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Because Scrabble is turn based, any opportunities you create for yourself, you create for your opponent first. Making sure you don't make `valuable squares' available to your opponent is, arguably, more essential to winning than claiming them for yourself.

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‘scorched earth’, wasting a valuable square on a low-scoring move, say (as an extreme example) by playing a blank tile on a triple-character square, just to deny the next player from using it, can also be a valuable tactic at times.

Many people don’t realize that, in competitive games, the goal isn’t to make a high score, it is to make a score that’s higher than that of your opponents.

Another game where many players dont realize that is Twister (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twister_(game) ). You shouldn’t play to make it easy for yourself to stay in play, you should play to make it easier for you than for your opponents to stay in play. In general, that means occupying circles close to your opponent, rather than those easily reachable by you. You should try to ‘lock’ your opponents in a corner of the playing area.

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