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

GAMES

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

As an opener, it rules out about 94.1% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ɡeɪmz/

Noun

plural of game

Verb

third-person singular simple present indicative of game

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 GAMES performs as a guess

Wordle accepts GAMES 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 85.7% of games, misses completely in 14.3%, and leaves about 140 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #6,094 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 GAMES 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.

4.86 Entropy (bits)
140 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
94.1% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 75% of evaluated openers
1.09 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How GAMES 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
0.70 Spread of game lengths
#6,094 Rank among openers
Opening with GAMES 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 3.69 average. It ranks #6,094 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
61
3 guesses
856
4 guesses
1,210
5 guesses
210
6 guesses
16
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:
AES

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
86%
Green tile
32%
All gray
14%

Feedback distribution

GAMES can come back 91 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

340 answers
233 answers
186 answers
167 answers
165 answers
137 answers
120 answers
101 answers
80 answers
56 answers
52 answers
50 answers
48 answers
41 answers
37 answers
36 answers
29 answers
25 answers
25 answers
23 answers
22 answers
21 answers
21 answers
20 answers
15 answers
15 answers
15 answers
15 answers
14 answers
14 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

G2A1M3E1S1
Total: 8 points

Words With Friends

Total: 10 points

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

Strategy after playing GAMES

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing GAMES:

14% chance
Suggested:
COURT
10% chance
Suggested:
TRICE
8% chance
Suggested:
TRAIL

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

14.3%
COURT 5.79 bits
9.8%
TRICE 5.37 bits
7.8%
TRAIL 5.34 bits
7.0%
OLDER 4.21 bits
7.0%
HOIST 5.01 bits
5.8%
DEALT 4.82 bits
5.1%
RAINY 4.04 bits
4.3%
PORTE 4.65 bits
3.4%
SHALT 4.61 bits
2.4%
LINGO 4.34 bits

Research on GAMES

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

Optimal play

Opening with GAMES, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.68 guesses and ranks #3,500 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 GAMES can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.69; proven optimal play reaches 3.68. The fixed strategy accounts for the difference.

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 GAYMZ.

Rhymes with JAMES NAMES DAMES TAMES HAMES

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, GAMES is a kind of activity or competition.

Synonyms back plot STAKE lame halt spirited

Opposites fit cowardly

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
GAMES sits in the common band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 275 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as an everyday word almost every player will know.
Dominant sense
Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (3.7 of 5).

In a sentence

What games do you have?
© tatoeba.org contributor CK (CC BY 2.0 FR)
What games do you like?
© tatoeba.org contributor CK (CC BY 2.0 FR)

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT); Pronunciation: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary (BSD); Word relations: Open English WordNet, 2025 edition (CC BY 4.0); Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0); Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).