Accepted guess Not a possible answer B tier for first-turn info

BAELS

BAELS is accepted as a guess but is not on the solver's possible-answer list.

As an opener, it rules out about 94.7% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

plural of bael

Source: Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0. Corrections.

Wordle status

A word can be a playable guess without being a possible answer.

Playable guess

Yes

Included in the Wordle guess list used by our tools.

Possible answer

No

The solver does not currently treat this as a possible answer.

Past Wordle answer

Not used yet

No past answer date found.

The possible-answer list is the solver's current list and may change when Wordle adds new answers.

How BAELS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts BAELS as a guess, but the solver does not list it as a possible answer.

Played as an opener, it lands at least one colored tile in 87.0% of games, misses completely in 13.0%, and leaves about 125 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #3,011 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.64 guesses in games solved within six turns.

Try your feedback pattern

Tap the tiles to match your feedback, then see the ranked follow-up guesses.

All gray? Tap a tile to cycle gray → yellow → green.

First-turn measures

All four describe BAELS used as an opening guess. Entropy is the same idea as “avg ruled out” on a log scale: a higher number means the guess splits the possible answers into more, smaller groups.

5.12 Entropy (bits)
125 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
94.7% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 89% of evaluated openers
0.82 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How BAELS performed in the previous complete opener benchmark, against its captured answer snapshot. These research figures are separate from today's solver recommendations. See the data page for the method.

3.64 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.70 Spread of game lengths
#3,011 Rank among openers
Opening with BAELS left 1 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.70 means those games clustered within about 0.70 of a guess of the 3.64 average. It ranks #3,011 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
76
3 guesses
912
4 guesses
1,168
5 guesses
183
6 guesses
14
Top-ranked in the current bounded policy screen: SLANT. The policy minimizes misses within six first, then average guesses among wins (3.46 for the leader). Compare the ranking measures

Composition

5/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
AELS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
87%
Green tile
33%
All gray
13%

Feedback distribution

BAELS can come back 108 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

309 answers
298 answers
151 answers
127 answers
113 answers
103 answers
83 answers
81 answers
77 answers
76 answers
71 answers
56 answers
50 answers
45 answers
45 answers
39 answers
34 answers
32 answers
26 answers
26 answers
25 answers
25 answers
19 answers
16 answers
16 answers
16 answers
16 answers
16 answers
15 answers
15 answers

Letter-value totals

Base letter-value totals for BAELS; these do not show whether either game accepts the word.

Scrabble

B3A1E1L1S1
Total: 7 points

Words With Friends

Total: 9 points

Scores shown are base values without double/triple letter or word bonuses.

Strategy after playing BAELS

What the solver recommends next for each way the board can respond to BAELS.

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing BAELS:

13% chance
Suggested:
COUNT
13% chance
Suggested:
RIONE
6% chance
Suggested:
SNOUT

Follow-ups for common patterns

Ranked follow-up guesses for the 10 most common feedback patterns.

13.0%
COUNT 5.82 bits
12.6%
RIONE 5.28 bits
6.4%
SNOUT 5.05 bits
5.3%
TRAIN 5.32 bits
4.8%
CARAT 4.08 bits
4.3%
SENOR 4.68 bits
3.5%
LOGIC 4.60 bits
3.4%
CORAL 4.31 bits
3.2%
DOREE 4.28 bits
3.2%
TRACE 4.65 bits

Research on BAELS

Game-tree analysis and word research for BAELS, with an explanation for each figure.

Optimal play

Opening with BAELS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.66 guesses and ranks #2,491 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

No guaranteed hard-mode solve In hard mode, no strategy that opens with BAELS can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.64, at or below the proven-optimal 3.66, because the two figures score different answer lists.

These figures come from exhaustive game-tree search and are exact for the NYT lists of July 2023 (3,158 answers). They do not use the site's working answer pool.

How it sounds

One syllable Say it BAYLZ. Estimated pronunciation

This pronunciation is machine-estimated, not taken from a pronunciation dictionary.

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT); Pronunciation: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary (BSD), with machine estimates from the g2p_en model.