ET
Worth 2 points before any premium square, and the lowest-scoring of the 96 — tied with 35 others.
ET extends into 17 three-letter words, which is the 8th most extendable of 96 — tied with 5 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→BET
- F→FET
- G→GET
- H→HET
- J→JET
- L→LET
- M→MET
- N→NET
- P→PET
- R→RET
- S→SET
- T→TET
- V→VET
- W→WET
- Y→YET
- A→ETA
- H→ETH
Not all of them are equally reachable, which a bare count of 17 hides. ET hooks on 16 distinct letters, and the ones you are likeliest to be holding are A (49% of opening racks), N (36% of opening racks) and R (36% of opening racks). The rarest is J, at 7%.
How often you can actually play it
Out of an opening rack, 20.15% of the time you hold the letters for ET 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.