ABSP Documents

• Rules of the Association
• Concise Tournament Organiser's Handbook 2024
  • Complete Organiser's Guide (March 2015)
• Director's Guide (2012)
• Tournament Result/Challenge slips

Game Rules

Since 2011, all ABSP-rated tournaments use the WESPA rules in force at the date of the tournament. These documents are all published by WESPA.

If you have a query on the rules of Scrabble, please note there are differences between the "box-lid" rules and the documents listed here. In tournament play, the WESPA rules take precedence. All the resources are available from the WESPA site.

• WESPA Game Rules version 5.1 (from Jan 2025-onwards)
• Summary of changes between version 4 and version 5.1 (PDF)

These versions of the rules have been superseded, but are provided for historical reference:

• WESPA Game Rules version 4 (from Jan 2020-Dec 2024)
• Summary of changes between version 3 and version 4 (PDF)
• WESPA Game Rules version 3 (between Jan 2016-Dec 2019)
• WESPA Game Rules version 1

Resources

Find out more about:

• The Scrabble Player's Handbook
• Scrabble Scoresheets
• Advice for New Players
• Mike O'Rourke's An A-Z of Variants
• Mike O'Rourke's Mnemonic Book (Updated for CSW 2012)

OnBoard

These are historical editions of OnBoard, the now-discontinued journal of ABSP. The most recent editions are on the ABSP Database (requires login)

• OnBoard Omnibus 2017
• Issue 143 April 2012
• Issue 142 February 2012
• Issue 141 December 2011
• Issue 140 October 2011
• Issue 139 August 2011
• Issue 138 June 2011
• Issue 137 April 2011
• Issue 135 December 2010
• Issue 134 October 2010