EN
Worth 2 points before any premium square, and the lowest-scoring of the 96 — tied with 35 others.
EN extends into 15 three-letter words, which is the 16th most extendable of 96 — tied with 2 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
- B→BEN
- D→DEN
- F→FEN
- G→GEN
- H→HEN
- K→KEN
- M→MEN
- P→PEN
- S→SEN
- T→TEN
- W→WEN
- Y→YEN
- D→END
- G→ENG
- S→ENS
Not all of them are equally reachable, which a bare count of 15 hides. EN hooks on 12 distinct letters, and the ones you are likeliest to be holding are T (36% of opening racks), D (26% of opening racks) and S (26% of opening racks). The rarest is K, at 7%.
How often you can actually play it
Out of an opening rack, 20.15% of the time you hold the letters for EN outright, the 4th likeliest of 96 — tied with 4 others. Counting a blank as whichever letter is missing lifts that to 27.80%, 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
EN backwards is NE, 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.