What is "tile tracking"

n. (context Scrabble English) The act of keeping track of which letters have been played, usually by crossing them off a printed list.

Tile tracking is a technique most commonly associated with the game of Scrabble and similar word games. It refers to the practice of keeping track of letters played on the game board, typically by crossing letters off a score sheet or tracking grid as the tiles are played. Tracking tiles can be an important aid to strategy, especially during the endgame when there are no tiles left to draw, where careful tracking allows each player to deduce the remaining unseen letters on the opponent's final rack. The marking off of each letter from a pre-printed tracking grid as the tiles are played is a standard feature of tournament play.

Tracking sheets come in many varieties, and are often customized by players in an attempt to make the manual process of recording, tracking and counting tiles easier, more intuitive, and less prone to error.