Antiwordle solver

The board above is an example game where the hidden word is MOUND and the first guess was JUMPY. Here is what each tile tells you:

Before JUMPY, all 8,636 five-letter words in our list were legal and 2,817 common words could be the answer. After it, a guess must contain U and M and avoid J, P, Y, which leaves 191 legal words, and only 21 common words still fit the colours as the answer. The top suggestion, MUFTI, cannot be the answer, because it does not match the colours JUMPY produced, and on average it would light up 0.29 new coloured letters.

The rules it applies

Antiwordle uses five-letter words and Wordle-style colours, with one change: red takes the place of green. A grey letter is not in the hidden word and leaves your keyboard. A yellow letter is in the word, and every later guess must include it somewhere. A red letter is in the right spot and is locked there for the rest of the game. Each new yellow or red tile shrinks the set of words you are allowed to play, so revealing letters is what ends your run.

The solver reads every guess you add and builds three lists: locked spots, letters you must use (with how many copies), and banned letters. It then checks our full five-letter list against them. That gives the legal count: every word you may type next.

How guesses are ranked

Each legal word gets two numbers. Chance it is the word is the share of still-possible answers that the word itself represents. A word your colours have already ruled out as the answer scores 0%, so playing it can never end the game. Possible answers come from the everyday part of the list, because daily answers are common words. New letters it may reveal adds up, for each untested letter in the word, the share of possible answers that contain it. A word made of letters that few answers share is unlikely to turn anything yellow, so it keeps your options wide for the next turn.

Words are sorted by chance first, then everyday words before rare ones, then by fewest expected reveals. Rare words come later because the game only accepts words from its own list, and a rare word is more likely to be rejected.

Repeated letters and mixed colours

If one guess shows the same letter twice, once yellow and once grey, the letter is not banned: the hidden word has exactly one copy, and you must keep using one. If both copies are yellow or red, later guesses need two. The solver tracks these counts for you.

Strategy tips

• Open with uncommon letters such as J, Q, X, Z, V or K. They rarely appear in answers, so they rarely turn yellow.
• Hold back E, A, R, S and T. Once one of them is forced on you, the legal list drops fast.
• Prefer words with a repeated letter late in the game. Fewer distinct letters means fewer chances to reveal something new.
• When a 0% word exists, play it. It cannot be the answer, so it buys you a free turn.

Limits

Our dictionary is the public-domain ENABLE word list (172,823 words). It is close to the lists word games use, but not identical, so now and then the game may reject a suggestion or accept a word we do not list. The solver only knows what you enter: a wrong colour on one tile changes every result, so check the tiles first if the list looks odd. If you would rather find the word than dodge it, use the Wordle solver.