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

GAUCH

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

As an opener, it rules out about 89.8% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Verb

Alternative form of gouch (“feel drowsy due to heroin”).

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 GAUCH performs as a guess

Wordle accepts GAUCH 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 74.5% of games, misses completely in 25.5%, and leaves about 243 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #6,484 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 GAUCH 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.

4.41 Entropy (bits)
243 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
89.8% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 46% of evaluated openers
1.54 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How GAUCH 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
100% Solved within six
0.69 Spread of game lengths
#6,484 Rank among openers
Opening with GAUCH solved every answer in the snapshot within six guesses. A spread of 0.69 means those games clustered within about 0.69 of a guess of the 3.69 average. It ranks #6,484 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
39
3 guesses
900
4 guesses
1,175
5 guesses
223
6 guesses
17
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:
AU

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
74%
Green tile
31%
All gray
26%

Feedback distribution

GAUCH can come back 86 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

605 answers
334 answers
176 answers
143 answers
92 answers
91 answers
73 answers
65 answers
61 answers
48 answers
42 answers
41 answers
38 answers
35 answers
34 answers
32 answers
30 answers
28 answers
25 answers
24 answers
23 answers
19 answers
19 answers
17 answers
16 answers
16 answers
15 answers
14 answers
13 answers
12 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

G2A1U1C3H4
Total: 11 points

Words With Friends

Total: 13 points

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

Strategy after playing GAUCH

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing GAUCH:

25% chance
Suggested:
SILER
14% chance
Suggested:
ALERT
7% chance
Suggested:
SLYER

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

25.5%
SILER 6.01 bits
14.1%
ALERT 5.64 bits
7.4%
SLYER 4.88 bits
6.0%
SLIER 5.01 bits
3.9%
TORSE 5.65 bits
3.8%
NOIRE 5.19 bits
3.1%
STONE 4.63 bits
2.7%
BORNE 4.89 bits
2.6%
PLORE 4.61 bits
2.0%
DRONE 4.94 bits

Research on GAUCH

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

Optimal play

Opening with GAUCH, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.74 guesses and ranks #7,668 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 GAUCH can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.69, at or below the proven-optimal 3.74, 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 GAWCH.

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT); Pronunciation: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary (BSD).