RE
Worth 2 points before any premium square, and the lowest-scoring of the 96 — tied with 35 others.
RE 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
- A→ARE
- E→ERE
- I→IRE
- O→ORE
- B→REB
- C→REC
- D→RED
- E→REE
- F→REF
- G→REG
- I→REI
- M→REM
- P→REP
- S→RES
- T→RET
- V→REV
- X→REX
Not all of them are equally reachable, which a bare count of 17 hides. RE hooks on 15 distinct letters, and the ones you are likeliest to be holding are E (60% of opening racks), A (49% of opening racks) and I (49% of opening racks). The rarest is X, at 7%.
How often you can actually play it
Out of an opening rack, 20.15% of the time you hold the letters for RE 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
RE backwards is ER, 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.