How To Get Better At Wordle

Start With The Same Word Every Day

The biggest improvement most players can make has nothing to do with finding the perfect first word. It is using the same one every day. When your opener never changes, you learn what each color pattern means for the next guess, and you stop spending thought on the first move at all.

What makes an opener good is simple: it should be built from letters that appear in a lot of five letter words. Counted across every five letter word in our dictionary, the ten most common letters are S, E, A, R, O, I, L, T, N and U. Any word made mostly of those will do well. Words like AROSE, RAISE, SLATE, CRANE and STARE are popular for exactly this reason. Our 360 best starting words ranks the field and shows the method.

Avoid openers with a repeated letter. Your first guess exists to buy information, and spending two of its five slots on the same letter throws one away.

Plan The Second Guess Too

If your first guess comes back mostly grey, do not try to guess the answer on turn two. Play a second word that uses five new common letters. A pair like SLATE and CORNY, or RAISE and CLOUT, covers ten of the most useful letters in two turns, and after that most days you are left with a handful of candidates.

If your first guess comes back with two or three colored tiles, the opposite applies: your second guess should keep those letters and try them in new positions, because you are now narrowing rather than exploring.

Watch For The Trap Endings

Some patterns have far more answers than you have guesses. _IGHT is the classic: LIGHT, MIGHT, NIGHT, RIGHT, SIGHT, TIGHT, FIGHT, EIGHT. Others are _OUND (BOUND, FOUND, MOUND, POUND, ROUND, SOUND, WOUND), _ATCH (BATCH, CATCH, HATCH, LATCH, MATCH, PATCH, WATCH) and _ASTE (BASTE, CASTE, HASTE, PASTE, TASTE, WASTE).

Guessing them one at a time is how a game that looked won turns into a loss. If you have four greens and more than two possible first letters, spend a guess on a word that tests several of those first letters at once. To split FIGHT, LIGHT, MIGHT, NIGHT and SIGHT, a word like FILMS tests F, L, M and S together. It cannot be the answer, and that is fine: it guarantees the answer on the next turn.

Remember That Letters Repeat

A good share of answers use a letter twice: words like APPLE, GEESE, LLAMA or SPEED. Players who have learned to avoid repeats in their own guesses often forget the answer is under no such rule. If you are stuck with three or four greens and nothing seems to fit, try doubling one of the letters you already have.

Use Yellow Tiles Twice

A yellow tile tells you two things: the letter is in the word, and it is not in that spot. Players use the first fact and forget the second. Before each guess, check that every yellow letter has moved to a position it has not tried yet. It sounds obvious, and it is one of the most common reasons for a wasted turn.

Hard Mode Changes The Game

In hard mode, every revealed letter must be used in later guesses, so the trap-ending escape described above is not available. The way through is to choose earlier guesses that test more of the likely letters before you have any greens to keep. If you play hard mode, a strong second word matters even more than a strong first one.

When You Want Help

Our Wordle hints for today start with whether a letter repeats and how many vowels there are, before giving away any letters. The Wordle Solver lists every word that still fits your board, which is the honest way to check whether you are facing a trap before you walk into it.