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

MATZA

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

As an opener, it rules out about 81.8% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

Alternative spelling of matzo.

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 MATZA performs as a guess

Wordle accepts MATZA 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 63.4% of games, misses completely in 36.6%, and leaves about 431 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #13,794 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.89 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 MATZA 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.

3.41 Entropy (bits)
431 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
81.8% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 5% of evaluated openers
2.53 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How MATZA 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.

3.89 Avg guesses
99.92% Solved within six
0.72 Spread of game lengths
#13,794 Rank among openers
Opening with MATZA left 2 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.72 means those games clustered within about 0.72 of a guess of the 3.89 average. It ranks #13,794 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
40
3 guesses
619
4 guesses
1,289
5 guesses
378
6 guesses
26
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:
AT

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
63%
Green tile
22%
All gray
37%

Feedback distribution

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

869 answers
324 answers
317 answers
153 answers
128 answers
93 answers
56 answers
55 answers
48 answers
47 answers
27 answers
25 answers
23 answers
18 answers
17 answers
15 answers
13 answers
11 answers
9 answers
8 answers
7 answers
7 answers
7 answers
7 answers
6 answers
6 answers
6 answers
6 answers
5 answers
5 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

M3A1T1Z10A1
Total: 16 points

Words With Friends

Total: 17 points

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

Strategy after playing MATZA

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing MATZA:

37% chance
Suggested:
RIONE
14% chance
Suggested:
CRANE
13% chance
Suggested:
SIREN

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

36.6%
RIONE 5.98 bits
13.6%
CRANE 5.45 bits
13.4%
SIREN 5.56 bits
6.4%
SLYER 4.91 bits
5.4%
LEAST 4.98 bits
3.9%
ROULE 5.03 bits
2.4%
COURE 4.59 bits
2.3%
TRINE 4.01 bits
2.0%
SLICE 4.55 bits
2.0%
SUCRE 4.52 bits

Research on MATZA

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

Optimal play

Opening with MATZA, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.90 guesses and ranks #13,915 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 MATZA can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.89, at or below the proven-optimal 3.90, 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 MAHTZUH.

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
MATZA sits in the rare band of the wordfreq scale, appearing less than once per million words of written English; the band marks it as a word few players will have met in print.

In a sentence

Esther is making matza ball soup.
© tatoeba.org contributor shekitten (CC BY 2.0 FR)
Matza balls are my heritage; falafels are not.
© tatoeba.org contributor shekitten (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).