Setup

Two to four players. Each player draws seven tiles from the bag. Highest starting letter (or a coin toss) plays first. The first play must cross the centre square (the star).

A turn

On your turn you do one of three things: play a word, swap tiles (any number, but you skip the turn), or pass. A played word must connect to existing tiles on the board and read left-to-right or top-to-bottom. Every adjacent formed word must also be a real word.

Scoring

Add up the tile values (A, E, I, L, N, O, R, S, T, U are 1 point; Q and Z are 10). Apply letter-multiplier squares (double-letter, triple-letter) first, then word-multiplier squares (double-word, triple-word). Every new word formed in one turn scores separately. Play all seven tiles in a single turn and you collect the 50-point bingo bonus on top of everything else.

Tile bag

100 tiles total: 98 lettered, 2 blank. After each play you draw back up to seven tiles. When the bag is empty, keep playing from your rack.

Challenges

If you doubt a word, challenge it. In North American tournament rules (TWL06) an invalid word is taken back and the player loses their turn; a valid word costs the challenger their turn. International (SOWPODS) rules are similar. In friendly play, most groups let you look it up.

Endgame

The game ends when one player uses all their tiles and the bag is empty, or when all players pass twice in a row. The player who went out adds twice the sum of the opponents’ unplayed tiles to their score; other players subtract their unplayed tiles. Highest total wins.