The Official Scrabble Rules

Starting the Game

• After the board and game pieces are set up, each player draws a tile from the bag. The player with the letter closest to "A" wins the draw. Tiles are returned to the bag and the winner of the draw selects seven tiles to place on their rack. In clockwise order, each remaining player picks seven tiles. In the first player's beginning turn, two or more tiles must be played, one of which must cover the star space in the center of the board. Play moves to the left from that point.

Playing Tiles

• Words are created by adding one or more tiles to what is already in play on the board. During a turn, tiles may only be played straight in a row or column. In general, words may only be spelled horizontally, left to right, or vertically, top to bottom. A play is valid as long as it creates legitimate words. Once a tile is officially in play, it cannot be moved for the duration of the game unless the word is rejected. A blank piece may be played as any letter and must stay that letter for the remainder of the game. After a turn, the player selects the number of tiles they need to again total seven pieces on their rack.

Scoring

• Each turn is scored by tallying the total number of points earned on the word(s) created. Premium squares such as "Double Word Score" earn a player bonuses on the first time the space is used. Future turns that use these spaces will be tallied at face value. Additionally, any play that uses all seven tiles in one turn is automatically awarded a bonus of 50 points on top of the score achieved. Blank tiles have a value of zero, no matter how they are used. After each play, the player's score is called out and is written down on the score sheet.

Challenges

• If an opponent believes a player's turn displays an invalid word, they may elect to challenge the entire move. The word(s) must be looked up using an agreed-upon reference. If the challenger is correct, the player is awarded no points, removes their play from the board and loses that turn. If the player's move is legitimate, the challenger loses their next turn.

Special Rules

• Words that are officially prohibited from play fall under these labels: proper nouns, abbreviations, prefixes, suffixes, and words that use a hyphen or an apostrophe. If such a word is played, the player must simply remove the tiles and restart their turn. Additionally, a player may opt out of their turn and exchange their tiles for seven new pieces. Furthermore, the center star square used to start the game is the equivalent of a "Double Word Score" space.

Final Tally

• When there are no tiles left to choose from and a player uses their final letters in a turn, no further plays can be made in the game and the score of that turn is tallied. The other players must add the value of their unplayed tiles and subtract that number from their total score. Each of the unplayed tile sums are also added to the score of the player who made the final move. Once all calculations have been made, the player with the highest score is declared the winner.