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

GECKS

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

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

plural of geck

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

Use GECKS in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 90.0% of possible answers.

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

No completed appearance

No appearance in our globally completed history. A recent puzzle may still be live elsewhere.

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

How GECKS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts GECKS 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 78.1% of games, misses completely in 21.9%, and leaves about 238 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #10,781 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.78 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 GECKS 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.

4.13 Entropy (bits)
238 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
90.0% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How GECKS 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.

3.78 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.67 Spread of game lengths
#10,781 Rank among openers
Opening with GECKS left 1 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.67 means those games clustered within about 0.67 of a guess of the 3.78 average. It ranks #10,781 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
31
3 guesses
734
4 guesses
1,331
5 guesses
239
6 guesses
18

Composition

5/5 unique
1 vowels
Common:
ES

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
78%
Green tile
20%
All gray
22%

Feedback distribution

GECKS can come back 61 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

522 answers
374 answers
230 answers
168 answers
148 answers
141 answers
85 answers
80 answers
54 answers
54 answers
41 answers
40 answers
38 answers
35 answers
29 answers
27 answers
25 answers
24 answers
23 answers
22 answers
22 answers
19 answers
16 answers
13 answers
13 answers
12 answers
11 answers
11 answers
10 answers
9 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

G2E1C3K5S1
Total: 12 points

Words With Friends

Total: 14 points

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

Strategy after playing GECKS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing GECKS:

22% chance
Suggested:
TALON
16% chance
Suggested:
ARIEL
10% chance
Suggested:
SAULT

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

21.9% →
TALON 5.83 bits
15.7% →
ARIEL 5.19 bits
9.6% →
SAULT 5.28 bits
7.0% →
STRAE 4.83 bits
6.2% →
CAIRN 5.20 bits
5.9% →
RATEL 4.81 bits
3.6% →
ORATE 4.87 bits
3.4% →
ROANY 4.99 bits
2.3% →
RAILE 4.71 bits
2.3% →
ROANY 4.52 bits

Research on GECKS

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

Optimal play

Opening with GECKS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.78 guesses and ranks #9,951 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.91 guesses at best and is rank #4,476 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.78, at or below the proven-optimal 3.78, 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.

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT).