OM
Worth 4 points before any premium square, and the 34th highest-scoring of 96 — tied with 18 others.
OM 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
- D→DOM
- M→MOM
- N→NOM
- P→POM
- R→ROM
- T→TOM
- Y→YOM
- S→OMS
Not all of them are equally reachable, which a bare count of 8 hides. OM 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 Y, at 14%.
How often you can actually play it
Out of an opening rack, 5.52% of the time you hold the letters for OM outright, the 27th least likely of 96 — tied with 10 others. Counting a blank as whichever letter is missing lifts that to 11.75%, 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
OM backwards is MO, 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.