So pretty much everyone knows the rules on the back of the box, but THESE are the rules used in most tournaments. There may be small differences depending, but for the most part this is it.
2 players only. Some kids tournaments will pair kids up so they share a rack and act as one player, but that appears to be the exception rather than the rule.
Chess clocks are used to keep the pace of the game. Each side has 25 minutes, it counts down on your turn, and you hit it once your turn is over to stop your clock and start the opponentâs. If you go overtime, you lose 10 points from your final score for every minute or fraction of a minute you go over. Say youâre 2 seconds overtime; that costs you 10 points. Same if youâre 59 seconds over. But if you are 1 minute 1 second over, that costs you 20 points total. Pretty much all major tournaments have a rule saying you canât have a score less than 0 due to overtime penalties.
To start the game each person draws 1 tile from the bag to determine who goes first. The person with the tile closest to A goes 1st, but with blanks beating A. If you get the same letter, dump them back in and draw again. (Note, when drawing tiles, the bag has to be at or above eye level with you looking away. Though some of us just put the bag behind our heads.)
The person going first draws 7 tiles, with the opponent starting your clock once youâve seen the face of one of the tiles. Then they can draw their tiles while you take your turn. You can play, pass, or exchange tiles. If you play, you must put down a word that is at least 2 letters long, horizontal or vertical, with one tile on the star. Remember, the star counts as a double word score. So you add up your points, say the score aloud to your opponent(but not the word) and hit your side of the clock.
Once youâve done that you write down the word and the score of that word, and then your total score. Just be sure you know which is which and donât mix things up. Tournaments provide you with a score sheet which have spaces for that. More advanced players that have a feel for how things work will also want to do whatâs called tile tracking, where you have a list of the letters and cross them off as they get played. Some tournament score sheets provide this, some donât, if they donât provide it, it is probably best to ask if it is even allowed, as some get picky about it for some reason.
Then of course, it will be your opponents turn. Youâll have noticed I havenât mentioned drawing tiles yet, and thatâs because of challenging. You want to give your opponent a reasonable amount of time to look at the word so they can challenge it if they want. Some tournaments/clubs will just say a reasonable amount of time, others specify 5 seconds. Use that 5 seconds or so to write everything down so youâre not wasting time. Then draw back to 7 tiles total.
You canât use a bonus square multiple times... in most cases. You can only use it multiple times within the same turn. What do I mean? Well, you can actually play multiple words within the same turn, as long as all the new tiles being played are in a straight line, and all the other words formed are also words. You get the points for all the words played, meaning the tiles shared across those words end up being counted twice, as do any bonuses underneath them. This doesnât work if the tile was played in a previous round however, though of course you still count the value of the tile itself for each word it is in.
Letter bonuses get counted before word bonuses. So if you land a double letter and a double word score, you double the score of the individual letter, and then once you have the score of the whole word, you apply the double word score.
If you manage to land yourself across multiple word scores(letâs say you took advantage of a tile between 2 triple letter scores to play an 8 letter word across both) then you actually multiply the bonuses together before applying them. Meaning if you landed on 2 triple word scores, you would actually multiply the word score by 9.
If you play all 7 tiles on your rack in one go, you get 50 points added to your score for that round after any bonus squares are applied, and it is called a bingo.
To pass, you simply say âpass,â hit the clock, and write a score of 0 for that turn.
To exchange, there must be at least 7 tiles in the bag, no matter how many you are exchanging, you put your hold tiles face down to the side, draw that many face down, toss your old tiles back in, and hit the clock.
Blanks can be played as any letter, however their score is always 0, and once it has been played as a letter, it canât be any other letter. If you are in a tournament, when it is played, mark what the blank is on the results slip, which I will explain later.
Challenging: If you think an opponent might have played a word not in the dictionary you agreed on(in tournaments you use either Collinâs, OWL, or the Official Scrabble Playerâs Dictionary), after they hit the clock but before the 5 second grace period is over, you may call âhold.â They may not draw new tiles for 20 seconds. (Note, your clock is still going during hold.) Once 20 seconds have passed since the hold, they may draw, but face down and away from their rack. By the time a minute has passed since the hold, you have to make a decision or the hold is withdrawn and you cannot challenge.
If, after you have called hold but before the minute is up, youâve made up your mind that at least one of their words are fake, you say âchallenge,â and pause the clock. Now, at official tournaments, depending, you either go to a computerized adjudication station running the program Zyzzyva, or you raise your hand to summon a director. (If youâre playing at home either one of the players has to use the dictionary, or you summon a disgruntled father to do it for you.) You could choose to just challenge one word, but please just challenge the play. Thatâs because if even one word isnât in the dictionary, they have to remove their tiles, and they donât get any points for that turn. However, if all the words are valid, you have to miss a turn and get 0 points for it.
Ending the game. The game ends after the game is officially announced to have ended(after 50 minutes usually), once the bag is empty and someone played all their tiles, or after each player has spent 3 consecutive turns scoring 0. If it is the 1st option, and there are still tiles in the bag to be drawn, make sure everyone has 7 tiles on their rack, and if not draw. Then everyone takes their score and subtracts by the total value of the tiles on their rack. Same if there are 3 consecutive scores of 0 per person.
If you have played all your tiles, then things depend on what tournament you are at. Some say you subtract their tiles from their score and add it to yours. Some say to double it and add it to your score, and do nothing to theirs. Others still say you simply add it to your score, end of story. Once you have the score, you account for overtime, and find out who won or lost. Or maybe you tied. You fill out the results slip given to you by the directors. They usually have a space for each playerâs name, their score, and then the difference between the scores. They also often have spots for what the blanks are and what all the challenged words were. Sometimes if there are side prizes there might be a spot for highest scoring word or best word of a certain theme. Both players verify the results slip, and hand it in to a director.
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