The
classic example of a
crossword game. Though it wasn't the first, today it is the game against which all other games where words are built
across and
down on a
board are compared.
Scrabble is played on a 15x15 board by two to four players. Players each draw 7 letter tiles from a bag of 100 tiles and replenish their racks to 7 after each play. Each letter is worth a certain number of points, from 1 for common letters to 10 for Q and Z, but two tiles are blank. The blank tiles may be turned into any letter when played but are worth no points.
Players take turns, on each turn playing one word using tile(s) from their rack. (Additional words may be formed in a turn perpendicular to that word, but all letters must be part of one main word.) Players receive a score based on the sum of values of the letters in the word(s) formed or modified, taking into account bonus squares that can double or triple the value of an individual letter or an entire word. The bonus squares only count on the turn a letter is played on them; future words using that letter count it normally.
Players receive a 50-point bonus for using all 7 tiles in a single turn; this is not doubled or tripled by bonus squares. The term bingo is used to describe such plays.
The primary strategy in the game consists of finding high-scoring plays using double and triple word scores, high-scoring letters on bonus squares, and bingos. Two important secondary strategies are avoiding leaving open good lines to the triple word score spaces, and saving blanks for good plays (bingos and others of 50 points or more, generally). Other strategies are rack balancing (trying to save useful letters like E's and S's and trying to achieve a good mixture of vowels and consonants and trying to get rid of most duplicate letters), tile tracking (like card counting; keeping track of what letters are left unplayed), and opening or closing the board (a player who is ahead should play so as to make it difficult to play large words, to avoid giving his opponent a chance for a big play to catch up.
See also these types of plays: hook, parallel play