1. Open with common letters in common places
In common five-letter words the most frequent letters are S, E, A, R and O. Position matters too:
| Position | Most frequent | Second | Third |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1st | S 13.7% | C 8.1% | B 7.5% |
| 2nd | A 16.5% | O 15.2% | I 11.5% |
| 3rd | A 11.3% | I 9.7% | O 8.8% |
| 4th | E 22.2% | T 7.9% | N 6.8% |
| 5th | S 32.9% | E 11% | Y 10.2% |
(Share of 4,423 common five-letter words with that letter in that position. Many of the S endings are plurals, which daily games often avoid.)
The calculated best openers – RAISE, ARISE, IRATE – combine exactly these letters. See the full calculation.
2. Use guess two to explore, not to win
If your first guess found one or two letters, a second guess with five new common letters often helps more than a guess that reuses what you know. The solver’s “best next guesses” include such probe words and label them “cannot be the answer”.
3. Read gray letters precisely
A gray tile means “no more copies of this letter”, not always “not in the word”. If you guess a word with two Es and one is yellow, the answer has exactly one E. Our guide to repeated letters has worked examples.
4. Beware of word families
Patterns like ?IGHT or ?ATCH have many answers that differ in one letter. Guessing them one by one can cost every remaining turn. Instead, guess a word that contains several of the candidate first letters at once – the word finder with the pattern field shows the whole family so you can plan.
5. Let the solver do the bookkeeping
Type each guess and colour into the 5-letter word solver. It keeps only words that would give exactly your colours and ranks next guesses by how many answers they leave on average.