How to
play standard?
Boards, Tiles
and Variants
The official Scrabble board has 15 x 15 fields, 60 Bonus fields and 100 Letter Tiles.
There are variants like Super Scrabble with 21 x 21 fields and 200 Letter Tiles.
Besides many variants you can play with the Scrabble equipment, there are also digital variants like Words with friends and variants with Numbers that are roughly based on Scrabble.
Choose your
Dictionary
Before the game begins, all players should agree upon the dictionary that they will use.
For speakers of American and Canadian English the OSPD (Official Scrabble Players Dictionary) is the right choice. Or pick the NASPA Word List for Tournaments.
Official British Words can be found in the Collins Scrabble Words Dictionary.
Every player starts with 7 Tiles
Every player gets 7 tiles in the rack to form words on the board. First player has to start with a word containing at least 2 letters.
Form words
Form words with letters out of your rack, exchange letters on your rack or form words with letters on the board.
Special tiles and fields
There are two special tiles (blank ones that can be used as wildcards) and 60 special fields in the standard Scrabble game. The Bonus fields can double, triple or quadruple (Super Scrabble) the value of your words or letters.
Letter Score
Letter Score
Word Score
Word Score
Word Score
Scoring & Distribution
You can score by forming words with the letters in your rack and those already on the board.
Check out a list featuring the highest-scoring words for each word length.
Crossings
You can create words by crossing fitting characters of Words on the board.
Hooks
Add single Letters to form new words or pluralize them.
Parallels
Parallel played words have the most value potential. Every word formed will be counted.
Tournament
& Club
Games
There are many Scrabble Tournaments and Clubs worldwide. Notable and regularly held tournaments are the World Scrabble Championship, the North American Scrabble Championship, the National Scrabble Championship of the United Kingdom, the Brand‘s Crossword Game King‘s Cup and the UK Open.
All tournament games involve only two players and are played with a game clock and a set time control on the standard Scrabble board.
Every player has 25 minutes for all of his turns. Every started minute above this time limit results in a 10 points penalty.
In Tournaments there are special molded plastic tiles to prevent players from reading the tiles when drawing.
Tournament word Lists are the NASPA Word List (USA, Canada, Thailand) and the Collins Scrabble Words (UK, most of the World).
Players are allowed to use tracking sheets. These are pre printed sheets with the letters from the initial pool and can be helpful when no tile remains to be drawn.