TO
Worth 2 points before any premium square, and the lowest-scoring of the 96 — tied with 35 others.
TO extends into 11 three-letter words, which is the 41st most extendable of 96 — tied with 3 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 TO makes a word.
- D→TOD
- E→TOE
- G→TOG
- M→TOM
- N→TON
- O→TOO
- P→TOP
- R→TOR
- T→TOT
- W→TOW
- Y→TOY
Not all of them are equally reachable, which a bare count of 11 hides. TO hooks on 11 distinct letters, and the ones you are likeliest to be holding are E (60% of opening racks), O (45% of opening racks) and N (36% of opening racks). The rarest is Y, at 14%.
How often you can actually play it
Out of an opening rack, 14.90% of the time you hold the letters for TO outright, the 17th likeliest of 96 — tied with 3 others. Counting a blank as whichever letter is missing lifts that to 21.81%, 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.