The Luck and Skill of Scrabble

Scrabble is a game that involves both skill and luck. There's skill in knowing the words you can play and — especially — the most advantageous ways to play them. But there's also luck in the tiles you draw randomly from the bag: get saddled with a rack containing four I's and there's usually not much you can do. That's why professional Scrabble tournaments are decided by playing multiple games between each pair of players. Tournaments do this to average out the variability in tile draws between players, to make the deciding factor skill rather than luck. But how much...