Leave in Hotspots, Scrabble and Literati

The letters remaining on a player's rack after making a move is commonly referred to as the leave. Skilful players seek to optimise the letters left on their rack each move, keeping the letters most likely to be useful in future moves or letters which are generally useful. Some letters are much more versatile as more words can be made with certain letters. The most valuable letters in Scrabble are those contained in the word RETAINS and this is applicable for the most part in Hotspots and Yahoo Literati.

Sophisticated arguments about the best possible move for a given game situation can be made, but leave is a crucially important consideration the majority of the time.