Your first Wordle guess has one job: eliminate as many possibilities as possible. The standard Wordle dictionary contains roughly 2,300 possible answers and 12,000 allowed guesses — so a good opener can shrink the universe from thousands to dozens in a single move.
How we ranked these
A good opener:
- Uses five distinct letters (a repeat letter tests the same position twice — wasted information).
- Weights common English letters more heavily than rare ones.
- Covers multiple vowels and high-frequency consonants.
We score each candidate by summing the English letter-frequency percentages (Cornell University corpus) for its unique letters. Higher = more information per guess.
Top 10 openers
| Rank | Word | Score | Why it works |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | SLATE | 35.0 | Three top-10 letters (S, T, E) plus L and A |
| 2 | CRANE | 34.8 | Popular on Wordlebot; strong vowel + R coverage |
| 3 | TRACE | 34.8 | Same letter set as CRANE — identical information value |
| 4 | ADIEU | 32.2 | Famous for hitting 4 vowels in one guess |
| 5 | AUDIO | 30.2 | Another quad-vowel opener |
| 6 | STARE | 34.1 | Common in solver lists; sneaks in S |
| 7 | RAISE | 33.7 | R, A, I, S, E — no rare letters |
| 8 | ROATE | 34.2 | Made famous by the NY Times solver reveal |
| 9 | SOARE | 33.5 | Obscure but letter-optimal |
| 10 | ALERT | 33.0 | No S, good for avoiding plural-trap endings |
So which should I actually use?
For most players, any of the top five will do equally well. Small differences in “information value” rarely translate into a meaningful win-rate gap over a few hundred puzzles.
The bigger choice is between two strategies:
- Single-word “best first guess” — open with SLATE or CRANE, then adapt based on feedback. Wins most games in 3–4 turns.
- Two-word scripted opener — play SLATE then BUOYS (or CLIMB, GROIN, PHONE) to blindly test 10 distinct letters in two turns. Almost always resolves to a single candidate by turn 3. Sacrifices 2-turn wins but raises your 3/4/5-turn rate.
If your goal is the Wordle Bot green checkmark score every day, go with SALET (used by MIT’s optimal solver) or CRANE. If you’re playing for streak consistency, SLATE + BUOYS is bulletproof.
What NOT to do
- Don’t repeat a letter in your opener. PIZZA scores terribly — two Zs give you no extra info.
- Don’t lead with rare letters. JUMPY covers J, M, P, U, Y but the J/Y/U wastes a position most puzzles don’t need.
- Don’t switch openers game-to-game. Sticking with one opener lets you build instinct for which second guess pairs best.
Put it into practice
The Wordle solver will happily take any opener and immediately filter the universe of remaining answers. Punch in your greens, yellows, and grays after turn 1 and it returns the ranked candidate list — the top suggestion is always the word that knocks out the most remaining possibilities on your next guess.