Word Guess
WordHow to Play
Goal: Guess the hidden five-letter word in six tries.
Controls: Type with your keyboard or tap the on-screen keys. Press Enter to submit a guess, Backspace to delete.
Rules: A green tile means the letter is correct and in the right spot. Yellow means the letter is in the word but in a different spot. Gray means the letter is not in the word.
About Word Guess
Word Guess is our unlimited take on the five-letter word game Josh Wardle created for his partner during the pandemic and released as Wordle in 2021, the once-a-day puzzle that turned green-and-yellow grids into a global morning ritual and was bought by The New York Times within months. Here, you do not have to wait until tomorrow: finish a word, deal another.
The rules are the modern classic: six guesses, with each letter graded, green for right letter right spot, yellow for right letter wrong spot, gray for absent. Every guess is an experiment, and the game is really about information: the best players do not guess answers early, they guess questions that eliminate the most possibilities.
Word Guess opening theory
- Open with vowel-and-common-consonant words, SLATE, CRANE, ADIEU and friends probe the most likely letters at once.
- Use a second probe word with five fresh letters when the first guess comes back mostly gray.
- Respect the yellows: a yellow letter must appear in your next guess, but in a different position.
- Remember letters can repeat, when a board stalls, doubled letters (LEVEL, SPOON) are the usual culprits.
- Late in the game, guess to split the remaining candidates, not just to be right; a discriminating wrong answer beats a hopeful coin flip.
FAQ
What is the best starting word?
Solver analyses crown words like SLATE, CRANE and SALET, dense in common letters at common positions. But any word with four or five distinct high-frequency letters is within a hair of optimal; consistency of strategy matters far more than the specific favorite.
Should I reuse gray letters ever?
Almost never in a serious attempt, a gray letter is confirmed absent, and repeating it wastes probe capacity. The rare exception is a deliberate 'sacrifice' guess late on, where a known-wrong word cleanly splits several similar candidates like SHAKE, SHALE and SHAME.
What does it mean when a letter shows yellow twice?
Duplicate handling follows the modern standard: tiles are graded against the answer's actual letter counts. Two yellows of the same letter mean the answer really contains it at least twice, only in different spots than you placed them. Count your colors literally.
How is this different from the daily version?
Same rules, no ration. There is no shared daily answer and no waiting until midnight, each solved (or failed) word deals a fresh one, which makes it the right place to actually drill openings and endgames.
