Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Letter Distribution

I'm addressing words acceptable in the US - English version of Scrabble and Yahoo Literati. It is helpful to know the availability of letters in the game.

There are 100 tiles .

There are 2 blank tiles. These are wild and you can pick any letter for the tile. The blank tile by itself is worth zero points in play; however, it gives you a wider variety of words to use your tiles on. It is very useful, if you know your words and are aiming for a bingo!

10 distinct lettered tiles are worth exactly 1 point each:
A, E, I, O, U, L, N, R, S, T
The letter -e- is available 12 times.
The letters -a- and -i- are available 9 times each.
The letter -o- is available 8 times.
The letters -n- and -r- and -t- are available 6 times each.
The letters -l- and -s- and -u- are available 4 times each.

2 distinct lettered tiles worth exactly 2 points each: D, G
The letter -d- is available 4 times.
The letter -g- is available 3 times.

4 distinct lettered tiles worth exactly 3 points each: B, C, M, P
Each tile is available two times.

5 distinct lettered tiles worth exactly 4 points each: F, H, V, W, Y
Each of these are also available two times.

The K tile occurs once, and is worth exactly 5 points.

2 distinct lettered tiles worth exactly 8 points each: J, X
Each of these are available once.

2 distinct lettered tiles worth exactly 10 points each: Q, Z
Each of these are available once.

In addressing 7-letter words available for play, I'm taking into account this particular tile distribution.

Exactly 4 Ss

5, 7-letter words with the letter -s- repeating 4 times:

assists possess sassies sissies swisses

Exactly 3 Is

26, 7-letter words with the letter -i- repeating 3 times:

bikinis finikin gingili idiotic ileitis illicit illitic incipit incivil indicia
inhibin inhibit initial insipid iridium irising lipidic lixivia militia minikin miniski rilievi ripieni silicic simioid vivific

Exactly 4 Us

1, 7-letter word with the letter -u- repeating 4 times:

muumuus

Exactly 4 Os

7, 7-letter words with the letter -o- repeating exactly 4 times:

booboos boohoos hoodoos hoopoos koodoos oloroso voodoos

Exactly 4 Es

11, 7-letter words with the letter -e- repeating exactly 4 times:

beebees electee exegete freebee peebeen peewees
referee teepees veepees weeweed weewees

Exactly 4 As

7-letter words with the letter -a- repeating 4 times:

atalaya