Word games
Wordgrid - words made across and down from a rack of seven tiles, for two to four players, any seat the computer's - and crosswords, set by each club and solved alone or with friends.
Wordgrid
Make words across and down from a rack of seven tiles, on a board of premium squares that double or treble a letter or a word, for two to four players - any seat the computer's.
- Boards from 13 by 13 to 17 by 17, and the British or the American word list.
- Each word and its score shown as you put your tiles down, before you play them.
- What a word means, from the table's Words tab: meanings from Open English WordNet and Wiktionary.
- Another game at the same table when one is over, and a Wordgrid for visitors to try.
Crosswords
Each club sets its own crosswords - British grids, American grids where every letter is crossed, and minis of 5 or 7 squares - and opens and closes each when it chooses. Solve alone, or with friends at a table, each with their own letters.
- Check a letter or a word when you are stuck, or reveal one.
- Timed from your first letter by the centre's own clock, with the results of everybody who solved it.
- One crossword for everybody: a room's leader board where each solves the same grid once, with no check or reveal.
- A crossword and a mini of the day for visitors to try.
How our computer players think
At Wordgrid the computer sees only what you would in its seat: the board and its own rack - never your tiles, nor what is left in the bag.
- It finds every word it could play from its rack, in every place on the board, by walking the word list as a tree of letters - the method of Appel and Jacobson - and scores each one.
- How well it plays is the table's choice. At its best it plays the highest-scoring word it can find; steadily, one of its four best, so that it is not always the best; casually, something middling and short. With nothing it can play, it changes tiles - keeping a blank and an S - while the bag has enough, or passes.
- A table may also keep the computer to everyday or common words, so that it plays words you know - while you may play any word in the list.
- It never plays a slur, a swear word or anything vulgar, whatever the list allows.
The crosswords are made with the computer's help - a grid filled from the list's words with a meaning, each clue drafted from that meaning - and then every word and clue is the club's setter's to change before it opens.
The other games
Back to the centre; how to find your way around, and what it costs (nothing): frequently asked questions.