All tiles go into the bag; each player draws one to decide who plays first, and the player whose tile is nearest the beginning of the alphabet — with the blank preceding "A" — starts (Appendix 1); The exposed tiles are returned and the bag shaken to shuffle (Appendix 1); Each player then draws se...
Why people argue about this
People often assume that drawing a tile closest to 'A' starts the game, but it's actually based on which letter is nearest the blank tile (which comes before 'A'), thus potentially leading to confusion about what exactly constitutes "nearest.
