Opener Lab

PAIRE 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 PAIRE.

Looking only at the opening row, SLANE has higher entropy (5.77 bits versus 5.65). That describes first-guess separation, not the full solve on its own.

MetricPAIRESLANE
Elimination96.7%96.8%
Information5.65 bits5.77 bits
Avg remaining78 words76 words
Avg turns3.513.46
Missed in six00
Win rate100.0%100.0%
TierAA

What to expect from the first guess

OutcomePAIRESLANE
First-turn solve* 0% 0%
At least one green 44.9% 46.3%
Any green or yellow 90.7% 90.0%
Whole row gray 9.3% 10.0%
Worst case answers left 219 235

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

Both openers come back completely gray at almost the same rate, so the difference between them lies in how much their hits actually tell you.

Neither word is on the possible-answer list, so neither can solve the game on turn one here. Both can still be useful guesses.

How these two openers fit together

PAIRE and SLANE share 2 letters (A, E). Played as a pair they cover 8 distinct letters, which still gives the second word room to do useful work.

Played back to back, PAIRE then SLANE earns 8.34 bits of information in total, 2.57 bits more than the better word manages alone.

Past Wordle answers

  • PAIRE: Has not been a past Wordle answer in this site's history.
  • SLANE: Has not been a past Wordle answer in this site's history.