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

SHOGS

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

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

plural of shog

Verb

third-person singular simple present indicative of shog

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

Use SHOGS in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 84.0% 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 SHOGS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts SHOGS 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 64.5% of games, misses completely in 35.5%, and leaves about 381 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #11,736 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.80 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 SHOGS 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.

3.73 Entropy (bits)
381 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
84.0% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How SHOGS 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.

3.80 Avg guesses
100% Solved within six
0.71 Spread of game lengths
#11,736 Rank among openers
Opening with SHOGS solved every answer in the snapshot within six guesses. A spread of 0.71 means those games clustered within about 0.71 of a guess of the 3.80 average. It ranks #11,736 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
35
3 guesses
736
4 guesses
1,268
5 guesses
289
6 guesses
26

Composition

4/5 unique
1 vowels
Common:
OS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
64%
Green tile
31%
All gray
36%

Feedback distribution

SHOGS can come back 67 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

847 answers
272 answers
215 answers
127 answers
113 answers
112 answers
109 answers
62 answers
52 answers
44 answers
43 answers
40 answers
35 answers
30 answers
30 answers
25 answers
19 answers
17 answers
13 answers
12 answers
12 answers
12 answers
11 answers
10 answers
10 answers
9 answers
8 answers
8 answers
7 answers
6 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

S1H4O1G2S1
Total: 9 points

Words With Friends

Total: 9 points

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

Strategy after playing SHOGS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing SHOGS:

36% chance
Suggested:
RAILE
11% chance
Suggested:
TALER
9% chance
Suggested:
PLATE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

35.5% →
RAILE 6.21 bits
11.4% →
TALER 5.36 bits
9.0% →
PLATE 5.43 bits
5.3% →
RAILE 5.47 bits
4.7% →
CLADE 4.50 bits
4.7% →
CARTE 5.18 bits
4.6% →
TARSE 5.34 bits
2.6% →
TRICE 5.09 bits
2.2% →
PEART 3.72 bits
1.8% →
CATER 4.42 bits

Research on SHOGS

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

Optimal play

Opening with SHOGS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.86 guesses and ranks #12,850 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 4.00 guesses at best and is rank #6,224 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.80, at or below the proven-optimal 3.86, 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).