Words with Friends, the basics.

Words with Friends, the basics.

The official rule book is HERE

When you start you each get 7 letters on your rack. There are 90 letters left. The player that starts must place one of the letters of their first word on the centre starred square. That square is not a bonus square.

Any letters placed must be in the same row or column. Every other word played must be attached to a word already on the board. That can be by:

Adding a letter to a word to make another word. RED + B at the beginning is BRED. READ  + Y at the end is READY etc. Example: add an ‘S’ at the end of a word making a plural. (TANK becomes TANKS) and the S is the first or last or maybe the middle letter of another word like WORDS or SAW or ISSUE from letters on your rack.

You can form a word across another. ‘RUBBISH’ is on the board and you can place BITTER using the I of RUBBISH which was not yours.

You could even place letters at the beginning and the end of a word. On the board is QUIRE so having RE before and D at the end makes REQUIRED

You can also place letters along side a word. HERO is on the board and you can add an H next to the E (EH) and an O next to the R (OR) and your letters make HO. Tip if the H is on a TL it counts 3 x 3 one way and 3 x 3 the other way.

As long as every new word formed is legal (WWF will not allow you to place a word NOT in its dictionary) then it's a good move.

Your score is the value of the letters (they are all marked) of all the new words you make added up. Like in the example of HO. You placed HO but also formed EH and OR. Letters falling on a DL or TL count double or triple and then if the new word falls on a DW or TW square then the whole score is multiplied by 2 or 3. Should the word formed hit the 2 DW squares then the score is multiplied by 4.

If you can place all 7 of your letters on the board in one go it is called a ‘Bingo’ and you get a bonus of 35 points on top of what the word scored.

Blanks can be any letter you choose. But their value is 0

You can Exchange letters instead of playing.

You can Pass instead of playing.

You can Resign.

The game ends when one player finishes all the letters in the rack and there are no more letters to distribute.

The person who finishes first, in addition to his last word’s score and regardless of the scores of each player, receives a bonus of the points left on his opponents rack. His opponent also has those points deducted from his score.  This can cost you the game if say you are leading 320 to 300. They finish with a 10 point word and you are left with 6 points on your rack. His score becomes 300 + 10 + 6 = 316 and your score becomes 320 – 6 = 314. You lose!

In the event that after this adjustment the scores are equal then who was in the lead before the last word placement wins.

For further tips and a general strategy look at the post "Words with Friends, My Tips" on this Blog.

Got any questions? Leave it in a comment and I will reply.