What the Hint System Does

The BEDMAS hint system generates up to five valid equation placements from your current rack tiles and board state. It ranks them by score and shows you the top options. Critically, it does not show you the single best strategic move — it shows you the highest-scoring valid placements without considering what those placements set up for future turns. You still need to evaluate which of the five options is strategically optimal.

The Right Way to Use Hints

Use hints as a last resort, not a first step. Before requesting a hint, spend at least 20 to 30 seconds genuinely searching for a valid move. If you find one — even a low-scoring one — evaluate it against the hint options before deciding. Sometimes your instinct finds a strategically better move that the hint does not prioritise, because the hint optimises for immediate score rather than board position.

Using Hints for Learning

The best use of the hint system is educational: after you have found a move yourself, check the hints to see what you missed. This builds pattern recognition faster than either playing without hints or relying on hints entirely. You develop your own move-finding ability by trying first, then immediately see what additional options existed by checking the hints. Over time, your first-pass move quality will converge toward what the hint system would suggest.

Breaking Hint Dependency

If you find yourself requesting a hint on every turn, try this deliberate practice: play five complete games without using hints at all, even if you can only find low-scoring moves. Accept lower scores in those games. This forces your brain to search harder and develop genuine pattern recognition rather than outsourcing the search to the hint system. Players who go through this discomfort consistently outperform hint-dependent players of equal experience after those five games, because they have built internal move-finding capability rather than a reliance on external assistance.