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

PILAO

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

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

Alternative form of pilaf.

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

Use PILAO in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 94.0% 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 PILAO performs as a guess

Wordle accepts PILAO 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 88.4% of games, misses completely in 11.6%, and leaves about 144 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #3,523 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.65 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 PILAO 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.

4.91 Entropy (bits)
144 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
94.0% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How PILAO 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.

3.65 Avg guesses
99.92% Solved within six
0.72 Spread of game lengths
#3,523 Rank among openers
Opening with PILAO 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 3.65 average. It ranks #3,523 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
67
3 guesses
953
4 guesses
1,099
5 guesses
213
6 guesses
20

Composition

5/5 unique
3 vowels
Common:
AILO

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
88%
Green tile
25%
All gray
12%

Feedback distribution

PILAO can come back 103 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

314 answers
276 answers
274 answers
162 answers
113 answers
103 answers
89 answers
79 answers
70 answers
69 answers
62 answers
52 answers
41 answers
40 answers
34 answers
33 answers
29 answers
24 answers
23 answers
23 answers
22 answers
22 answers
21 answers
20 answers
20 answers
19 answers
18 answers
17 answers
14 answers
14 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

P3I1L1A1O1
Total: 7 points

Words With Friends

Total: 9 points

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

Strategy after playing PILAO

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing PILAO:

13% chance
Suggested:
CRATE
12% chance
Suggested:
TERSE
11% chance
Suggested:
TRONE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

13.2% →
CRATE 5.64 bits
11.6% →
TERSE 6.06 bits
11.5% →
TRONE 5.38 bits
6.8% →
TRINE 5.54 bits
4.7% →
STANE 4.58 bits
4.3% →
SENTE 4.35 bits
3.7% →
SLEER 4.77 bits
3.3% →
DORSE 4.23 bits
2.9% →
ACTOR 4.32 bits
2.9% →
SAINT 4.58 bits

Research on PILAO

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

Optimal play

Opening with PILAO, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.68 guesses and ranks #3,644 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.79 guesses at best and is rank #1,169 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.65, at or below the proven-optimal 3.68, 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).