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

GOTTA

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

As an opener, it rules out about 89.5% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈɡɒtə/[ˈɡɒʔə]/ˈɡɑtə/

Verb

Synonym of have got to, have to

“I gotta learn this for my exam.”

Verb

Contraction of got + a.

Alternative forms: gotsta

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 GOTTA performs as a guess

Wordle accepts GOTTA 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 77.4% of games, misses completely in 22.6%, and leaves about 248 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #9,850 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.76 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 GOTTA 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.

4.23 Entropy (bits)
248 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
89.5% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 34% of evaluated openers
1.72 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How GOTTA 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.

3.76 Avg guesses
99.87% Solved within six
0.71 Spread of game lengths
#9,850 Rank among openers
Opening with GOTTA left 3 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.71 means those games clustered within about 0.71 of a guess of the 3.76 average. It ranks #9,850 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
50
3 guesses
784
4 guesses
1,217
5 guesses
284
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

4/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
AOT

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
77%
Green tile
27%
All gray
23%

Feedback distribution

GOTTA can come back 80 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

536 answers
431 answers
180 answers
151 answers
145 answers
118 answers
71 answers
68 answers
50 answers
42 answers
39 answers
34 answers
34 answers
33 answers
33 answers
33 answers
32 answers
26 answers
24 answers
21 answers
19 answers
18 answers
16 answers
14 answers
13 answers
12 answers
11 answers
9 answers
9 answers
9 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

G2O1T1T1A1
Total: 6 points

Words With Friends

Total: 7 points

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

Strategy after playing GOTTA

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing GOTTA:

23% chance
Suggested:
SLIER
18% chance
Suggested:
CARLE
8% chance
Suggested:
CRINE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

22.6%
SLIER 6.08 bits
18.2%
CARLE 5.50 bits
7.6%
CRINE 5.32 bits
6.4%
SLIER 5.56 bits
6.1%
SLYER 4.63 bits
5.0%
LEAST 4.85 bits
3.0%
BARON 4.56 bits
2.9%
SLIDE 4.73 bits
2.1%
SENOR 4.22 bits
1.8%
RAILE 4.65 bits

Research on GOTTA

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

Optimal play

Opening with GOTTA, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.80 guesses and ranks #10,779 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 GOTTA can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.76, at or below the proven-optimal 3.80, 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

Two syllables, stress on the first syllable Say it GAHTUH.

Rhymes with LOTTA COTTA GRATA

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
GOTTA sits in the common band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 89 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as an everyday word almost every player will know.

In a sentence

Do what you gotta do.
© tatoeba.org contributor megamanenm (CC BY 2.0 FR)
You gotta get out of there.
© tatoeba.org contributor rul (CC BY 2.0 FR)

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT); Pronunciation: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary (BSD); Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0).