Scrabble Tile Distribution and Point Values By Erik Arneson Updated September 29, 2016. One of the first things that beginner Scrabble players should learn is the game's tile distribution. It's vital to know that, for example, only one J, K, Q, X and Z are in the bag -- and that they provide the best opportunities for high scores.

Scrabble Tiles Listed by Point Values 0 points: blank/wild (2) 1 point: E (12), A (9), I (9), O (8), N (6), R (6), T (6), L (4), S (4), U (4) 2 points: D (4), G (3) 3 points: B (2), C (2), M (2), P (2) 4 points: F (2), H (2), V (2), W (2), Y (2) 5 points: K (1) 8 points: J (1), X (1) 10 points: Q (1), Z (1) Scrabble Tiles Listed Alphabetically Blank/Wild: 2 tiles, 0 points A: 9 tiles, 1 point B: 2 tiles, 3 points C: 2 tiles, 3 points D: 4 tiles, 2 points E: 12 tiles, 1 point F: 2 tiles, 4 points G: 3 tiles, 2 points H: 2 tiles, 4 points I: 9 tiles, 1 point J: 1 tile

, 8 points K: 1 tile, 5 points L: 4 tiles, 1 point M: 2 tiles, 3 points N: 6 tiles, 1 point O: 8 tiles, 1 point P: 2 tiles, 3 points Q: 1 tile, 10 points R: 6 tiles, 1 point S: 4 tiles, 1 point T: 6 tiles, 1 point U: 4 tiles, 1 point V: 2 tiles, 4 points W: 2 tiles, 4 points X: 1 tile, 8 points Y: 2 tiles, 4 points Z: 1 tile, 10 points Scrabble FAQ: Answers to Your Scrabble Questions | Hasbro (8 points)- J, X (10 points)-Q, Z I looked up a legitimate word using the SCRABBLE online dictionary and it wasn't there.

Why not? The SCRABBLE online dictionary offers only words found in the The Official Scrabble Players Dictionary, Fourth Edition which lists over 100,000 playable two- to eight-letter words. For a word to be included in The Official SCRABBLE Players Dictionary, it must be found in two of the five most popular American dictionaries. Additionally, The Official Scrabble Players Dictionary lists shorter words and longer words are included as inflections of the shorter word. The SCRABBLE online dictionary is only able to search the shorter listings. For example, searching for FOCUS in our online dictionary will also turn up FOCUSED and FOCUSING, but searching for either of the longer words will turn up no results. What are acceptable plays in SCRABBLE? In SCRABBLE, it is acceptable to simply add one or more letters to a word, to either the front or back or to both the front and back. If you want, you can add just an S to a word already on the board. You may play at right angles to a word. You may play parallel to a word as long as adjacent letters form words horizontally and vertically. What is an unacceptable play in SCRABBLE?

You may not play tiles diagonally across the board in SCRABBLE. Note: The tiles you play must be contained in one word or played in a straight line. Can you extend a word in two directions simultaneously in one turn? For instance, ARM is on the board, and I'd like to extend it to CHARMED in one turn? Is that within the rules of SCRABBLE? Yes, it is perfectly acceptable to extend in front of and/or at the end of a word in one turn, as long as all the letters are played in the same turn. So, in this case, since the C, H, E and D are all used to spell CHARMED, it's well within the rules of SCRABBLE to do so. Can I exchange tiles whenever I want? A player may exchange tiles (from one to seven) as long as there are at least seven tiles still in the bag. Decide which tiles you want to exchange first. Then remove them from your rack and place them facedown on the table. Only then may you draw your new tiles, place them on your rack, and replace the exchanged tiles back into the pool. When playing Scrabble, how do I challenge a word played by another player?

When can I challenge? What is the outcome if the challenge is incorrect? Any play may be challenged before the next player starts a turn. If the play challenged is unacceptable, the challenged player takes back his/her tiles and loses that turn (and any score.) If the play challenged is acceptable, the challenger loses his/her next turn. All words (not just one) made in one play are challenged simultaneously. If any word is unacceptable, the entire play is unacceptable. Only one turn is lost on any challenge. When do bonus squares increase the score of a play in SCRABBLE? The bonus is only scored for the player who originally covers the bonus square, and only for the one turn. Subsequent turns that use a letter already covering a bonus square don’t score the bonus points. For example, suppose FAZE is placed with the Z on the Double Word Score square and scores a total of 32 pt. If someone later adds an S to form FAZES, the Double Word Score is NOT counted. How do the remaining or unplayed tiles in SCRABBLE affect scoring? When the game of SCRABBLE ends, each players' total is reduced by the sum of his or her unplayed letters.

In addition, if a player used all letters, the sum of the other players' unplayed letters is added to that player's score. Where can I find a copy of the Official Scrabble Tournament rules? The Official SCRABBLE Tournament rules are available on the SCRABBLE Tournaments page . How much time do players have to make a play during a SCRABBLE game at a club or tournament? There are two commonly accepted methods for controlling the time of a SCRABBLE game. First, a three-minute hourglass may be used to time each play. After 54 minutes the game is over and both players now have one more play before totaling the final scores. Second, chess clocks are set up so that each person is given 25 minutes to complete all his/her turns. That way, a player may play quickly for easy plays and save up time in order to take five or more minutes for the difficult plays. If a player uses more than 25 minutes, then s/he is penalized 10 pt. every minute or fraction of a minute used more than the original 25. Can I purchase a new set of tiles or other replacement parts for my SCRABBLE game?

SCRABBLE replacement parts order forms for both Standard SCRABBLE and SCRABBLE Deluxe Edition for U.S. customers can be found on the Hasbro Customer Care web page. Canadian customers may contact our offices in Canada at 450-670-9820 to discuss the availability and cost of replacement parts. How can I purchase SCRABBLE replacement score pads in the United States and Canada? SCRABBLE replacement score pads can be ordered through Hasbro Customer Care . The Official Rules of Scrabble - How to Play Scrabble - Learn Scrabble Rules How to Play Scrabble Travel Scrabble Scrabble Rules - Scrabble Official Rules When playing Scrabble, anywhere from two to four players will enjoy the game. The object when playing is to score more points than other players. As words are placed on the game board, points are collected and each letter that is used in the game will have a different point value. The main strategy is to play words that have the highest possible score based on the combination of letters. The Scrabble Board A standard Scrabble board will consist of cells that are located in a large square grid. The board offers 15 cells high and 15 cells wide.

The tiles used on the game will fit in each cell on the board. Scrabble Tiles There are 100 tiles that are used in the game and 98 of them will contain letters and point values. There are 2 blank tiles that can be used as wild tiles to take the place of any letter. When a blank is played, it will remain in the game as the letter it substituted for. Different letters in the game will have various point values and this will depend on how rare the letter is and how difficult it may be to lay that letter. Blank tiles will have no point values. Tile Values Below are the point values for each letter that is used in a Scrabble game. 0 Points - Blank tile. 1 Point - A, E, I, L, N, O, R, S, T and U. 2 Points - D and G. 3 Points - B, C, M and P. 4 Points - F, H, V, W and Y. 5 Points - K. 8 Points - J and X. 10 Points - Q and Z. Extra Point Values When looking at the board, players will see that some squares offer multipliers.

Should a tile be placed on these squares, the value of the tile will be multiplied by 2x or 3x. Some squares will also multiply the total value of the word and not just the single point value of one tile. Double Letter Scores - The light blue cells in the board are isolated and when these are used, they will double the value of the tile placed on that square. Triple Letter Score - The dark blue cell in the board will be worth triple the amount, so any tile placed here will earn more points. Double Word Score - When a cell is light red in colour, it is a double word cell and these run diagonally on the board, towards the four corners. When a word is placed on these squares, the entire value of the word will be doubled. Triple Word Score - The dark red square is where the high points can be earned as this will triple the word score. Placing any word on these squares will boos points drastically. These are found on all four sides of the board and are equidistant from the corners. One Single Use - When using the extra point squares on the board, they can only be used one time.

If a player places a word here, it cannot be used as a multiplier by placing another word on the same square. Starting the Game Without looking at any of the tiles in the bag, players will take one tile. The player that has the letter that is closest to “A” will begin the game. A blank tile will win the start of the game. The tiles are them replaced to the bag and used in the remainder of the game. Every player will start their turn by drawing seven tiles from the Scrabble bag. There are three options during any turn. The player can place a word, they can exchange tiles for new tiles or they can choose to pass. In most cases, players will try to place a word as the other two options will result in no score. When a player chooses to exchange tiles, they can choose to exchange one or all of the tiles they currently hold. After tiles are exchanged, the turn is over and players will have to wait until their next turn to place a word on the board. Players can choose to pass at any time. They will forfeit that turn and hope to be able to play the next time.

If any player passes two times in a row, the game will end and the one with the highest score will win. The First Word Score When the game begins, the first player will place their word on the star spin in the centre of the board. The star is a double square and will offer a double word score. All players following will build their words off of this word, extending the game to other squares on the board. Play continues in a clockwise direction around the Scrabble board. Replacing Scrabble Tiles Once tiles are played on the board, players will draw new tiles to replace those. Players will always have seven tiles during the game. Drawing tiles is always done without looking into the bag so that the letters are always unknown. The Fifty Point Bonus Exciting rewards can come when players use all seven tiles to create a word on the board. When this happens, players will receive a 50 point bonus, in addition to the value of the word. If the game is near the end and players are not holding seven tiles, they do not get the bonus for using all of their tiles. This is only collected for seven letter words placed.

The End of a Scrabble Game Once all tiles are gone from the bag and a single player has placed all of their tiles, the game will end and the player with the highest score wins. Tallying Scrabble Scores When the game ends, each player will count all points that are remaining on their tiles that have not been played. This amount will be deducted from the final score. An added bonus is awarded to the player that ended the game and has no remaining tiles. The tile values of all remaining players will be added to the score of the player who is out of tiles to produce the final score for the game. The Scrabble player with the highest score after all final scores are tallied wins. Accepted Scrabble Words Any word that is found in a standard English dictionary can be used in the game of Scrabble. There are also Official Scrabble Dictionaries that can be purchased for more word options. There are some words that are not allowed to be played and these include suffixes, prefixes and abbreviations. Any word that requires the use of a hyphen or apostrophe cannot be played in the game. Any word that required the use of a capital letter is not allowed.

When playing an English version of the game, foreign words are not allowed to be placed on the board. However, if the foreign word does appear in a standard English dictionary, it is allowed. The reason for this is due to the fact that the word is spoken enough and is considered part of the English language. This website is intended for information and entertainment purposes only. We are in no way affiliated with the SCRABBLE® brand and registered trademark. These intellectual property rights belong to Hasbro, Inc. in which we are not affiliated. © Copyright 2016, Scrabble Pages . All rights reserved Scrabble: Should letter values change? - BBC News BBC News Scrabble: Should letter values change? By Laura Gray BBC News 15 January 2013 Read more about sharing. Close share panel The values of the letters in Scrabble were assigned according to the front page of a US newspaper in the 1930s. Is it time the scoring system was updated to reflect today's usage? All Scrabble players know that Q and Z are the highest scoring tiles. You can get 10 points for each, in the English language version of the game.

But according to one American researcher, Z really only deserves six points. And it's not just Z that's under fire. After 75 years of Scrabble, some argue that the current tile values are out of date as certain letters have become more common than they used to be. "The dictionary of legal words in Scrabble has changed," says Joshua Lewis, researcher and creator of a software program which allocates new, up-to-date values to Scrabble tiles. "Among the notable additions are all of these short words which make it easier to play Z, Q and X, so even though Q and Z are the highest value letters in Scrabble, they are now much easier to play." Joshua Lewis's program is called Valett and it recalculates the letter valuations by looking at three things. What is Scrabble?

Players make words on a board and earn points according to the value of the letters they use They have seven letters each Every word has to join a word already on the board So to get rid of all your letters, you would usually need to think of an eight-letter word The winner is the player with the most points when all the spare letters have been used and one player has no letters left How to win at Scrabble Firstly, there is the frequency of the letters in the English language. Secondly, the frequency by word length - how many times a letter appears in two, three, seven, and eight-letter words. And finally, he looked at how easy it is to play the letter with other letters. For example, Q is a difficult letter to play so would warrant a higher score than S, which can be played with many more. According to Lewis's system, X (worth eight points in the current game) is worth only five points and Z (worth 10 points now) is worth six points. Other letter values change too, but less radically. For example, U (one point currently) is worth two in the new version, G (two points) becomes three and M (three points) becomes two.

Not all letters change under these proposals but those that do tend to have fallen in value. In explaining why his overall point distribution is lower, Lewis blames Q which, as he puts it, is an "outlier", much harder to play than other letters. It is a game of luck and changing the tile values wouldn't achieve anything Philip Nelkon, Mattel, Scrabble manufacturer "You get this justified separation between Q at 10 and Z and J at six, and in general the non-Q letters are a bit more compressed in value." He looked at increasing the value of Q to 12, but decided against putting too much power in a single tile. Lewis is not the first to propose an updated version of Scrabble, says John Chew, co-president of the North American Scrabble Players Association. He says he hears from people once or twice a year saying that the tile values are incorrect. In fact this has been happening ever since the game was invented in 1938 by the American architect Alfred Butts, who calculated a value for each tile by measuring how frequently each letter appeared on the front page of the New York Times.

Letter scores that would change Source: Joshua Lewis "Alfred Butts had a selection bias in favour of printed newspaper English which many people have suggested ought to be rectified," says Chew. But is there a market for a revised version of Scrabble? If the tile values changed there would be "catastrophic outrage", says Chew. "Some people would just continue playing with the old tile distributions because people who've played the game often enough tend to remember that the Q is worth 10 points, the Z is worth 10 points and so on." What's more, he says, seasoned Scrabble players know there is an important difference between the value written on a Scrabble tile and that tile's real value when played in a game, a notion he calls "equity value". So a blank tile or an S have an equity value that far outstrips their face value because they can easily earn a player so many points. So could Scrabble tiles really be changed to adapt to our evolving vocabulary? No, according to Mattel, the company which manufactures Scrabble in Europe. "Mattel has no plans to change Scrabble tiles.

It is not a game where fairness is paramount, it is a game of luck and changing the tile values wouldn't achieve anything," says Philip Nelkon, Scrabble's UK representative. More or Less: Behind the stats Listen to More or Less on BBC Radio 4 and the World Service, or download the free podcast More stories from More or Less Even Joshua Lewis, inventor of the new system believes the traditional valuations can make the game more exciting. "You're really lucky if you pick an X because it's over-valued and unlucky if you pick a V. So if they were to re-do the values of the tiles that would reduce the level of luck. "That might be desirable in tournaments but it might not be as good in casual play where you want the less skilled players to have a shot periodically at beating the more highly skilled players." So those players who rely on good luck when playing Scrabble can breathe a sigh of relief. You can follow the Magazine on Twitter and on Facebook Scrabble Rules - How to Play Scrabble - Official SCRABBLE Rules Scrabble Rules Links to Scrabble rules and Scrabble official game instructions. Two to four players play in any game of Scrabble. The object of Scrabble is to score more points than one's opponent.

A player collects points by placing words on the game board. Each letter has a different point value, so the strategy becomes to play words with high scoring letter combinations. The Scrabble Board A Scrabble game board is made of up cells in a square grid. The Scrabble board is 15 cells wide by 15 cells high. The Scrabble tiles fit within these cells one to a cell. Scrabble Tiles Scrabble is played with exactly 100 tiles. 98 of these tiles contain letters on them, while there are 2 blank tiles. These blank tiles add a wildcard aspect to Scrabble. The blanks substitute for any letter in the alphabet. Once played, a blank tile remains for the remainder of the game the letter for which it was substituted when first played. Various letters have different point values, depending on the rarity of the letter and the difficulty in playing it. Blank tiles have no point value. Tile Values Here are the point values for each letter in Scrabble. 0 Points - Blank tile. 1 Point - A, E, I, L, N, O, R, S, T and U. 2 Points - D and G. 3 Points - B, C, M and P.

4 Points - F, H, V, W and Y. 5 Points - K. 8 Points - J and X. 10 Points - Q and Z. Extra Point Values Some squares on the Scrabble board represent multipliers. If a tile is placed on this square, then the tile's value is multiplied by a factor or either 2x or 3x. Certain tiles multiply the point value of an entire word and not simply the tile on that space. Double Letter Scores - Light blue cells are found isolated on the board. When a tile is placed on this space, that tile's point value is multiplied by two. Triple Letter Score - This is a dark blue cell on the Scrabble. The tile placed on this square has its points multiplied by three. Double Word Score - Light red cells are found running diagonally towards the four corners of the board. When a player plays a word on one of these squares, the point value of the entire word is multiplied by two. Triple Word Score - This is a dark red square on the Scrabble board. These are found on the four sides of the board equidistant from the four corners of the board.

When a word is played using this square, then the points for the word are multiplied by three. One Single Use - Note that extra point squares are only usable once. If one player plays a word using this cells, then the next time that space is used to make a word, the point value is not multiplied. Starting the Game Without looking into the tile bag, each of the Scrabble players takes one tile out of the tile bag. Whichever player has the letter closest to the beginning of the alphabet goes first. A blank tile is considered better than an "A". These tiles are placed into the bag once more. Starting the game, each player begins their turn by drawing seven tiles apiece from the bag. The player can do one of three things on a turn. The player can place a word, exchange tiles or pass. Most of the time, the player will take the option of playing a word. Exchanging tiles allows a player to replace anywhere between one and all of the tiles on the player's rack. If this option is taken, the player cannot do anything else that hand. Therefore, a tile exchange cannot be performed on a turn when the player places a word on the board. A player may pass at any time.

If all player's pass twice in a row, then the game ends. The First Word Score A player begins the game by placing a word on the star square at the center of the board. This star acts as a double word score. The star cell does not act as a double word score for subsequent players playing off the center square. Play continues in a clockwise direction around the Scrabble board. Replacing Scrabble Tiles When a player places tiles on the Scrabble board, that player draws new tiles from the tile bag, adding until that player's number of tiles equals seven. The player must not look at the tiles when choosing new ones. Tile selection is usually done by holding the bag above the eye line, then reaching into the bag to add tiles one by one. The Fifty Point Bonus When a player is able to place all seven tiles from the tile rack on the board at the same time, that player receives a 50 point bonus. In end game scenarios, when the players hold less than the standard seven tiles, a player does not get the 50 point bonus for using all the tiles on the rack.

The End of a Scrabble Game When all of the tiles have been taken from the bag and one player has used all of the tiles on their rack, then the game ends. Tallying Scrabble Scores Once the game has ended, each player counts the points on the tiles left remaining in their rack. Each player has that number deducted from their final score. The player who ended the game and who therefore has no more tiles remaining is given an added bonus. Add the total of all points of all remaining players with tiles left on their racks. This number is added to the final score of the player who is "out" of tiles. The Scrabble player with the highest score after all final scores are tallied wins. Accepted Scrabble Words Players may place any word which can be found in a standard English language dictionary. Official Scrabble dictionaries also can be found in bookstores and online. Types of words which cannot be used are abbreviations, prefixes and suffixes. Words that require a hyphen or an apostrophe cannot be played. Words that are spelled with a capital letter cannot be used. Generally speaking in an English-language game of Scrabble, foreign words cannot be placed on the Scrabble board.

If those words appear in a standard English dictionary, then the word is allowable. This is because the word is spoken often enough by native English-speakers that it has become a part of the English language. See also: Stefan Fatsis is the author of Word Freak and A Few Seconds of Panic and is a panelist on Hang Up and Listen . Follow him on Twitter. Any Scrabble player can tell you that the X is actually worth eight points. But as Butts was creating the game, in a fifth-floor walkup in Queens, he tinkered—with the layout of the board, with the total number of tiles, with their distribution, and with their respective point values. “It’s not hit or miss,” Butts said long afterward. “It’s carefully worked out.” Seventy-five years later, Butts’ carefully worked out point values are under attack. Late last month, a University of California–San Diego, cognitive science postdoc and casual player named Joshua Lewis conducted a computer analysis to recalibrate Scrabble’s letter values based on the game’s current lexicon. Lewis reposted his findings to Hacker News, and they were picked up by Digg and went viral.

Around the same time, Sam Eifling, writing for Deadspin, asked a programmer friend to do the same . Both were inspired by the fact that while the language had changed dramatically from the time Butts performed his calculations, the game of Scrabble had not. Advertisement It’s a fair observation. Since Scrabble was adopted in chess parlors in New York in the 1950s, competitive players have dissected its strategic quirks. One early realization was that short words have outsized value, so players scoured the preferred source (the now-defunct Funk & Wagnalls Standard College Dictionary) and compiled lists of two- and three-letter words. They also recognized that the most common letters showed up in a lot of words, so they recorded and memorized seven- and eight-letter words—ones that would earn the 50-point bonus for using all seven tiles at once—that contained A, E, I, N, R, S, and T, among other single-point letters. You didn’t need a computer to see that the Q, though worth the most points, was a pain in the rack but the Z not so much.

Since the publication in 1978 of the Official Scrabble Players Dictionary, a compilation of several standard college dictionaries, the game’s word list has grown by tens of thousands of words. From a playing vantage, the addition of QI (a Chinese life force) and ZA (short for pizza) in the last lexicon update, in 2006, were game-changers. Players feared the new words would cheapen Scrabble, boosting scoring and elevating the role of chance. It didn’t happen. The Q became less of a hindrance, a slightly fairer tile than before, and players adjusted strategy to account for the new gimmes. That need to adjust validates Lewis’ and Eifling’s suspicion that the values assigned to letters aren’t in perfect harmony with the frequency of their use in English or in its narrower subset, the Scrabble word list. The two approached the problem differently. Eifling and software developer Kyle Rimkus totaled the number of letters in Scrabble-eligible words (1.58 million), isolated the frequency of each letter, and then calculated how overvalued or undervalued each letter was compared to its existing point value. Lewis’ approach was more complicated.

He weighted letters not only by appearance in the Scrabble lexicon but also by the frequency with which they appear in words of different lengths (with emphasis on two-, three-, seven-, and eight-letter words) and by their ability to “transition” into and out of other letters. The findings don’t differ much. In both analyses, the values of about half the letters change by one or two points. One or the other found that B, C, F, H, K, M, P, X, Y, and Z are overvalued, which makes some intuitive sense. For instance, the X (eight points) and the Z (10) can be easy money, especially since they occur in a number of short words; bumping them down to six points apiece is a logical move. Similarly, the H was set by Butts at four points, but it now appears in nine two-letter words and combines beautifully with other letters, while the M appears in 12 two-letter words. Living-room players detest the C, but they haven’t studied seven- and eight-letter “bingos,” in which C’s abound.

The clunky U and V, by contrast, are undervalued—ratcheting them up to two points and five points respectively seems reasonable. Advertisement While the media pounced on the story (I joined in ), the Scrabble community has been largely unmoved. Why? Several reasons. One, the game’s owners, Hasbro in North America and Mattel overseas, aren’t changing anything. Two, such proposed rejiggerings aren’t new. Three, players understand that variances, in letter values and tile distribution (too many I’s, the Q without a U), are part of the game and strategize accordingly. Four, there are other, arguably more sophisticated ways to assess tiles values. Five, and most important, adjusting any core variables would create a completely different game requiring different strategies. “It's basically saying, Let’s change the game to make a new game,” Jason Katz-Brown, a software engineer who co-wrote Scrabble’s best computer player, Quackle , told me. Let’s examine the potential effects of the “new” values. In both Lewis’ and Deadspin’s calculations, 10 tiles decrease in value, four increase, and 12 don’t change.

More tiles fall in a band of two to five points, bringing the utility of each closer together. The consensus of my math-brained Scrabble colleagues is that this would be like a dose of lithium for the game, flattening scoring and eliminating swings that keep games interesting. Big but still-reasonable values for some tiles, especially the X and Z, are good because they improve the odds of comebacks, make tile positioning a compelling strategic consideration, and give players with lesser word knowledge a slightly better chance against those who are booked up. “Except for the Q, Josh [Lewis] basically squashes the volatility,” said Eric Chaikin, co-director of the Scrabble documentary Word Wars . “His values take the fun out.” Quackle co-writer John O’Laughlin, a software engineer at Google, said the existing inequities also confer advantages on better players, who understand the “equity value” of each tile—that is, its “worth” in points compared with the average tile. That gives them an edge in balancing scoring versus saving letters for future turns, and in knowing which letters play well with others.

“If we tried to equalize the letters, this part of the game wouldn't be eliminated, but it would definitely be muted,” O’Laughlin said. “Simply playing the highest score available every turn would be a much more fruitful strategy than it currently is.” In response to Lewis’ findings , John Chew, co-president of the North American Scrabble Players Association and a mathematics doctoral student at the University of Toronto, wrote that Scrabble has always had an “intentional” imbalance between the face value and the equity value of the letters. Whenever the game’s lexicon changes—a fifth edition of the Scrabble dictionary is due in 2014—players adapt. “The tile values were chosen to make an interesting game, not to accurately represent the statistical properties of a particular lexicon,” he wrote. Advertisement In fact, for Alfred Butts, the face value of the letters was secondary to their distribution.

That’s because Butts’ original research was for a word-formation game called Lexiko, which didn’t involve a board and didn’t assign points to individual letters.* In the early 1930s, on spreadsheets containing 26 rows, one for each letter, Butts tallied tens of thousands of letters from the pages of the New York Times, the New York Herald Tribune, and the Saturday Evening Post. Then he compared the frequency with which the letters occurred, both on their own and as part of words of particular lengths. From those tabulations, he determined how many of each letter should be included in his game. Criss-Cross Words, Alfred Butts' prototype for Scrabble Courtesy National Scrabble® Association. Butts manufactured and sold a few hundred sets of Lexiko from his Queens walkup, but Milton Bradley and Parker Brothers, among others, rejected it. In 1938, Butts decided to add a board. That’s when he assigned values to letters roughly corresponding with their frequency. Butts’ files, which I read while researching my book Word Freak , contain pages of spreadsheets and notes about letter frequency and tile distribution.

But there’s little about how he settled on the point values for his new game, which he named Criss-Cross Words. He did experiment, though. I found one iteration in which the Z was worth nine points; the K and V six; and the B, F, and W five. And there’s the plywood evidence of my six-point X. My conclusion: Butts coupled intuition with direct observation of the game in action—he tested it on his wife and their friends—to arrive at values that he felt balanced equity and volatility. (Not that he would have used those words.) So, for instance, while Butts might have suspected the X was logically worth six points, he understood that eight would make the game more exciting. Similarly, while Butts included a lexicographically reasonable seven S’s in Lexiko, he knew the letter was so valuable for pluralizing words that he should reduce the number in his board game, which he did, to four. (As with Lexiko, Butts made and sold Criss-Cross Words from his apartment with no success. In 1948, he sold its rights to a small businessman, James Brunot of Newtown, Conn., who renamed, redesigned, and manufactured the game.

Five years later, Scrabble became a national sensation. Butts received royalties until 1976. He died in 1993.) Scrabble inventor Alfred Butts Courtesy National Scrabble® Association. Advertisement Lewis and Eifling performed a statistical exercise that can help lay players reconsider particular letters based on the overall lexicon. “Get rid of your J and your Q as quickly as possible, because they’re just damn hard to play and will clog your rack,” Eifling concluded, correctly. A deeper dive would involve valuing each letter based on how it is actually used in Scrabble, because words of certain lengths or lexicographic properties might be more or less useful when playing the game. Lewis’ program didn’t consider, for instance, longer combinations of letters, or the importance of four- and five-letter words. “The game isn’t about drawing words at random from the dictionary,” Chew wrote. “It’s about actually finding places to play them on the board.” Chew’s and O’Laughlin’s approach to reconsidering the face values of the tiles involves adjusting their equity values. Equity value in Scrabble is similar to advanced baseball stats that compare players to an “average” replacement.

Scrabble theorists have been calculating this stat—let’s call it VORT, or Value Over Replacement Tile—since the 1980s. “The Barry Bonds of the Scrabble set,” O’Laughlin said, is the blank, with a VORT of about 25 points. That means a blank plus six random tiles will likely net 25 more points than seven random tiles. At the other end, the Q has the lowest VORT, about -7 points. To perform a revaluation using VORT, Chew and O’Laughlin would shift the equity value of positive tiles downward and negative tiles upward, have Quackle play thousands of games against itself using those new values, and keep adjusting the values and making Quackle play until the equity of each tile approaches zero. At that point, the tiles could be given corresponding face values, which would be based on how Scrabble is played by the world’s best player. Chew and O’Laughlin said they aren’t interested in conducting that analysis because it would be time-consuming and wouldn’t add to the understanding of the game.

But they have begun trading emails with Lewis, who told me he’s eager to work with the Scrabble quants to learn more and find ways to study the statistical properties of the tiles further. Which shows how, in contrast to the way this story is being framed in the media—Scrabble Controversy!—it’s really just a bunch of curious living-room players and super-smart computer guys swapping ideas about game theory and analysis. Lewis isn’t demanding that the game’s manufacturers change anything, just performing an interesting statistical and intellectual exercise. Still, he does believe, as he wrote in a new post on Wednesday , that tweaking Scrabble’s tile values would “keep the intentional luck in the game and remove the unintentional luck that has crept in over time as the use of English has changed.” He’s perplexed as to why competitive Scrabble players wouldn’t favor mediating some of the luck, because that might make the results of games and tournaments more accurate. I can answer that. Because Scrabble players understand that the game’s inequities are on the margins, and that figuring them out is a crucial part of learning to play well.

And we respect, and are in fact awed by, how Alfred Butts, without the benefit of computer programs and language databases, came damn close to nailing both letter distribution and letter valuation, and in the process created a game that exquisitely, often maddeningly, balances skill and luck. Making the X worth six points won’t improve on that. Correction, Jan. 19, 2013: This article originally misspelled the name of Alfred Butts’ first word game, Lexiko. Keeping Score in Scrabble - Letter Tiles and Point Values How to Keep Score in Scrabble Keeping Score in Scrabble Knowing how to keep score in Scrabble is simple, but it’s also important. Each letter in Scrabble has its own value, while certain points on a Scrabble board are worth more points than others. Finally, there are a few special circumstances where Scrabble scoring differs than in other points of the game. Scrabble Letter Tiles – Point Values Below is a table showing the point values of each tile in Scrabble. I’ll include a table to show how many of each letter exists in a standard Scrabble game, as well.

When you play one of these letter tiles on the Scrabble board, you get the point value indicated on the letter tile. Scrabble Point Distribution A – E – I – O – - U – L – N – R – S – T = 1 point D – G = 2 points B – C – M – P = 3 points F – H – W – Y – V = 4 points K = 5 points J – X = 8 points Q – Z = 10 points The following table shows how many of each letters there are in a standard game of Scrabble. In all, there are 100 tiles to play in any given Scrabble game. Scrabble Letter Distribution 1: J – K – X – Q – Z 2: B – C – F – H – M – P – W – Y – V – Blank Tiles 3: G 4: D – L – S – U 6: N – R – T 10: E Double and Triple Scores When any of the letters of a word you place on the board covers a double or triple score, apply that modifier to your word score.

If it’s a double or triple letter score, only modify the score for the letter on that tile. If it’s a double or triple word score, add up the score for all the tiles and then multiply the amount by the modifier. If you happen to cross two or more modifiers with your word, apply all of them. If you cross a triple letter score and a double word score, then multiple the triple score letter by x3 and then multiple the whole word score by x2. If you happen to cross two word multipliers, then remember to multiple the word score by both values. In this way, scores can reach large numbers. There is a limiting factor to the scores made by these tiles, though. That’s because, once used, these tiles can’t be reused for the purposes of multipliers. Reusing Double and Triple Scores After a double-word or triple-word score has been used and figured, that space will not be worth a double- or triple-word score again in the game. The same goes for double-letter and triple-letter scores. For example, imagine that a letter tile saying double-word score, like the one you play off of at the beginning of the game, is “activated” at the beginning of the game.

Whoever plays off that tile first gets a double-word score. But the next player who builds a word off that same letter does not get a double-word score. This rule is there for several purposes, but it keeps people from simply beating opponents by playing an -s or -ed or -ing at the end of words on the board. You can still do so, but you won’t score as many points (or more) if the original word played involved double- or triple-word scoring. 50 Point Bonus If at any time, you use all 7 tiles in your rack one on play, you get an automatic 50 point bonus. This does not apply in the endgame scenario when you have less than 7 letters on your rack, of course. Final Scores in Scrabble Who “goes out” also has a big affect on the score. Eventually, the letter tiles will run out. When this happens, you will have a dwindling number of letter tiles on your rack. When this happens, the first person to get rid of all the letters on their rack on their turn “goes out”. The scoring is not yet finished, though. Every player with letters should add up the point values of those letters.

These players should subtract that letter amount from their score. Once this is done, the point value for all those letters should also be added up collectively and added to the score of the person who “went out” or got rid of all their letter tiles first. In this way, the winner of a Scrabble game is often determined by who goes out first. This can be forgotten or only half-applied with new Scrabble players, so knowing how to score correctly in Scrabble is important. Scrabble Rules Scrabble Rules The basic objective of Scrabble is to play tiles marked with letters on a 15x15 grid to form words. After the initial word is played, players take turns adding words to existing letters. The board looks like this: The colors mark the Premium Squares and letters or words that played on those squares are worth more points. Each tile has a letter and a number on it. The letter is used to construct the words and the number indicates it's point value. These are the letter frequencies and the point values: Letter It contains 267751 words. This is the SOWPODS word list. I found it online here . Rules Games only have two players.

Each match has two games, one with each player playing first. Players initially draw 7 tiles each and place them on their rack. The first player combines two or more of his or her letters to form a word and places it on the board to read either across or down with one letter on the center square. (Diagonal words are not allowed.) After playing a word, the player receives replacement letters, one for each letter played. Following the first turn, players alternate. Each plays a series of tiles forming a word (possibly more than one word, as below) and then draws new tiles. Always keep 7 tiles on each rack, unless there are not enough tiles left. The letters placed in a single turn must all be in a single horizontal row or in a single vertical column, and the letters placed (plus letters already on the board) must form a single word from the dictionary, with no gaps. Each new word must connect to the existing words, in one of the following ways: Adding one or more letters to a word or letters already on the board. Placing a word at right angles to a word already on the board.

The new word must use one of the letters already on the board or must add a letter to one of the words on the board. Placing a complete word parallel to a word already played so that adjacent letters also form complete words. Any new words formed by these connections must also be in the dictionary. Each of the two blank tiles may be used as any letter. When playing a blank, you must state which letter it represents. It remains that letter for the rest of the game. You may use a turn to exchange all, some, or none of the letters. To do this, place your discarded letter(s) facedown. Draw the same number of letters from the pool of remaining letters, and then mix your discarded letter(s) into the pool. This ends your turn. You may not exchange more tiles from your rack than are in the pool (or are in your rack, of course), but there is no other limit on how many tiles you may exchange. The game ends when: all of the letters are either in the player's racks or on the board, and one player uses his or her last letter or both players exchange some number of tiles twice in a row (for a total of four exchanges).

Scoring The score for each turn is the sum of the letter values in each word(s) formed or modified on that turn, plus the additional points obtained from placing letters on Premium Squares. Premium Letter Squares: A light blue square doubles the score of a letter placed on it; a dark blue square triples the letter score. Premium Word Squares: The score for an entire word is doubled when one of its letters is placed on a pink square: it is tripled when one of its letters is placed on a red square. Include premiums for double or triple letter values, if any, before doubling or tripling the word score. If a word is formed that covers two premium word squares, the score is doubled and then re-doubled (4 times the letter count), or tripled and then re-tripled (9 times the letter count). Letter and word premiums count only on the turn in which they are played. On later turns, letters already played on premium squares count at face value. When a blank tile is played on a pink or red square, the value of the word is doubled or tripled, even though the blank itself has no score value. When two or more words are formed in the same play, each is scored.

The common letter is counted (with full premium value, if any) for each word. If you play seven tiles on a turn, it's called a Bingo. You score an additional 50 points after otherwise totaling your score for the turn. Unplayed Letters: When the game ends, each player's score is reduced by the sum of his or her unplayed letters. In addition, if a player has used all of his or her letters, the sum of the other players' unplayed letters is added to that player's score. The player with the highest final score wins the game. In case of a tie, the player with the highest score before adding or deducting unplayed letters wins. If a match has one winner and one loser, the player that scored more points (combined in both games) wins the match. If that number is the same for the two players, the match is a tie. Scoring Example As an example, consider the following sequence of moves, starting from an empty board (only showing the middle section of the board).

For this first move, add up the point values of the letters, 4+1+1+1=7 and then double that, since the letter r is on a double-word score (remember, the first play must always be there). The second word, farm, shares the r from the first word, but the double word cell is considered "used up" because the r was not played this turn. Thus, the score is only the point values of the letters, added up: 4+1+1+3 = 9 Paste lands on two triple-letter scores, so the values of the p and the e are tripled: (3+3+3)+1+1+1+(1+1+1) = 15, but the word farms is a new word, so the entire value of that word is added in as well 4+1+1+3+1=10, for a total of 25. In this example, the double letter counts twice, since it is used simultaneously in two different words, not (1+(1+1)+1=4) and mob (3+(1+1)+3=8).

Counting be (3+1=4) the total for this move is 16. This play makes three words bit (3+1+1=5), which is doubled, and pi (3+1=4) and at (1+1=2) for a total of 16.

Question: In Scrabble what points value is a letter K tile?
Answer: Five