Crossplay Scoring
Five steps, always in the same order. Get the order right and you can score any play in your head — including the ones that look impossible.
Add up the main word
Take the face value of every tile in the word — including tiles that were already on the board. Blanks count as zero whatever letter they represent.
Apply letter premiums
Any new tile that lands on a double or triple letter square has its own value multiplied first, before anything else happens. Tiles already on the board never re-trigger a premium.
Apply word premiums
Now multiply the whole word total by every word premium a new tile covers. Two double word squares in one word means four times, not two plus two.
Score every cross-word separately
Each new tile that touches a tile above or below (or left and right, if you played downwards) forms a second word. Score each one in full, with its own premiums, and add it on.
Add the sweep bonus
If you played all 7 tiles from your rack in that one move, add 40 points. This is applied last and is not multiplied by anything.
A worked example
Say the board already has RETAIN running across, and you add an S at the end while playing SPARE downwards from that same S. The S lands on a double letter square, and the E of SPARE lands on a double word square.
- RETAINS (across): R1 + E1 + T1 + A1 + I1 + N1 + S(1×2) = 8. No new tile covers a word premium on that line, so it stays 8.
- SPARE (down): S(1×2) + P3 + A1 + R1 + E1 = 8, then doubled by the word premium under the E = 16.
- Total: 8 + 16 = 24 from a five-tile play.
Note the S: it is scored twice, and its double letter premium counts in both words. That is the whole reason hooks are valuable, and it is why one well-placed tile can be worth more than four badly placed ones.
The three mistakes people make
- Re-using a premium. The triple word square you played on last turn is spent. It scores nothing now.
- Forgetting cross-words. Parallel plays form a short word at every tile. Miss those and you will underestimate the play by half.
- Multiplying the sweep bonus. It goes on at the end, untouched by any multiplier.
The solver shows all of this explicitly — press Explain score on any move and you get the main word, each cross-word, the multiplier and the bonus as separate lines.
Related
- Board LayoutEvery premium square on the 15x15 grid.
- Tile ValuesWhat every letter is worth, sortable.
- Sweep WordsThe six-letter stems that turn into sweeps.
- Crossplay SolverEnter your board and rack, get every legal move ranked by score.
- Post-Game CoachScore your move and see the points you left behind.
- How to PlayThe rules, in the order you need them.
Common questions
Do premium squares count every time a word crosses them?
No. A premium square only pays out on the turn a new tile is placed on it. From then on, that tile scores face value in every word that runs through it.
How are cross-words scored?
Fully and separately. If you place a tile on a triple word square and it forms a cross-word, that cross-word is tripled too — the same premium counts for both words on the turn it is covered.
What does a blank score?
Zero. It still occupies the square, and if that square is a word premium the multiplier still applies to the rest of the word — but the blank tile itself contributes nothing.
Is the sweep bonus multiplied?
No. The 40 points are added after all multipliers, so a sweep on a triple word square is (word × 3) + 40, not (word + 40) × 3.