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

IKATS

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

As an opener, it rules out about 92.8% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

plural of ikat

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 IKATS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts IKATS 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 81.8% of games, misses completely in 18.2%, and leaves about 171 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #6,178 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.

Useful pattern pages

If you only know part of the word, start with one of these matching patterns.

First-turn measures

All four describe IKATS 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.

4.61 Entropy (bits)
171 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
92.8% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 59% of evaluated openers
1.34 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How IKATS 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
99.87% Solved within six
0.67 Spread of game lengths
#6,178 Rank among openers
Opening with IKATS left 3 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 3.69 average. It ranks #6,178 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
38
3 guesses
887
4 guesses
1,206
5 guesses
209
6 guesses
11
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:
AIST

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
82%
Green tile
22%
All gray
18%

Feedback distribution

IKATS can come back 72 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

433 answers
272 answers
232 answers
141 answers
119 answers
94 answers
92 answers
85 answers
70 answers
67 answers
64 answers
61 answers
56 answers
48 answers
39 answers
29 answers
28 answers
27 answers
27 answers
26 answers
26 answers
20 answers
20 answers
19 answers
19 answers
18 answers
18 answers
18 answers
16 answers
14 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

I1K5A1T1S1
Total: 9 points

Words With Friends

Total: 9 points

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

Strategy after playing IKATS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing IKATS:

18% chance
Suggested:
DROLE
11% chance
Suggested:
CARLE
10% chance
Suggested:
LINER

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

18.2%
DROLE 5.98 bits
11.5%
CARLE 5.41 bits
9.8%
LINER 5.26 bits
5.9%
PROLE 5.29 bits
5.0%
ROUET 5.53 bits
4.0%
CARLE 4.53 bits
3.9%
DROLE 4.84 bits
3.6%
FILET 4.33 bits
2.9%
ROUET 4.60 bits
2.8%
SPINE 4.71 bits

Research on IKATS

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

Optimal play

Opening with IKATS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.74 guesses and ranks #7,646 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.85 guesses at best and is rank #2,938 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 3.74, 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

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