ME
Worth 4 points before any premium square, and the 34th highest-scoring of 96 — tied with 18 others.
ME extends into 7 three-letter words, which is the 26th 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
- E→EME
- D→MED
- L→MEL
- M→MEM
- N→MEN
- T→MET
- W→MEW
Not all of them are equally reachable, which a bare count of 7 hides. ME hooks on 7 distinct letters, and the ones you are likeliest to be holding are E (60% of opening racks), N (36% of opening racks) and T (36% of opening racks). The rarest is W, at 14%.
How often you can actually play it
Out of an opening rack, 7.48% of the time you hold the letters for ME outright, the 44th likeliest of 96 — tied with 8 others. Counting a blank as whichever letter is missing lifts that to 15.19%, 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
ME backwards is EM, 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.