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

PULKA

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

As an opener, it rules out about 89.0% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

An animal-drawn sleigh (sledge) of a particular sort.

Noun

Alternative form of phulka

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 PULKA performs as a guess

Wordle accepts PULKA 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 75.3% of games, misses completely in 24.7%, and leaves about 262 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #7,539 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.71 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 PULKA 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.

4.21 Entropy (bits)
262 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
89.0% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 33% of evaluated openers
1.73 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How PULKA 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.

3.71 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.70 Spread of game lengths
#7,539 Rank among openers
Opening with PULKA left 1 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 3.71 average. It ranks #7,539 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
55
3 guesses
841
4 guesses
1,195
5 guesses
250
6 guesses
12
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:
ALU

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
75%
Green tile
21%
All gray
25%

Feedback distribution

PULKA can come back 86 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

587 answers
409 answers
172 answers
168 answers
128 answers
100 answers
72 answers
51 answers
47 answers
46 answers
44 answers
39 answers
39 answers
36 answers
35 answers
32 answers
25 answers
25 answers
22 answers
19 answers
19 answers
16 answers
13 answers
13 answers
13 answers
12 answers
12 answers
11 answers
11 answers
10 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

P3U1L1K5A1
Total: 11 points

Words With Friends

Total: 14 points

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

Strategy after playing PULKA

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing PULKA:

25% chance
Suggested:
TONER
17% chance
Suggested:
TARSE
7% chance
Suggested:
SLIER

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

24.7%
TONER 6.11 bits
17.2%
TARSE 5.55 bits
7.2%
SLIER 4.89 bits
7.1%
TARSE 4.71 bits
5.4%
TRONE 5.45 bits
4.2%
CORSE 4.49 bits
3.0%
STIRE 5.18 bits
2.1%
CRONE 4.93 bits
2.0%
TARSE 4.75 bits
1.9%
SIDLE 4.27 bits

Research on PULKA

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

Optimal play

Opening with PULKA, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.74 guesses and ranks #7,541 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 #3,005 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.71, 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 PUHLKUH. 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.