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

PIKAU

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

As an opener, it rules out about 90.1% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

A makeshift knapsack or pack.

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 PIKAU performs as a guess

Wordle accepts PIKAU 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 80.9% of games, misses completely in 19.1%, and leaves about 235 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #11,191 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.79 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 PIKAU 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.

4.11 Entropy (bits)
235 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
90.1% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 28% of evaluated openers
1.83 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How PIKAU 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.

3.79 Avg guesses
99.92% Solved within six
0.70 Spread of game lengths
#11,191 Rank among openers
Opening with PIKAU left 2 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.70 means those games clustered within about 0.70 of a guess of the 3.79 average. It ranks #11,191 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
38
3 guesses
750
4 guesses
1,252
5 guesses
295
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
3 vowels
Common:
AIU

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
81%
Green tile
21%
All gray
19%

Feedback distribution

PIKAU can come back 60 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

454 answers
433 answers
246 answers
203 answers
148 answers
101 answers
94 answers
59 answers
55 answers
50 answers
49 answers
48 answers
38 answers
30 answers
29 answers
29 answers
28 answers
28 answers
28 answers
22 answers
17 answers
13 answers
13 answers
12 answers
12 answers
11 answers
10 answers
10 answers
9 answers
9 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

P3I1K5A1U1
Total: 11 points

Words With Friends

Total: 13 points

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

Strategy after playing PIKAU

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing PIKAU:

19% chance
Suggested:
TONER
18% chance
Suggested:
TARSE
10% chance
Suggested:
TORSE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

19.1%
TONER 5.83 bits
18.2%
TARSE 5.51 bits
10.4%
TORSE 5.44 bits
8.6%
TRONE 5.42 bits
6.2%
RONTE 4.71 bits
4.3%
TALER 4.66 bits
4.0%
NADIR 4.41 bits
2.5%
STOLE 4.90 bits
2.3%
SAULT 4.27 bits
2.1%
SLANE 4.07 bits

Research on PIKAU

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

Optimal play

Opening with PIKAU, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.81 guesses and ranks #11,058 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.92 guesses at best and is rank #4,667 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.79, at or below the proven-optimal 3.81, 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 second syllable Say it PIHKOW. 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.