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

PIRKS

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

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

plural of pirk

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

Use PIRKS in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 90.6% 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 PIRKS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts PIRKS 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 77.3% of games, misses completely in 22.7%, and leaves about 224 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #5,517 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.68 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 PIRKS 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.

4.40 Entropy (bits)
224 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
90.6% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How PIRKS 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.

3.68 Avg guesses
99.75% Solved within six
0.71 Spread of game lengths
#5,517 Rank among openers
Opening with PIRKS left 6 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 3.68 average. It ranks #5,517 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
54
3 guesses
913
4 guesses
1,133
5 guesses
231
6 guesses
17

Composition

5/5 unique
1 vowels
Common:
IRS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
77%
Green tile
24%
All gray
23%

Feedback distribution

PIRKS can come back 87 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

542 answers
325 answers
219 answers
185 answers
99 answers
90 answers
88 answers
71 answers
64 answers
51 answers
47 answers
45 answers
45 answers
35 answers
32 answers
31 answers
26 answers
26 answers
23 answers
19 answers
19 answers
18 answers
17 answers
16 answers
15 answers
14 answers
13 answers
12 answers
11 answers
10 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

P3I1R1K5S1
Total: 11 points

Words With Friends

Total: 12 points

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

Strategy after playing PIRKS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing PIRKS:

23% chance
Suggested:
OLATE
14% chance
Suggested:
ORATE
9% chance
Suggested:
STALE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

22.7% →
OLATE 5.95 bits
13.6% →
ORATE 5.20 bits
9.2% →
STALE 5.79 bits
7.8% →
ANILE 5.42 bits
4.2% →
TONEY 4.45 bits
3.8% →
COATE 4.94 bits
3.7% →
TRIED 4.93 bits
3.0% →
STANE 4.93 bits
2.7% →
LEANT 4.68 bits
2.1% →
HAOLE 5.00 bits

Research on PIRKS

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

Optimal play

Opening with PIRKS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.70 guesses and ranks #4,868 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.81 guesses at best and is rank #1,725 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.68, at or below the proven-optimal 3.70, 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).