Scrabble – The Classic Word Game

Put Your Best Vocabulary to Use in Scrabble

Words, words, and more words. The bigger your vocabulary, the better your chances at Scrabble. And then there’s the famous Scrabble Dictionary, one of the coolest books ever printed.

Scrabble is a fun board game in which you strategically place letter tiles on a board with a multitude of bonus spaces – double letter (light blue), triple letter (dark blue), double word (pink), and triple word (red).

If you can spell a word that covers more than one bonus space, you get to count them all towards your total. Letter bonuses are counted first. For example, if you cover a triple letter space with a 4-point tile, that tile immediately counts as 12 points. If the same word also covers a double word space, that letter will end up awarding you with 24 points.

After the first word is played on the center pink star (which is a double word space), subsequent words must connect to previously played words at one or more intersections. If your new word adds onto an existing word, you get to count points for both of them.

Part of the strategy of Scrabble is preventing your opponents from playing on the better bonus spaces, especially the eight valuable triple word spaces around the edge of the board..

In general though, it’s best to play your highest scoring word each turn. The trick is finding that word from the many, many options available.

Each Scrabble tile has a point value based on its scarcity. Vowels and a few consonants are the lowest scoring at 1 point each. At the other end of the spectrum, the Q and the Z tile are each worth 10 points. There are also 2 blank tiles that, while they’re not worth any points, can be used as any letter.

Scrabble sets come in basic old school form, as shown above, or you can get fancy Deluxe Scrabble sets with a built-in turntable. Special Scrabble Onyx, Scrabble Platinum, and Scrabble Diamond editions are also available for the Scrabble connoisseur.

Check the prices of Scrabble on Amazon.