Word game score keeper

The counter reads each word tile by tile. Every tile takes its printed value from the English set, and the square under a new tile changes either that tile or the whole word. A tile played on an earlier turn counts at face value only. The sum is written out under each word, so every step can be checked against the board.

Mattel's UK rule sheet sets the order of scoring. First, each new tile's value is multiplied by any double letter score or triple letter score square under it. Next, the letters of the word are added, including the tiles it builds on. Then the sum is doubled or tripled for each double word score or triple word score square a new tile covers. Every other word the move forms is scored the same way and added. The 50-point bonus comes last, and only when the whole rack was used. QUIRK, its Q on a double word square and K on a triple letter, scores (10 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 5 × 3) × 2 = 56.

Those four kinds of premium squares are the board's coloured squares. Each tile in the counter can be set to a plain square or to one of them, made a blank or marked as already on the board.

The rule sheet works through a run of example moves, from an opening TRAIN worth 12 to CONQUEST worth 261. The counter reproduces each of the six used here exactly, and they are listed with their inputs among the moves checked against the rule sheet.

Ten letters score 1 point each and fill 68 of the 100 tiles, while Q and Z are worth 10 each. The rest sit in between, with K alone on 5.

The 100 tiles are 98 letters and two blanks. E is the most common letter, with 12 tiles, and J, K, Q, X and Z have a single tile each. A blank tile stands for any letter and scores 0. Together the 98 letter tiles carry 187 points.

Letter values are why a short word with a high tile can outscore a long word of common letters. For a rack that will not settle into a word, the word unscrambler lists the words its letters make, each with its points.

Yes, and word squares multiply rather than add. Two double word squares make a word worth 4 times its letters, and two triple word squares make it 9 times.

Mattel's sheet shows CONQUEST laid across two triple word squares, through an N and an S already played, with the Q on a double letter square. It scores (3 + 1 + 1 + 10 × 2 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1) × 9 = 261. A word long enough to cover three triple word squares would be multiplied by 27. With two double word squares, JOKERS scores (8 + 1 + 5 + 1 + 1 + 1) × 4 = 68.

Premium squares count only on the turn a tile is first placed on them. A later word through that tile takes only its face value, so the counter ignores the square under a tile marked as played before.

The centre square, marked with a star, doubles the word that covers it. The first word must use two or more tiles and cover it, so every opening move is at least doubled. In the rule sheet's opening, TRAIN with its T on a double letter square scores (1 × 2 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1) × 2 = 12.

Every word a move forms or lengthens scores in full. A new tile on a premium square counts that square in each word it belongs to, while the tiles it builds on keep their face value.

An X on a triple letter square that makes OX across and XU down counts three times in both words. OX scores 1 + 8 × 3 = 25 and XU scores 8 × 3 + 1 = 25, 50 for one move of two tiles.

A hook is a single letter that lengthens a word in place. Mattel's sheet puts an S at each end of TRAINER to make STRAINERS; the first S covers a triple word square, so the word is worth 27. Another example ends THROBS with an S on a triple word square, and the same S turns TRAINER into STRAINER. THROBS is tripled to (1 + 4 × 2 + 1 + 1 + 3 + 1) × 3 = 45. STRAINER, tripled as well, scores (1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1) × 3 = 24. The move is worth 69.

A parallel play lays a word alongside another, forming a short word with each tile it touches. In another worked example, HOB also makes HI, ON and BE. HOB scores 4 + 1 + 3 × 2 = 11, and HI scores 4 + 1 = 5. ON adds 1 + 1 = 2 and BE 3 × 2 + 1 = 7, for 25 in all.

The counter takes the main word and up to seven crossing words, each up to 15 tiles long. A crossing word typed without any new tile scores nothing, since the move did not form it. Totting up one word at a time with a single multiplier would miss most of a parallel play's points. When the tiles are laid out on the grid, the crossing words are read from it rather than typed.

The board view takes over the marking that typed words leave to the players. Switched on above the move, it shows a board of 15 by 15 squares with the premium squares marked. The counter then finds the main word and every crossing word from the tiles, and scores each with the squares under the new tiles.

A move goes down in a few taps. A tap on the square where the main word starts sets the start, and a second tap turns the direction between across and down. The letters typed from the rack then fill the free squares along that line. A square that already holds a tile is stepped over, and its tile joins the word at face value. Tapping a new tile makes it a blank.

Squares are named by column letter, then row number. Columns run from A on the left to O on the right, and rows from 1 at the top to 15 at the bottom, so the centre star is H8. A line under the board repeats the start square and the direction.

On an empty board, TRAIN typed across from D8 puts its T on the double letter square there and its N on the star at H8, for 12 points. ASK typed down from I7 then sets its S on I8, just after the N, so TRAIN becomes TRAINS. ASK scores 1 × 2 + 1 + 5 × 2 = 13. TRAINS adds 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 = 6, for 19 in all. Typing B and T down from G7 instead steps over the I on G8 and makes BIT, worth 9.

The counter refuses a move that could not stand in a real game, and a message names the rule it breaks.

• The new tiles must lie in one row or one column.
• They must form one word, with no empty square between them.
• The move must touch a tile played earlier.
• The first move must cover H8 and use at least two tiles.

A move added to the sheet from the grid stays down for the next turn, and a reload keeps it with the sheet. "Put on the board" keeps a move down unscored for practice, and while a sheet runs it reads "Put on the board without a score". "Clear the board" lifts such tiles again. Moves added as typed words never appear there. The view uses the standard board, so it is off for the Polish Literaki values.

Playing every tile of a full rack in one move earns 50 extra points. Mattel's sheet adds the bonus after the word squares have done their multiplying, so it is never doubled or tripled.

PLAYERS as an opening move, with its Y on the centre star, scores (3 + 1 + 1 + 4 + 1 + 1 + 1) × 2 = 24. The bonus then brings the move to 74. Doubling 12 plus the bonus would give 124, which is the slip that adding the bonus last avoids.

Tournament players call such a move a bingo. The counter adds the bonus only when exactly seven new tiles were played, counting them in the word that holds them all. More than seven new tiles brings a message to mark the tiles that were played before.

A score sheet keeps each player's running total and shows whose turn it is. It first asks for the kind of game: classic, where players take turns with their own tiles, or duplicate, covered further down. Names are optional, and a classic sheet asks who starts and which rules apply. Tournament rules are offered only for two players, so a game of three or four follows the home rules.

Once a move is scored, a button under it adds the points to the player whose turn it is and clears the move box. A total worked out on paper can be typed in instead. Each turn then lands in a table by round.

• Pass, Exchange and Word taken back score nothing and pass the turn. Exchanging tiles and passing are both a turn without points under either set of rules.
• Penalty takes points off any player without using a turn, which is how a penalty for challenging a word wrongly is recorded.
• Undo the last line removes the most recent line, and Clear the sheet empties the sheet after a second tap.
• End the game opens the count of the tiles left on each rack.

A note appears when the run of passes, or of turns without points, reaches the limit of the chosen rules. The sheet never ends the game by itself, since the players may agree otherwise.

The sheet is kept in this browser's local storage, so a reload keeps the game. Names never go into a link and nothing is sent anywhere. Copy link shares a typed move and the edition only, never the board. For points, games and sets on a court instead of a board, the padel scoreboard keeps score from one phone.

Yes. Under the home rules each player loses the points of their unplayed tiles, and the player who went out adds the total of everyone else's.

Mattel's sheet works one case. A player left holding an X and an A loses 9, and the player who used all their tiles gains 9. In a two-player game, going out therefore swings the scores apart by twice the value left on the other rack. With three or four players, the one who went out adds every rival's leftover tiles.

In a home game, play stops when the bag is empty and one player has used every tile, or when no more plays can be made. It also ends once every player has passed twice in a row, 4 turns in a two-player game.

Rated tournaments in the UK follow the rules of WESPA, the world association of English-language tournament players, as the ABSP, the UK players' association, applies them. There a game ends after six turns in a row that score nothing: passes, exchanges and words challenged off. Each player then loses the value of their own rack.

When a player goes out, WESPA's recommended procedure adds twice the opponent's unplayed tiles and leaves the opponent's score alone. With the X and A, that is 18 to the player who went out. Adding once and taking off once gives the same winning margin, and the counter's tournament option uses the doubled form.

Under WESPA's rules each player normally has 25 minutes on a chess clock. Going over costs 10 points for each minute or part of a minute, and a player more than 10 minutes over forfeits the game. Equal final scores share a place on the counter's final table.

In a duplicate game every player has the same tiles each round. Each finds a move and scores it, then the best move of the round, called the top, goes on the board for everyone. Since nobody holds tiles of their own, there are no leftovers to settle at the end.

The duplicate rules of FISF, the federation of French-language players, give each move at most 3 minutes; the same federation publishes separate rules for the classic game. The sheet's round clock offers 1, 2 or 3 minutes, rings at zero and buzzes on phones that can.

Choosing duplicate under "Kind of game" sets up a table with one row per round: the top, then each player's score. It takes one to four players, so one person can play alone against the tops. Every cell can be edited by hand. Under a scored move, one button writes the points into the next empty player cell of the round and another sets them as the top. A top entered from the grid stays there for the next round.

In the site's own example of three rounds, the tops are 24, 36 and 18, which add up to 78.

Player 1 found the top twice and ends on 72: 6 below the tops, or 92.3% of them. Player 2 found it once and ends on 65, 13 below and 83.3%. The sheet shows both measures for every player, and 0 against the tops means the top in every round.

A score above its round's top is flagged as a typing slip, since no move can beat the best one. Ending the game shows the ranking, which can be copied, and a new game keeps the same players. The tile tracker and the printed duplicate sheet follow the tops.

Tile tracking means crossing off each tile as it is played. What remains are the unseen tiles, the ones in the tile bag or on an opponent's rack, so a player can tell which letters may still come.

During a game the tiles panel counts the tiles left per letter from every move scored with the counter. A total typed in as points carries no letters, so it is left out, and a line says how many such moves there were. "Not yet on the board" covers every unplayed tile.

The bag line takes a full rack of seven off that count for each player, as if every rack were full. At the start of a two-player game it shows 86, and with four players 72. A duplicate game counts a single rack, which every player shares. Under WESPA's rules an exchange needs at least seven tiles in the bag, so that line also shows when exchanges run out.

A letter played more often than the set holds brings a warning to check the moves. A second Z typed without marking it as a blank triggers it, since the English set has one Z. For play on paper, the print panel has a tile tracking sheet with a box for each tile to cross off.

The print panel makes a blank score sheet with a column for each of up to four players. It has a row per round, a row for tiles left and a final row. A sheet for two players adds a column for each word. The tile tracking sheet and the current game's sheet print from the same panel. A duplicate game has a blank sheet and a game sheet of its own, giving each round's top move, the top and every player's score.

Each language edition has its own tile set, so the same word scores differently from one edition to another. K is worth 5 in English and 10 in French. The Spanish set has an Ñ worth 8 and single tiles for CH, LL and RR, which the counter joins automatically.

The Italian set has 120 tiles and no J, K, W, X or Y, so those letters can only be played with a blank. The Dutch set has 102 tiles, and the Polish one values Ź at 9. A Polish option with Literaki values scores Ć, Ń and Ź at 5. Once a score sheet exists, its edition stays fixed until the sheet is cleared.

The home rules leave the dictionary to the players' agreement. For tournaments WESPA endorses the seventh edition of Collins Official Scrabble Words, a word list of more than 280,000 words.

The counter's own word check is optional and reads a different list. Once ticked, it downloads the open Letterpress word list by Loren Brichter, which the site's word unscrambler also reads. Each word is then marked "In the list" or "Not in the list". That list is not the Collins one, so a tournament word can be missing from it and a word it holds can still be challenged off. Only the list is downloaded; nothing typed leaves the browser, and every move still scores.

This counter is independent: SCRABBLE is a trade mark of J.W. Spear & Sons, a Mattel company, and of Hasbro in the US and Canada, and neither company is connected with this site.