In Scrabble, the blank is the most valuable tile. It greatly increases the chances of using all your tiles in a single turn. This is called a bingo and is worth a 50-point bonus.

There I sat on the third day in a warm hotel ballroom in Albany, in the dead of winter. Having made the choice to walk in a snowstorm from the Greyhound station to the venue, I was now paying for it on the third day. Fighting back coughs, sneezes, and especially sleep was incredibly difficult, but I had to stay awake and play more Scrabble.

I counted the number of blanks I got in every game on a separate sheet, for my own records. I had a theory that the Tile Gods were conspiring against me, and thus far, I was right. There are two blanks in a 100-tile bag, so the chance of drawing both in one game should be around 25%. The chance of not drawing both for 17 games in a row? 0.75%. I was resigned to a 24-game tournament with no blanks, when in the 18th game, I drew one early, made a bingo, and drew the second blank!
I lost that game.