Opener Lab

CARLE vs SPLIT

See which word leaves you with the easier game.

CARLE leads in the current bounded six-turn policy

Both words are in the current screen of 182 openers, tested against 2,358 answers. Exact misses rank first; average guesses among wins break ties.

The same solver played from both openers. CARLE has the lower average in games solved within six: 3.46 guesses to 3.51 for SPLIT.

Looking only at the opening row, CARLE has higher entropy (5.76 bits versus 4.95). That describes first-guess separation, not the full solve on its own.

MetricCARLESPLIT
Elimination96.7%92.9%
Information5.76 bits4.95 bits
Avg remaining77 words168 words
Avg turns3.463.51
Missed in six00
Win rate100.0%100.0%
TierAB

What to expect from the first guess

OutcomeCARLESPLIT
First-turn solve* 0% 0.04%
At least one green 43.9% 34.3%
Any green or yellow 89.1% 78.9%
Whole row gray 10.9% 21.1%
Worst case answers left 258 498

*Treating every word in the possible-answer list as equally likely.

A fully gray row is rarer with CARLE: it happens 10.9% of the time, against 21.1% for SPLIT.

CARLE is not on the possible-answer list, so it cannot solve the game on turn one here. It can still be a useful guess.

How these two openers fit together

CARLE and SPLIT overlap on a single letter (L), so the pair tests 9 different letters between them.

Played back to back, CARLE then SPLIT earns 9.04 bits of information in total, 3.27 bits more than the better word manages alone.

Past Wordle answers

  • CARLE: Has not been a past Wordle answer in this site's history.
  • SPLIT: Answer to the puzzle on August 28, 2025.