Opener Lab

CRANE vs SPIRT

See which word leaves you with the easier game.

CRANE 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. CRANE has the lower average in games solved within six: 3.46 guesses to 3.52 for SPIRT.

Looking only at the opening row, CRANE has higher entropy (5.73 bits versus 5.11). That describes first-guess separation, not the full solve on its own.

MetricCRANESPIRT
Elimination96.6%93.8%
Information5.73 bits5.11 bits
Avg remaining81 words146 words
Avg turns3.463.52
Missed in six00
Win rate100.0%100.0%
TierAB

What to expect from the first guess

OutcomeCRANESPIRT
First-turn solve* 0.04% 0%
At least one green 43.6% 36.7%
Any green or yellow 88.5% 81.8%
Whole row gray 11.5% 18.2%
Worst case answers left 271 429

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

A fully gray row is rarer with CRANE: it happens 11.5% of the time, against 18.2% for SPIRT.

SPIRT 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

CRANE and SPIRT overlap on a single letter (R), so the pair tests 9 different letters between them.

Played back to back, CRANE then SPIRT earns 8.96 bits of information in total, 3.23 bits more than the better word manages alone.

Past Wordle answers

  • CRANE: Answer to the puzzle on June 21, 2023.
  • SPIRT: Has not been a past Wordle answer in this site's history.