How to play

Build words on a 15 by 15 board with letter tiles. Every tile has a value. The highest score wins.

Setup

The English set has 100 tiles, including 2 blanks. Each player draws seven tiles onto a rack. Two to four people can play.

Your turn

Place one or more tiles in a single row or column to form a word. The first word must cover the centre star. Every later word must connect to tiles already on the board.

Every word your move forms, including the short cross words, must be in the dictionary. After your move you draw back up to seven tiles.

Instead of playing you can swap tiles, as long as at least seven are left in the bag, or pass.

Scoring

Add up the values of the letters in each word you formed. Premium squares double or triple a letter or a whole word. They count only on the turn a tile is placed on them. The centre star doubles the first word.

Use all seven tiles in one move and you get 50 extra points.

Woodword shows the score next to your word before you play it.

Blanks

A blank can stand for any letter. You choose the letter when you place it. It is worth zero points.

Words that are not in the dictionary

By default the move is rejected and you can try something else. The table sees your attempt. The host can switch on the strict rule: then a rejected word costs you the turn.

How the game ends

The game ends when the bag is empty and one player has used their last tile, or after six turns in a row without points.

The value of the tiles left on your rack is subtracted from your score. The player who went out gets the sum of everyone else's leftover tiles.

The clock

Live tables use two minutes per turn unless the host picks another clock, from 30 seconds up to 24 hours. Three timeouts in a row remove a player from the table.