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

BALOI

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

As an opener, it rules out about 93.4% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

plural of moloi

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 BALOI performs as a guess

Wordle accepts BALOI 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 87.5% of games, misses completely in 12.5%, and leaves about 157 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #6,389 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.69 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 BALOI 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.

4.75 Entropy (bits)
157 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
93.4% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 69% of evaluated openers
1.19 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How BALOI 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.

3.69 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.72 Spread of game lengths
#6,389 Rank among openers
Opening with BALOI left 1 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.72 means those games clustered within about 0.72 of a guess of the 3.69 average. It ranks #6,389 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
60
3 guesses
890
4 guesses
1,136
5 guesses
249
6 guesses
18
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
3 vowels
Common:
AILO

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
88%
Green tile
27%
All gray
12%

Feedback distribution

BALOI can come back 102 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

296 answers
288 answers
267 answers
240 answers
149 answers
114 answers
95 answers
85 answers
62 answers
52 answers
51 answers
44 answers
43 answers
38 answers
30 answers
28 answers
28 answers
25 answers
20 answers
19 answers
19 answers
18 answers
17 answers
16 answers
16 answers
16 answers
15 answers
14 answers
14 answers
11 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

B3A1L1O1I1
Total: 7 points

Words With Friends

Total: 9 points

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

Strategy after playing BALOI

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing BALOI:

12% chance
Suggested:
TERSE
12% chance
Suggested:
TRINE
11% chance
Suggested:
TRONE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

12.5%
TERSE 5.97 bits
12.1%
TRINE 5.49 bits
11.2%
TRONE 5.38 bits
10.1%
STARE 5.47 bits
6.3%
TRUCE 4.71 bits
4.8%
REAST 4.71 bits
4.0%
SLEEP 4.90 bits
3.6%
STILE 4.24 bits
2.6%
SOWER 4.33 bits
2.2%
POINT 4.46 bits

Research on BALOI

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

Optimal play

Opening with BALOI, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.71 guesses and ranks #5,572 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.82 guesses at best and is rank #1,942 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.69, at or below the proven-optimal 3.71, 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

Three syllables, stress on the second syllable Say it BAHLOHEE. 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.