"Wordle 942 4/6"
Wordle (Josh Wardle, 2021; sold to NYT, 2022) gives you 6 guesses to find a 5-letter word. The MIT Sloan team published an optimal solver in 2022: average 3.421 guesses when starting with SALET. The average human takes about 4.0.
This calculator estimates yours.
How to Use This Calculator
Starting word strategy. Optimal (SALET / CRANE / TRACE), common (ADIEU / AUDIO), or chaotic (random).
Vocabulary depth. How many obscure 5-letter words you know.
Information style. Gray-elimination (eliminate letters first) or yellow-chasing (chase confirmed letters).
The Formula
Baseline 3.42 Ā± strategy / vocabulary / aggression adjustments. Output is rounded to the nearest 0.1 since Wordle is whole guesses.
Frequently Asked Questions
What's the optimal starting word?
MIT says SALET. CRANE, TRACE, and SLATE are all near-optimal. ADIEU is popular but worse than the data suggests.
Has anyone gotten 1/6?
Yes. Probability is roughly 1 / 2,309 (the size of the solution list).
Why does my Wordle 6/6 still show as a win?
Because Wordle is a kind game.
What does SALET actually do that ADIEU doesn't?
SALET tests five of the most frequent letters in the Wordle answer list (S, A, L, E, T) and avoids the trap of testing two vowels that both end up gray. The MIT paper showed that "all five vowels" openers like AUDIO and ADIEU give you a tight vowel signal but leave the most common consonants (R, S, T, L, N) untested, which means you usually need one more guess to disambiguate. SALET lands more letters in the answer on average and pre-positions you for a 3- or 4-guess finish.
What's a realistic average for a daily player?
NYT's player-stats team has reported that the typical streak player averages between 3.8 and 4.2 guesses across a year of daily play. Players who solve over breakfast (no consultation, no save-and-return) trend toward the higher end. Players who actively practice with a fixed opener tend to land at 3.6ā3.8.
Does the "Hard Mode" setting change my average?
Slightly. Hard Mode forces every yellow/green hint to be reused in subsequent guesses, which removes the option to play a pure-information "test word" on turn 2. The MIT paper estimated about a +0.10 to +0.15 increase in average guesses under Hard Mode, depending on opener.
A Worked Example
You always open with CRANE (near-optimal), have a solid vocabulary (you knew GROIN and SWIFT before they showed up), and lean toward gray-elimination on turn 2 instead of chasing yellows.
That's elite ā better than the median NYT streak player. If you instead opened with a random word and chased yellows aggressively, the same vocabulary nets out around 4.1, which is the "normal daily player" band.
Behind the Numbers
Wordle's solution list has 2,309 words, intentionally smaller than the full guess list of about 12,953. That asymmetry is why solver math works: the solver only ever has to disambiguate among the answer words, even though you can type any valid 5-letter guess. Knowing this means you should bias your second guess toward eliminating answer-list letters, not exotic Scrabble words.
The original Wordle was a love letter from Josh Wardle to his partner. The NYT acquisition in 2022 standardized the answer list and removed a handful of contentious answers, which slightly changed the optimal opening from the pre-NYT era. SALET, CRANE, and SLATE all remain top picks after the curation.