Tile tracking or 'consonant-heavy', how many S's or blanks are unseen, if an opponent is likely to have a bingo on their rack, or which tiles to play or conserve. For example, if Alice has the option of playing J(I)NN or J(I)LL, and four N's and zero L's remain unseen, then assuming both plays are otherwise equal (in terms of score, openings for the opponent), J(I)NN is likely the better play. Letter frequency lists for both Scrabble and Words with Friends are easily accessible (some versions of Scrabble have the tile distribution directly on the board) and, unlike word lists, using them
Maven (Scrabble) on Scrabble. The problem with Alpha Beta is that some Scrabble endgames require 14 moves to play out, and it is not possible to search that deeply. This is not merely a theoretical possibility. When one player is "stuck" with a tile, then playing out all remaining tiles is impossible. In that situation the optimal strategy for both sides is usually to play one tile on each turn. Maven uses a different approach. The B* search algorithm is a selective-depth, progressive-widening algorithm that guarantees to find optimal solutions to two-player games when one can compute upper and lower bounds on