Words with Friends scoring is sometimes tricky, as you might have realized when playing Words with Friends. You may have noticed that scoring is different from other word game applications like Scrabble or Wordfeud. With a few tricky examples we will show you how to clear the jungle of points and bonuses etc.
Tiles and Points
In our article about the letters in Words with Friends you can get an overview of how many tiles there are of each letter and the points each letter gives you. Just like in Scrabble, there are premium squares, or bonus fields, on the board. You will find DL (double letter), TL (triple letter), DW (double word) and TW (triple word).
How to Score
This could be so simple… You score by putting tiles on the board, meaning by forming words with letters taken from your rack. You can build more than one word for each turn you take. You can do this by putting a word parallel to another word, this is called building walls. Every word you build in this way counts for this single turn. Unbelievable, but so true. More tips and tricks on how to score high are to be found in our article about 3 Words with Friends Strategies.
Examples for Scoring in Words with Friends
Even if Words with Friends gives you the score right away, when you put the word on the table you can check upfront if your word is the best you can make with your letters using our Words with Friends Cheat. Well cheat might be misleading, because you can’t really cheat with it. It is still your decision if you take a word with a high score even if you don’t know what it means. But our implemented dictionary helps you here right away too. You can always check the meaning and then put down the words. Well let’s imagine you have BUINLTI on your rack and you don’t have a clue what word to form. Our helper would give you: I + N + B + U + I + L + T, tell you that it contains 7 letters, and informs you that it gives you 13 points if you do not put it on a premium square.
Words with Friends Scoring with Premium Fields
Scoring with Double and Triple Letters
With a 7-letter word you normally hit a premium square, so say the U is on a double letter and the second I is on a triple letter. This would give you 1+2+4+2×2+3×1+2+1=16 points
Scoring with Double and Triple Word Counts
Let’s say you take the same word and you do not hit DL and TL, but rather DW and TW. Woohoo! Congratulations! The DW and TW multiply so you have 2 x 3 x13= 78.
Same Score for Different Word Length – Is That Possible?
Well even if it sounds confusing, yes, this is possible. Depending on the bonus squares that is.
Let’s imagine you have UNNAAL on your rack. You could build the words ANNUAL and ANNUL. Let’s have a look at the words ANNUAL and ANNUL. ANNUAL gives 10 points and ANNUL gives 9 points if you put them on plain squares. Let’s say you use the A of an existing word and you don’t know if you should put ANNUAL or ANNUL. There is a DL on the 4th square below the A and two DW within reach too. If you put ANNUAL, the second A hits the DL and you receive 11 points of the letters (1+2+2+2+(2×1)+2) and 44 points in total. If you now remove the second A, you have ANNUL and the L hits the DL and you receive – have a guess – yes, 11 points for the letters (1+2+2+2+(2×2) and 44 points in total. Save the A, I would say!
Difference Between Words with Friends Scoring and Other Word Games
In Words with Friends the bonus squares are equally as important as in other word games. But the scoring per letter is different and therefore you always have to take the correct helper to make the best of your words. Not only the scoring per letter is different, but the pattern of the bonus squares is too.