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Top 20 openers by entropy
Horizontal bars show entropy in bits. Longer bar = more information gained on average from that guess. Top words cluster tightly — the gap between #1 and #10 is under 0.1 bits.
Guess distribution by opener (10,000 games)
How many guesses each opener needed to solve 10,000 randomly drawn Wordle secrets. All four openers solved every game within 6 guesses. Most games resolve in 3 guesses.
How we tested
We scored every word in the Wordineer guess dictionary (715 five-letter words) against our 642-word answer pool using Shannon entropy: for each candidate guess, we computed what color pattern it would produce against every possible answer, grouped answers by pattern, and scored the guess by how evenly it split the pool. Higher entropy = better guess.
We then simulated 10,000 games: a random opener (Python's random.Random(42), seed 42), followed by always playing the highest-entropy suggestion, until solved or 6 guesses exceeded. Secrets were drawn uniformly from the 642-word answer pool — not the actual NYT sequence, which isn't public.
Important limitation: Our word lists are Wordineer's curated sets, not the exact NYT lists. The NYT Wordle answer pool is not public and changes over time. Our rankings reflect our own data and will differ from analyzes that use other word lists. Full methodology and Python source code: see cite box below.
Cite or link this analysis
Want to use these rankings in a real game? The Wordle Helper applies the same entropy algorithm live — enter your guesses and get the optimal next word instantly.
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Play a full self-contained Wordle game at the Wordle game. Browse past answers at Wordle answers. For a random 5-letter word, try the random Wordle word generator.