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

ZURFS

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

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

plural of zurf

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

Use ZURFS in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 84.8% 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 ZURFS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts ZURFS 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 69.5% of games, misses completely in 30.5%, and leaves about 363 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #12,541 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.83 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 ZURFS 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.

3.60 Entropy (bits)
363 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
84.8% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How ZURFS 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.

3.83 Avg guesses
99.87% Solved within six
0.70 Spread of game lengths
#12,541 Rank among openers
Opening with ZURFS left 3 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 3.83 average. It ranks #12,541 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
33
3 guesses
707
4 guesses
1,261
5 guesses
335
6 guesses
15

Composition

5/5 unique
1 vowels
Common:
RSU

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
70%
Green tile
17%
All gray
30%

Feedback distribution

ZURFS can come back 58 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

727 answers
413 answers
332 answers
106 answers
99 answers
94 answers
90 answers
63 answers
56 answers
56 answers
49 answers
29 answers
27 answers
22 answers
21 answers
18 answers
16 answers
14 answers
14 answers
13 answers
10 answers
9 answers
9 answers
8 answers
7 answers
7 answers
7 answers
6 answers
5 answers
5 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

Z10U1R1F4S1
Total: 17 points

Words With Friends

Total: 18 points

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

Strategy after playing ZURFS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing ZURFS:

30% chance
Suggested:
ALONE
17% chance
Suggested:
ARIEL
14% chance
Suggested:
STALE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

30.5% →
ALONE 6.10 bits
17.3% →
ARIEL 5.10 bits
13.9% →
STALE 5.67 bits
4.4% →
CLONE 4.99 bits
4.2% →
GLACE 4.15 bits
3.9% →
STOAE 4.98 bits
3.8% →
COATE 4.74 bits
2.6% →
ALINE 5.15 bits
2.3% →
SLANT 4.38 bits
2.3% →
CRUET 4.85 bits

Research on ZURFS

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

Optimal play

Opening with ZURFS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.87 guesses and ranks #13,260 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.97 guesses at best and is rank #5,727 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.83, at or below the proven-optimal 3.87, 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).