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

RISKS

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

As an opener, it rules out about 87.2% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ɹɪsks/

Noun

plural of risk

Verb

third-person singular simple present indicative of risk

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 RISKS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts RISKS 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 73.3% of games, misses completely in 26.7%, and leaves about 303 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #12,379 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.82 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 RISKS 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.

3.81 Entropy (bits)
303 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
87.2% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 15% of evaluated openers
2.14 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How RISKS 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.

3.82 Avg guesses
99.79% Solved within six
0.71 Spread of game lengths
#12,379 Rank among openers
Opening with RISKS left 5 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 3.82 average. It ranks #12,379 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
31
3 guesses
727
4 guesses
1,242
5 guesses
328
6 guesses
21
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
1 vowels
Common:
IRS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
73%
Green tile
19%
All gray
27%

Feedback distribution

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

634 answers
409 answers
223 answers
211 answers
119 answers
111 answers
99 answers
72 answers
67 answers
51 answers
36 answers
34 answers
31 answers
29 answers
24 answers
14 answers
13 answers
12 answers
12 answers
11 answers
10 answers
10 answers
10 answers
10 answers
10 answers
9 answers
9 answers
9 answers
7 answers
7 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

R1I1S1K5S1
Total: 9 points

Words With Friends

Total: 9 points

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

Strategy after playing RISKS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing RISKS:

27% chance
Suggested:
ALONE
17% chance
Suggested:
COATE
9% chance
Suggested:
STALE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

26.7%
ALONE 5.98 bits
17.2%
COATE 5.52 bits
9.4%
STALE 5.71 bits
8.9%
ANILE 5.43 bits
5.0%
TONEY 4.53 bits
4.7%
STRAE 4.89 bits
4.2%
TRIED 4.83 bits
3.0%
LEANT 4.61 bits
2.8%
LEANY 4.56 bits
2.1%
ANOLE 4.77 bits

Research on RISKS

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

Optimal play

Opening with RISKS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.84 guesses and ranks #12,473 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.99 guesses at best and is rank #6,001 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.82, at or below the proven-optimal 3.84, 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

One syllable Say it RIHSKS.

Rhymes with DISCS DISKS

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, RISKS is a kind of danger or venture.

Synonyms chance danger adventure hazard gamble jeopardy

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
RISKS sits in the common band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 22 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as an everyday word almost every player will know.

In a sentence

The risks are too great.
© tatoeba.org contributor CK (CC BY 2.0 FR)
Even so, there are risks.
© tatoeba.org contributor Danika_Dakika (CC BY 2.0 FR)

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT); Pronunciation: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary (BSD); Word relations: Open English WordNet, 2025 edition (CC BY 4.0); Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0).