A friend asked me (why, I don’t know) what the highest possible score in Scrabble is. I said, “Something over 800, because somebody got that a while ago.” I should have left it at that, but now I’m curious. Some cursory Googling turned up a rigged game with an individual score of 3658 and a combined score of 3674. I can’t imagine that is actually the highest achievable score, but I’m not sure where to look.
So, any idea what the theoretical maximum score is in Scrabble?
Now you have me curious about the following:
[ol][li]What’s the highest possible game score?[/li][li]What’s the highest possible score for all players combined?[/li]What’s the highest possible word score?[/ol]
See this Slate magazine article, about a game a few months ago in Massachusetts. According to the article, “the two men set three records for sanctioned Scrabble in North America: the most points in a game by one player (830), the most total points in a game (1,320), and the most points on a single turn (365, for Cresta’s play of QUIXOTRY).”
Now, it might not have been the highest possible score, but it was an impressive game.
I seem to remember that in the UK version’s instructions there was a sample game. The word CONQUEST strung between two triple word scores, scored 216.
Assuming a game must have two players, obviously what needs to happen is you need to figure out how one player can lay 93 tiles with the maximum possible score using legal words while the other player holds the tiles least useful to Player 1, passing every turn because he is a numpty.
Frankly, it strikes me as being a nearly impossible problem to figure out.
I guess we’ have to assume that each player would also use all his tiles in one play every play. Is that even possible?
Isn’t there a bonus for using all your tiles?
oops
Actually that’s pretty close. The highest theoretical maximum is 3986. It cheats a little in that it uses 99 tiles–whereas in a real game you couldn’t top 93. You can imagine it as a combined score by both players if you wish to make it more legit. Also, that game was played using the North American dictionary, whereas the one you found uses the more expansive NA+UK dictionaries.
50 points. It’s called a “bingo”.
Yes, 50 points for using all seven in one turn.
edit: :o
I meant is it even possible to use all of your tiles on every turn in one game.
Wikipedia
Assuming we create a rigged game:
there are 8 red squares: Maximum scoring occurs when you go round the board (from red square to red square)
assume we use 7 ‘cheap’ tiles to go to the edge: first turn 58 points then
#2 (7+1)*3+(8)*3+50=98
#3 (7+1)*3+(30+16+5+8)*3+50=275
#4 ((20+16+5+8)+(32))*3+50=293
now for the big one:
#5 (20+16+5+8+32)*3 + (8+18) *3 + 50=437
#6 (4+18+9+10)*3 + 50 =223
#7 (4+18+6+10+2)*3 + (2+7)*3 + 50=197
#8 (2+6+8)*3 +50 =98
#9 (2+6+8)3 + (7+7+10) 3 + 50=146
30 tiles left (all 1 point)
#10 (8+8)*2 + 50 = 82
#11 (8+8)*2 + 50 = 82
#12 (4+7)*2 + 50 =72
#13 (4+7)*2 + 50= 72
and the score for player #1 = 2303
I’m sure that by tweaking my setup there must be +/- 200 points left to find.
:smack: nevermind 