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

SOTOL

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

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈsəʊtəʊl//ˈsoʊˌtoʊl/

Noun

Any of several species of North American desert plants of the genus Dasylirion, of the asparagus family.

Noun

A distilled spirit made from the sap of some of these plants, especially Dasylirion wheeleri.

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

Etymology

From Mexican Spanish sotol, from Classical Nahuatl zōtolin (“palm tree”).

Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)

Use SOTOL in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 91.5% 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 SOTOL performs as a guess

Wordle accepts SOTOL 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 77.1% of games, misses completely in 22.9%, and leaves about 203 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #5,058 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.67 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 SOTOL 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.

4.58 Entropy (bits)
203 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
91.5% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How SOTOL 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.

3.67 Avg guesses
100% Solved within six
0.70 Spread of game lengths
#5,058 Rank among openers
Opening with SOTOL solved every answer in the snapshot within six guesses. A spread of 0.70 means those games clustered within about 0.70 of a guess of the 3.67 average. It ranks #5,058 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
55
3 guesses
911
4 guesses
1,155
5 guesses
220
6 guesses
13

Composition

4/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
LOST

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
77%
Green tile
40%
All gray
23%

Feedback distribution

SOTOL can come back 89 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

545 answers
237 answers
217 answers
141 answers
110 answers
102 answers
100 answers
79 answers
70 answers
57 answers
51 answers
50 answers
47 answers
39 answers
35 answers
32 answers
31 answers
28 answers
24 answers
23 answers
20 answers
18 answers
17 answers
17 answers
16 answers
15 answers
13 answers
12 answers
12 answers
11 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

S1O1T1O1L1
Total: 5 points

Words With Friends

Total: 6 points

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

Strategy after playing SOTOL

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing SOTOL:

23% chance
Suggested:
RAINE
10% chance
Suggested:
BAILE
9% chance
Suggested:
TIARE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

22.9% →
RAINE 6.14 bits
9.9% →
BAILE 5.34 bits
9.1% →
TIARE 5.70 bits
5.9% →
CARNE 5.27 bits
4.6% →
CRANE 5.53 bits
4.3% →
RAISE 5.13 bits
4.2% →
RANCE 4.76 bits
3.3% →
RAINE 4.61 bits
2.9% →
RAINE 4.34 bits
2.4% →
CADRE 4.46 bits

Research on SOTOL

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

Optimal play

Opening with SOTOL, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.72 guesses and ranks #6,404 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 #2,840 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.67, at or below the proven-optimal 3.72, 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).