DO
Worth 3 points before any premium square, and the 44th lowest-scoring of 96 — tied with 7 others.
DO extends into 12 three-letter words, which is the 36th most extendable of 96 — tied with 4 others. That is the number worth memorising: a two-letter word is a place to put tiles, but a well-hooked one is a place to put them where the board stays open.
Every hook
- A→ADO
- U→UDO
- C→DOC
- E→DOE
- G→DOG
- L→DOL
- M→DOM
- N→DON
- R→DOR
- S→DOS
- T→DOT
- W→DOW
Not all of them are equally reachable, which a bare count of 12 hides. DO hooks on 12 distinct letters, and the ones you are likeliest to be holding are E (60% of opening racks), A (49% of opening racks) and N (36% of opening racks). The rarest is W, at 14%.
How often you can actually play it
Out of an opening rack, 10.47% of the time you hold the letters for DO outright, the 34th likeliest of 96 — tied with 4 others. Counting a blank as whichever letter is missing lifts that to 17.07%, though spending one of the two blanks on a two-letter word is rarely the play. Exact hypergeometrics over the 100-tile bag, not a simulation.
It reverses
DO backwards is OD, which is also good. That is how most of this list is actually learned — 46 of the 96 come in reversible pairs, so knowing one gets you the other free.