AGES: 8 to adult

PLAYERS: 2 to 8

OBJECT:

To obtain the highest number of points by combining the cards in your hand into words. THE DECK: The game has 125 cards, with letters from A to Z and special double-letter cards: QU, IN, ER, TH, AR, GH, THE, AND, ED, ING, OW, FOR, OU, ST, SH, OF, CH, and CL. Each card has a point value.

SETUP:

At the beginning of the game have a player shuffle the deck and deal out 3 cards to each player. Each hand will have 1 more card than the hand before it. The last hand of the game each player will have 10 cards. Any cards that are remaining should be placed at the center of the table to make a draw pile and then the card that is at the top should be placed face up. This will serve as the start to the discard pile.

Before each hand is dealt, the cards are shuffled. In the first hand of the game, 3 cards are dealt one at a time in clockwise rotation to the players. In each following hand, one additional card is dealt to each player; thus, the second hand has four cards; the third hand five cards, etc. In the last hand of the game, each player is dealt 10 cards. After each deal, the remaining cards are placed in the center as a draw pile, and the top card is turned over to start the discard pile.

NOTES ON BRAILLE:

The cards are presented with a FOR sign leading in to help with orientation and height. If it is a contraction it is presented, then with a space then the contraction spelled out in uncontracted braille.

The next line shows how many points the card is worth.

GAMEPLAY:

The player who is seated left of the dealer is the first player with play continuing clockwise.

Each player on their turn can start by

A. Drawing a card from the discard

B. Drawing the face up card

The object is to use all the cards in your hand to spell out words then discarding a card. The turn is completed by discarding one card. A player can only lay cards on the table when going out or, after another player has gone out.

During their turn if a player is able to arrange their cards in a manner that they all spell words with exactly one card remaining that player may present them on the table and discard their card.

This will trigger the end of the round(see below).

If a player is not able to go out they discard one of their cards and the next player in clockwise order takes their turn repeating the steps above.

End of a Round:

After a player has gone out each other player will have one final turn for the hand. Each player still in the game will either draw from the deck or pick up the top discard. 

The will then present their words, and discard one card. 

After this players will score points based on their words. 

At the bottom is a number that indicates how many points that card is worth. If it is used in the word it is worth that amount of points, if it is not played that number is subtracted from the point total.

Bonuses -

The player with the most words receive 10 points.

The player with the longest word receives 10 points(number of letters, not number of cards).

If two players are tied for either of the bonuses nobody is awarded the bonus.

The point total for all of the individual players should be tracked by one of the players.

After the round is finished the deal goes to the next player in clockwise order. The dealer deals out cards as before except they deal one more card than the previous round. Gameplay continues until the final round when everyone is dealt 10 cards.

After the 10th round the player with the highest score is declared the winner.

CHEATER CHEATER!:

When a player presents their word(s) they can be challenged by the others at the table. If the word is allowable then the challenger loses the amount of points that the word is worth. If the word isn't allowed then the player must subtract those points from their score. A word that is not allowed cannot be rearranged into other words.

WHICH WORDS CAN BE USED?:

Be sure to choose your dictionaries before the game starts. No proper nouns, abbreviated, or hyphenated words can be used. 

FREQUENCY OF LETTERS:

The number of times each letter is repeated in the deck is: A - 10, B - 2, C - 2, D - 4, E - 12, F - 2, G - 4, H - 2, I - 8, J - 2, K - 2, L - 4, M - 2, N - 6, O - 8, P - 2, Q - 2, R - 6, S - 4, T - 6, U - 6, V - 2, W - 2, X - 2, Y - 4, Z - 2, QU - 2, IN - 1, ER - 1, CL - 1, TH - 1, ER - 1, AR - 1, ED - 1, GH - 1, ING 1, OW - 1, THE - 1, FOR - 1, AND - 1, OU - 1, ST - 1, SH - 1, OF - 1, CH - 1