Opener Lab

CRUST vs SLANE

See which word leaves you with the easier game.

SLANE 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. SLANE has the lower average in games solved within six: 3.46 guesses to 3.51 for CRUST.

Looking only at the opening row, SLANE has higher entropy (5.77 bits versus 5.10). That describes first-guess separation, not the full solve on its own.

MetricCRUSTSLANE
Elimination93.8%96.8%
Information5.10 bits5.77 bits
Avg remaining145 words76 words
Avg turns3.513.46
Missed in six00
Win rate100.0%100.0%
TierBA

What to expect from the first guess

OutcomeCRUSTSLANE
First-turn solve* 0.04% 0%
At least one green 34.9% 46.3%
Any green or yellow 81.5% 90.0%
Whole row gray 18.5% 10.0%
Worst case answers left 437 235

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

A fully gray row is rarer with SLANE: it happens 10.0% of the time, against 18.5% for CRUST.

SLANE 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

CRUST and SLANE overlap on a single letter (S), so the pair tests 9 different letters between them.

Played back to back, CRUST then SLANE earns 8.96 bits of information in total, 3.20 bits more than the better word manages alone.

Past Wordle answers

  • CRUST: Answer to the puzzle on July 12, 2021.
  • SLANE: Has not been a past Wordle answer in this site's history.