Like all the best games, Scrabble is easy to learn, but difficult to master. Still, If this is your first time playing Scrabble, you should familiarize yourself with the rules of the game.

Every game of Scrabble starts with the same set of tiles. In English, there are 100 tiles. Common letters like the E appear frequently, and less common letters like the Q and Z appear only once. These less common letters are worth more points to compensate.

Valid words include words of any part of speech, except for proper nouns, abbreviations, or words requiring hyphens or apostrophes. Keep in mind that there are words that look like proper nouns, but are still in the dictionary for other reasons. For example, TEXAS is a valid Scrabble word, not because it’s a state, but because it’s the section of a steamboat that includes the crew’s quarters.