What's the Best Opening Wordle Word? It Depends on the Opponent | A Game Theory 101 Investigation

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Wordle is a game similar to Lingo, jotto, Mastermind, and cows and bulls. The player tries to guess a five letter word. If that word is wrong, the player learns which letters from the guessed word are in the correct word, and which letters are also in the correct position. After six wrong guesses, the player loses. You can play it here: www.powerlanguage.co.uk/wordle/
What's the best first word? There are many popular ones, including ADIEU, AUDIO, RAISE, ATONE, and STARE. This video explains that the best word depends on whom you are playing against, and that a strategic opponent is different from an astrategic computer. In fact, the Wheel of Fortune bonus round is an application of the former case.

[@richardclark1127]

1: Stern 2: Audio, Adieu, or Audit depending on what hits in word #1. In order of priority: the T is yellow, I choose Audit. If the E is yellow I choose Adieu. Otherwise I choose Audio 3: Champ, Chimp, Chomp, or Chump for word 3 depending on what hits in the first 2 words. Always choose Chomp if I used Adieu or Audit to make up for the lost O

[@mesplin3]

My brother and I used to play battleship. I won the first round by consistently guessing spots that could contain the most ships. On the second round, my brother hid his ships towards the edge so that guessing in the center would be wasted guesses. He won. My conclusion was that in battleship, you want to hide your ships in such a way so that the other player is indifferent to a particular opening choice, for larger ships it is better to hide the ship just a bit closer to an edge than picking a spot uniformly at random.

[@trevorsgaragemusings]

1: Ourie 2: Salty Guess #1 covers 4 of the 5 vowels while guess #2 covers the 5th vowel, the tricky "sometime a vowel - y" while also incorporating 3 other common consonants. This strategy has worked well for me.

[@steelbuttempered3772]

This kinda works but if you want to get more greens you have to keep in mind the positioning of the letters. For example, r is usually good in the second position or the second to last position.

[@kumarpatel6294]

Considering the frequency of all letters, I find 'IRATE' very useful. It contains the first, second, third, fourth and sixth most frequently used letters in the language. Second word will depend on the outcome of the first word.

[@mattpotter8725]

Surely is about the frequency of letters in 5 letter words, and even more so in the words that are actually possible answers in the game (they only use fairly common words so not obscure ones). There will be some letters that are common in longer words, but not the possible answers. With this information you can make better educated guesses. Irate might be a great guess, it looks good to me, and gives you a lot of information, but I'm not sure using the most frequently used letters in all words is the way to go.

[@kumarpatel6294]

@@mattpotter8725 you are right. Mine was just a simplified assumption. Main thing I thought was that a 5 letter word should contain at least one and quite possibly 2 vowels and A, E and I are the most frequent vowels hence I selected IRATE.. If no vowel appears then I go for MOUND which contains quite common letters and the remaining vowels.

[@owenaspinall2046]

@@kumarpatel6294 I think Sound would be better than Mound.

[@kumarpatel6294]

@@owenaspinall2046 makes sense. S occurs more frequently than M.

[@ronniechilds2002]

@@kumarpatel6294 And more words start with the letter 's' than any other letter.

[@singing4dlord08]

Adieu is always good because it knocks out every vowel except for "O"

[@shrugalic]

I progressed from "arose" to "slate" to "sauce", each of which is the best according to a particular strategy

[@pizzaguy552]

I think its much more interesting to think about what are the best 2 or even 3 guesses for Wordle. I'm no wordsmith, but often guess STEAM-> COUGH->BLIND because it gets all the vowels and a lot of good consonants. I'll only deviate if one of my first two guesses gives me 3 or more letters.

[@jace152]

I just played wordle for the first time ever and got it in 3 guesses I did Soare-Sorus-Sugar

[@rambam77]

AUDIO RENTS This opening word combo gets vowels and most used consonants

[@livinb450]

Route with Slain, hits the rstln on wheel of fortune and all the vowels, if you play easy mode.

[@jbeutell]

@@rambam77 I use STERN and I have used TERNS. Not sure if position-wise one is better.

[@avam6080]

i do ROUND -> ALIKE to get all vowels and some good consonants

[@whatever007ism]

Statistically the best first word is ORATE. It has the highest frequencies of letters used in all words. Use words where you don’t repeat the same letters already used and are incorrect. Stare, doing, lucky, junks, Whomp, Calyx, Fritz.

[@owenaspinall2046]

Roate is slightly better position wise, and Soare trades T being more common than S for S being really likely to be the first letter, and R in a better spot.

[@ShivanshSharma]

I use SHARE, POINT as my first 2 guesses. It contains 4 of the 5 vowels and also some common occurring consonants. If necessary, I use MUCKY as my third guess as it contains the last vowel(U) , Y(which can also be used as a vowel sometimes) and some other common consonants. I usually get the answer in 4th try after this. Although a letter occurring twice in the word confuses me.

[@ossi2647]

I do audio and chest

[@ossi2647]

Or adieu and something ekse

[@owenaspinall2046]

I would recommend Lucky over Mucky, since L is more common.

[@bobbytran3878]

I've been using irate since it has 3 vowels and r and t are pretty common but after watching this video, i want to try adieu and audio!

[@chandlergloyd4230]

I think irate is better. the 5 most common letters are e, a, r, i, o respectively. theres no word with all five of those letters but t is 6th most common and replacing o with t leaves us with the letters of irate. However I think if artie is allowed that would be even better because it starts with a which i believe is a more common starting letter than i

[@hkmarhk]

Same, I use irate and the lousy.

[@beausinkler224]

I've played #1 ALIEN and #2 STORY a lot lately, with good success (4s and 3s more than 5s). Between them, they have the four most used vowels A E I and O and the most common consonants (as used on the Wheel of Fortune bonus rounds - R S T L N and E). The Y comes up in the final words somewhat frequently, so if it's not in the solved word, it's helpful to rule it out early in the game. I used to use MIAOU as #1 and then STYLE as#2 to capture all of the vowels, the Y, and three of the common consonants. Both choices work well. More often than not, with either combination, I get three of the letters in the final word. Once I have three, I use pencil and paper to shuffle the three around, writing down possibilities. Then on turn #3, I choose the most common of the possibilities. Sometimes I get it on 3, but more often it's on 4. I get it on 5 when there are more than three or four good possibilities and I simply chose the wrong word.

[@michaelempeigne3519]

most words have a vowel in it, and if adieu is played and only the e is good, then there is likely to be an "o" in the word. of course the d is no good but knowing an o and an e are likely and a lot of words have oke, ore, and oce for endings, one may be inclined to try the word chore out to see what it might hold

[@marshwetland3808]

I picked TINES for the first time ever playing, because it has some of the most common letters in the alphabet, T, E, S. Got the answer correctly on the 3rd row. I will try it again if I play again. Obviously playing against a human would be different, as the video points out. It's brutal playing Scrabble against a computer.

[@1217Barry]

Without giving my words, I start every day with three words. It takes away the possibility of guessing the correct word in two or three lines(although it WAS my second word once). The three words I start with have no duplications and use all the vowels including Y! Only 11 consonants are not in my first three words. Most times I get at least three letters….sometimes all five and then the fourth line is usually the final word!

[@SarahBurnette1007]

Some opening words I've had success with are LEARN, RAISE, AUDIO, and SALET.

[@bedsdavec]

The most common letters have the smallest value in the word game Scrabble tiles, leading me to first two words LIONS URATE The most common letters are on the left hand side of the QWERTY keyboard to slow down the operator leading me to try TRADE then LIONS. early low number of guesses successes have led me to stick to those 3d word is currently CHUMP which seems to prevent the scenario where only 1 letter is unknown but there are 7 possible fits. So far I am only being beaten by words I do not know. If I can settle on a method I might write a program.

[@ahgflyguy]

I wonder how often numerical analysis is used do detect when a particular scenario which has typically been dominated by random effects or random behavior has fairly suddenly become dominated by strategic behavior.

[@Gametheory101]

If my consumption of sports media has offered any insight there, the answer is "way too often".

[@paulpurpura191]

Three words that work well for me are “round”, “climb”, and “hates”. You cover all 5 vowels, and the 10 consonants are the letters that are used most often in words. This method is not good if you want to solve the puzzle in three words or less, but the increased number of letters gives you a better chance of winning. Most of the time I solve the in four tries.

[@flatfingertuning727]

Note that "round" could be a somewhat dangerous word in hard mode, at least if one is interested in worst-case outcomes, since a four-greens response woudl make it necessary for a player to use a separate guess for each of bound, found, hound, mound, pound, sound, and wound.

[@RexBoggs]

I start with TONER as those are very common letters in the English language, and ER is a common ending.

[@Fidget1764FreoFanman]

Great! You can use SCAIL as the second guess because they are the rest of the most common letters.

[@RexBoggs]

@@Fidget1764FreoFanman Since I wrote this, my new starting word is ROATE. I have been very happy with it. This has an A as does SCAIL. What would be the best 2nd word after ROATE?

[@RexBoggs]

I had no letters correct today with ROATE, so I tried SLINK for my 2nd word.

[@NovaaZR]

The best starter isn't just the most vowels, it should be some letters you don't use often, and if you get some yellows/greens, you can use those with letters you do use often, to get a good word.

[@mesplin3]

This sounds fun to play.

[@championbeam4018]

I use audit and slope (for quordle, octordle, or if no letter from audit are in the work)

[@paulamoses408]

I use pause, cause or poise because I like to try and get a handle on the vowels. I am thinking of trying liase next ( if Wordle will accept that alternate spelling of liaise.)

[@JECastle4]

I find crane a good opener. For the ultimate game theory wordle, try absurdle where the word is the worst answer consistent with your guesses.

[@themrwatermelon]

I usually beat wordle in the 4th, 5th, or 6th guess. My strategy is to go Tubes, then Fling, then Champ, then Wordy. This knocks out all the common letters. So the word can only have the letters that were revealed, or the letters that were revealed + a duplicate, or the letters that were revealed + an uncommon letter

[@theresaloomis9740]

I see this as "cheating"

[@DevineHughes]

I always start off with the word Alone or Awoke. Then I follow up with the word Unity

[@PunmasterSTP]

I vaguely remember playing either Wordle or something like it when I was a kid, and I doubt I would have thought about it again (at least for a long time) were it not for this video! I was also interested to see a conversation already going strong in the comments. Thanks for building a fun, interesting place for people like me to hang out!

[@thanatoskw8285]

I stick with audio. Then guess 2 is usually waste, syrup, risen, or other, since the most common outcome of audio is one correct but misplaced vowel.

[@SCSilk]

A group of us play every day and post our guesses. One of the members also uses ADIEU as a starting word. Knowing this, am I cheating if I pick a different starting word?

[@DANIELMABUSE]

I would say that if you use "adieu" and you find out four of the letters are excluded and only "e" is left you have obtained a lot of information. I wonder how much power the word setter actually has in the face of logic. In regular colour mastermind there is none (its not really a strategic game). You can make your first guess before your opponent sets out the colours, and do just as well as if you wait to make your first guess. I do agree that in hangman/wheel of fortune there is a lot of strategy in choosing the word based on what your opponent will guess.

[@mesplin3]

You could make mastermind a competitive/strategic game by seeing which player can guess the other's combination first.

[@DANIELMABUSE]

@@mesplin3 Yes but there is no game theory in mastermind, it is all logic. It would be competitive, but with two good players it would be like snakes and ladders. I am not sure if you play mastermind but to illustrate what I mean a good mastermind player will do just as well if they guess before the combination is set (i.e., the setter knows the combination) or if they guess afterwards. There is nothing devious the setter can do. In Wordle I am not sure if the same applies.

[@mesplin3]

@@DANIELMABUSE suppose the setter cheats. He doesn't pick a combination or rather picks a few combinations that have nothing in common. Then as the guesser picks combinations the setter chooses whichever combination takes the guesser the most turns to get right. I'd argue that the cheating setter has an advantage against an honest setter.

[@DANIELMABUSE]

@@mesplin3 The word version of this is called Absurdle. I am not sure it would have any effect on Mastermind actually but would have to do the math to be sure. I think the setter would simply have the same constraints as the guesser, and would have to provide a new combination consistent with all the clues. If the setter simply put down a random guess inconsistent with previous clues then presumably that can go on a long time. Forever almost. But that is hardly interesting.

[@mesplin3]

@@DANIELMABUSE when I say the setter cheats, I do not mean that the setter is being inconsistent with the clues. I'm assuming that the clues are perfectly consistent. When I say the setter cheats, I mean that the setter thinks of several combinations and finally picks one when necessary. For example, assume there is only 1 slot and 4 different colors {R,Y,B,G}. An honest setter will pick a color, ie {Y} and the guesser takes a few turns to correctly identify the correct color. A cheating setter won't pick a color til the guesser has exhausted all other colors. "You can make your first guess before your opponent sets out the colours, and do just as well as if you wait to make your first guess." I disagree with this.

[@briteddy9759]

Adieu: I play against the computer and want the info on the vowels first. Then I burn another word so I have 10 more common letters covered.

[@riversong6681]

‘Suite’ and then ‘adorn’ have worked great for me.

[@eduardoxenofonte4004]

3:39 bro i'm watching this on feb 28, and today's wordle is actually CHOKE lol, how'd you do that?

[@fionapomme]

I use train and louse, covers all the vowels, and the golden, RSTLN.

[@officiallyaninja]

i choose odium, because it's the name of a character from a book i like a lot

[@shrugalic]

Good book(s) ^_^

[@LeeDon76]

I like to use ocean or daisy. Usually get it in 4. Once in 2.

[@reginabeasley872]

Recently just started playing wordle it’s fun I usually start with a word containing the letters aei

[@JRacer524]

I think it's harder to guess the word if the answer has two of the same letters, such as "elder."

[@fishgameproducts7851]

I use DEAIR and SAINT with success - averaging under 4 tries and five (5) 2's out of 110. Also PAEON and PEONY

[@flatfingertuning727]

I'd like to see more analysis of how hard mode would interact with this. Words that fit the pattern S_A_E would have a high likelihood of having the opponent land in a situation where multiple words would be possible, but each guess would only be able to eliminate one.

[@NoobDab1]

I always play hard mode. I did a search of the database today and found guesses to stay away from as long as possible: _IGHT (9 solutions) and _OUND (8 solutions). Making one of these guesses early can lock you in.

[@flatfingertuning727]

@@NoobDab1 I don't think four-letter-placed scenarios are the only problem. If one guesses BIGOT and gets _IG_T, I think one would be stuck having to individually guess DIGIT, EIGHT, FIGHT, LIGHT, MIGHT, NIGHT, RIGHT, SIGHT, TIGHT, WIGHT--ten solutions.

[@NoobDab1]

@@flatfingertuning727 Very true. Happened to me twice in about 100 games.

[@flatfingertuning727]

@@NoobDab1 Actually, on further consideration my example was flawed: after getting _IG_T, one could guess EIGHT and based upon the response know not only whether the answer was EIGHT, but also whether it was DIGIT, so one would be no worse off than with _IGHT, but having to separately guess nine words is still pretty terrible.

[@ASimoneau]

If you want to basically guarantee finding the word by the fourth guess (at most), your first three words should be ADIEU, then SNORT, then GLYPH.

[@jimwallington437]

MANIC POLED HURTS - These 3 words contain the top 15 most frequently used letters in the English language.

[@cryptic7961]

1:28 the answer will never be a plural

[@ElmerBautista]

I tend to start with GREAT for my first word

[@Fidget1764FreoFanman]

First 2 gusses get rid of letters ACEILNORST. Commonly used letters. STAIR/CLONE CRATE/LOINS SCONE/TRAIL LATER/COINS TRICE/LOANS AROSE/CLINT CRIES/TONAL COAST/LINER LASER/TONIC

[@penguincute3564]

I seriously don’t know how to make a joke with a word in the title I thought for it ‘stead’ly but it just doesn’t work

[@Grisbi6]

What is 'hard mode?'

[@123craftygal]

Fling, Tubes, Champ, Wordy

[@jackcollins3038]

I have always started with the word SCORE.

[@cookiecaine4188]

I always go with beaus because it fills out three vowels and determines if it's one of 99% of plurals

[@dadjackwillextras2887]

It'll never be a plural

[@RobRobertson1000]

The thinking in all these videos is wrong. You need to come up with TWO words that use up most of the most common letters. Use guesses 1 and 2 like this and the amount of information is then enough to get the word in guess 3 or 4. I've done about 100 games and am averaging just under 4 guesses, with no fails. FYI - RAISE & COUNT

[@ekindilan8695]

Anime is my fave Using it will help A LOT

[@jillbainbridge6747]

I thought with the NYTimes there are no plurals "S"

[@transsiberiantrance]

I like 'aeons' as an opener

[@spitalhelles3380]

jesus

[@missouri8727]

i like to start with Bears ( E,A,R,S are key letters)

[@AndreasInLondon]

Share or stare would be better, then, as H and T are more common than B

[@lauriedevalve9]

I use AUDIO

[@koen4261]

If you would talk normal speed the video would be half the length

[@joannadelbuono6132]

mouse, house, adieu, trace

[@nancisailormoy9135]

I start with earth a lot

[@3_p3dals]

I’ve been using “least” then “round”. Fun game!

[@askjdfkjqwn]

Cream Ghost Knife Build

[@rambam77]

AUDIO RENTS This opening word combo gets vowels and most used consonants

[@lwdfn7479]

I use TRAIN and HOUSE. Covers the vowels, popular consonants, and the H appears in many blends (tho. maybe might have more luck with LOUSE?). Often guess the word on the 3rd try tho. get tripped up with multiple words that all have the same 4-letter ending (atch/ough/each...).

[@owenaspinall2046]

@@lwdfn7479 Louse would definitely be better.

[@dadjackwillextras2887]

@@owenaspinall2046 no

[@dadjackwillextras2887]

1:32 that'll never be the answer

[@francescathomas3502]

Since I only ever play the computer I always use the following 3 words as my opening words - Adieu, Short and Money if It is needed. Sometimes I have been lucky and guessed a word in 2 or 3 guesses. But most of the time I get it in 4 guesses. I'm pretty happy with that.

[@EnemyofCredulity]

Paste is a good word, but there is no best word.

[@patsydoughty2434]

Poise

[@raycast_rae]

audio then evils

[@ednaarbetman7445]

Raise

[@shamimbarolia1979]

cream, pious

[@JIEON.C]

I do Opium

[@yp1976]

MATHS

[@theresaloomis9740]

Tears

[@FectoMemoria]

ULCER. ULCER!

[@Stats804]

I go ALIEN first, then FOCUS if shut out. Usually score 3 or 4. For Wordle 2 I use ALIENS. lol Never failed...

[@owenaspinall2046]

I would recommend Scour over Focus.

[@kathyabel5338]

I'm new to the game Wordle, and I've been starting with BEACH, because that's where I live😘

[@richardhostelley7008]

Adieu

[@urbanlegendsandtrivia2023]

Roate.

[@royangel7674]

Alone

[@owenaspinall2046]

I guess CRUST would be a decent follow up, then GIMPY.

[@diffugerenives]

SIREN

[@Fredman2410]

Agree...then OCTAL and DUMPY.

[@johnmatthews8172]

Brain Drain Train Audio

[@chandlergloyd4230]

I didnt find this video particularly helpful. Wordle as it stands is a solvable game meaning that there must be a starting word that is objectively best.

[@diogeneslantern18]

AROSE/UNITY. From there my results are usually solved within the 3rd (rarer) and 4th (by far my most frequent) tries.

[@owenaspinall2046]

I always start with SOARE (Same letters as Arose but in more common positions), and UNITY is one of my three secondary guesses (the others being CLINT and UNLIT)

[@diogeneslantern18]

@@owenaspinall2046 oh thank you for these suggestions!