

This is where most of your extra moves go. You put a tile down because there's a spot for it, then three moves later you need that row to be a different shape, so you move it again. One tile, two moves, one of them wasted.

Before you put something down, ask yourself whether you actually know it's staying there. "It fits and it'll probably be fine" is a guess, and guesses are what you're paying for.

Tiles that tack onto the end of a run are the worst offenders. They always fit. That's the problem.

4. Long runs are your spare parts

A run has to keep three tiles. Anything past that is yours to take, but only from the ends.

Middles don't come out. Pull the 5 out of a run and you leave a two-tile stump, and two tiles isn't a row:

So when you're looking at a fresh board, notice which runs are long. Those are the ones with something to give. A table made of three-tile runs looks harmless and is actually rigid.

5. A group of four has exactly one tile to spare

It doesn't matter which one, since a group has no order. That makes groups of four the most flexible thing on the table, and the most fought over. Spend one on the first tile that asks for it and you might need it two moves later for the tile that really did.

A group of three has nothing to give. Take anything and it's gone.

6. Restart is a reset, not a re-roll

Restart puts the board back to the start and your move counter to zero. It's there for when a board has shown you something and you want to play the line you found.

It isn't free, though. Your restarts are counted and they show up on the result you share, and in the phone app restarting part-way through a board plays an ad first. Use it once you've understood the board, not to shop for an easier start.