FA
Worth 5 points before any premium square, and the 12th highest-scoring of 96 — tied with 21 others.
FA extends into 8 three-letter words, which is the 34th least extendable of 96 — tied with 7 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
No letter in front of FA makes a word.
- D→FAD
- G→FAG
- N→FAN
- R→FAR
- S→FAS
- T→FAT
- X→FAX
- Y→FAY
Not all of them are equally reachable, which a bare count of 8 hides. FA hooks on 8 distinct letters, and the ones you are likeliest to be holding are N (36% of opening racks), R (36% of opening racks) and T (36% of opening racks). The rarest is X, at 7%.
How often you can actually play it
Out of an opening rack, 6.06% of the time you hold the letters for FA outright, the 44th least likely of 96 — tied with 15 others. Counting a blank as whichever letter is missing lifts that to 12.69%, 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.