• You need to be a member to play.
• Anyone can watch a public match, but only signed-in members can take a seat and place a tile.
• Every match is a scheduled fixture; with two seats First and Second, a name, and usually a kick-off time. For a tournament, the organiser creates the match and seats both players, so you may simply find yourself already in it.
• Taking a seat: If a seat is free, click Take a seat. If both are already filled, you are already a player and the board will say so.
• The kick-off time: A match cannot be played before its appointed time, even with both players present. The board tells you when it begins, and starts accepting moves by itself when the time comes. There will be no need to reload.

Nobody can see your rack not your opponent, not the spectators. The order of the bag is hidden from everyone too.

What everyone can see is how many tiles are left in the bag and how many each player is holding. Same things you could count at a real table. Late in a game, if the bag is empty and your opponent has two tiles left, they are two turns from going out.

You have three options on your turn: play a word, swap tiles, or pass.

Playing a Word

Click a tile on your rack to pick it up, then click the square you want it on. Repeat for as many tiles as you want to place. Nothing is sent until you commit, so you can take tiles back and rearrange freely.

The rules the board enforces:

• All your tiles go in one row or one column, with no gaps in the word you make.
• The very first word of the game must cover the star in the middle, and must be at least two tiles long.
• Every word after that must touch something already on the board.
• Every word you form must be in the dictionary; the one you meant, and every cross-word your tiles create as a side effect.

About the Dictionary

Word Duel uses ENABLE, an open word list of about 168,500 words. There are no challenges in Word Duel, and you cannot play an invalid word. The board checks every word the moment you commit and simply refuses the turn, telling you which word it did not recognise. Nothing is lost. Your tiles come back and you try something else.

This is a deliberate difference from playing at a table. A challenge system exists in paper word games because there is no dictionary at the table. Here there is one, so a wrong word costs you nothing but a rethink.

Blanks: 

There are three blanks in the bag. A blank can stand for any letter, and you choose which when you place it. A blank is always worth zero, even on a double-letter square, but the word multipliers still apply to the word it is part of.

“Your opponent moved. Board updated.”

Not an error:

You both committed at nearly the same instant and theirs arrived first. The board redraws and you take your turn again. Any tiles you had staged are returned to your rack, because the board underneath them has changed.

The order matters, and it is worth understanding because it is where the big scores come from.

1. Letter premiums first: A tile on a double-letter or triple-letter square is worth 2× or 3× its ownvalue.

2. Add up the word.

3. Then the word multipliers: A word covering a double-word square scores double; a triple-wordsquare, triple. If you cover two, they multiply together two double-words is four times the word, not three.

4. Every cross-word is scored separately, and it gets the benefit of the same premium squares you just covered.

5. Using all seven tiles in one turn scores a bonus of 40, added last  so the bonus itself is nevermultiplied.

A premium square only counts on the turn a tile lands on it. Once covered, it is spent for the rest of the game.

There are exactly two ways, and the board works it out for itself.

Nobody can move

Six scoreless turns in a row three each, ends the game. A scoreless turn is a pass or a swap. At that point both players have the value of their own remaining tiles deducted. Then the higher score wins Equal scores are a draw.

There are no clocks

No per-move time control. Two long backstops exist so a match cannot sit unfinished forever: If it is your move and you do not move for three days, you forfeit.
If a seat is still empty a short while after kick-off (usually fifteen minutes), the player who turned up wins by default.

There is no draw by agreement: A draw has to arrive on the scores.

The replay controls under the board step through the whole game one turn at a time. Racks stay hidden in a replay, exactly as they were during play.
If the match is public, anyone can open its page. If it is members-only, the link from your own match page carries a viewing key, so anyone you send it to can watch without signing in.

“… is not in the dictionary.”

One of the words you made is not on the list. It names the word it rejected. Your tiles are still yours.

“Tiles must go in one row or one column, with no gaps.”

You have placed tiles that do not form asingle unbroken line.

“A word has to touch what is already on the board.”

Your word is floating. Every word after thefirst must connect.

“The first word has to cover the star.”

The opening word must cross the centre square.

“There are not enough tiles left in the bag to swap.”

The bag is nearly empty. Play or pass instead. My staged tiles disappeared. Your opponent played while you were building. The board changed underneath your tiles, so they came back to your rack.

The page reloads on its own.

A signed-in session expires after a day or so, which an overnight match will outlive. Nothing is lost.