The optimal guess | Wordle (July 21, 2026)

[00:00:00]Hello. Let's play Wordle for Tuesday, July 21st. Yesterday we spun the wheel.

[00:00:04]It said to start with Cobra.

[00:00:08]All gray from Cobra. All right. Common letters left. Stn. We could use an E. So there's the standard stone or stole. No, there's no O actually. So not that. Um there's Stein.

[00:00:26]That's not bad. Um I'd like to use a P though. Why don't we do like a PL word?

[00:00:30]Like plume.

[00:00:34]I'd love to use an S or a T with it.

[00:00:36]Plush.

[00:00:38]You know what? I kind of like plush.

[00:00:40]Let's go with plush today. Oh, it doesn't use an E. That's okay. Vowels. I don't really care what vowel I use. I care about the consonants.

[00:00:47]Yeah. See, uh, sh. Is it just shell? It could be shell or shelf or I don't know. I thought of shell first. So, let's do that.

[00:00:58]Oh, it's shill. Okay. Well, shell is probably the way to go there.

[00:01:05]Or actually, probably any of them would have been fine. Unless there's other words I didn't think of, which is possible. Yeah, not too bad today.

[00:01:12]Common letters. Double L is if you're going to double a letter, it's probably L. Let's spin the wheel and see what tomorrow's starting word will be. I haven't gotten any feedback on on the new wheel look. I think it's funny. uh steel suggested by mortar shell. So we'll have a very good start today today tomorrow if you're following along. All right, some of you may follow along without even realizing it. All right, let's do the analysis. The part we're all here for, right? So the known answer is shill and we started with cobra. All gray.

[00:01:50]So it says suggest slept. Yeah, that's one I need to remember. Slept. I did plush, which is unlikely to be on this list, but it worked out.

[00:01:59]Plush was a 3.079. So, we went from the 2.9 to 3.0, it looked like. Um, and so, actually, Shell was the way to go because it was Shelf, Shell, Shill, and Shily.

[00:02:12]So, Shill wouldn't have been good enough. It does tell you about Shelf versus Shell, but it doesn't tell you.

[00:02:20]Let's see what what's going on with with Shily. Um, yeah. So, shill won't tell you the difference between shelf and shily is the issue because the L is in that spot.

[00:02:33]Whereas, if you do a double L, well, sorry, if you do shell, then you can tell the difference between shelf and shily because the E tells you that. So, that's why shell was actually the perfect guess and then shell is the follow-up. All right, so I did do a good guess. I didn't think of shily.

[00:02:48]You forgive me for that one. Um, it would do slept, past tense of sleep, and then from here we're down to 10 words, all very similar ones. And it suggests shill, skill, or skull. I can see how that's kind of a grouping. Um, if you do shill, obviously that's the answer you get in three. Otherwise, it actually does not guarantee a four. So, something like skill could be shill or swill. So, it could be as bad as five there. Something like skull could still be swill or shill. So still a four or a five. So it's either a three or a gamble between four or five. That's interesting.

[00:03:30]Um it likes to start with least.

[00:03:35]Straight to skill. 31 words left.

[00:03:40]So yeah, checking that double L is not bad when you know you have an L. Um and then we're in this kind of trap here.

[00:03:45]It's actually got into the trap um early so that you you wouldn't lose on it. Um but we could do something like spill, swill, shill. So it could be as bad as five, but you could also get it in three if you get lucky because they're all equally good. So three to five from least. Curious if steel is any different, which is what we're starting with tomorrow actually. Um it we're just in that trap still. So like shill is not as good though. Skill, spill, swill. For some reason, shill is not as good for these 10 words left. So, we're going to get into this trap and then it could be as bad as five. So, again, it's like three to five.

[00:04:26]It's interesting. Very trappy.

[00:04:30]Do you most common starting word? We have the I in the middle. So, we're going to go flint. Always curious about that F that it gets there. And then whirl is always a fun one. That gets some esoteric letters. Right. Then we're down to chill shill. So it could be a four or five. Audio is going to have the I as well. Yellow this time. Try in the middle with style.

[00:04:55]And then we're down to this trap. And it's pretty bad. Swill. Spill. Skill.

[00:05:00]Shill is worst case which is a six. So, but you could get it in three. No, actually it doesn't list shill here.

[00:05:09]Shill is not as good. Oh, no. It is.

[00:05:11]It's at the top. Okay. So, it could be anywhere from three to five or three to six, which is crazy.

[00:05:17]All right. And then, uh, stare. Very common starting word.

[00:05:23]And I will note that that trap is worse with something like audio because you don't get any consonants in your first guess. So, you haven't by chance eliminated any of the traps are always consonant, never vowel. Um, spunk.

[00:05:39]And then shill is just the best guess out of these 15. So we we just get a guaranteed three. That's very lucky though. It's a one in 15 basically.

[00:05:49]All right. Per highest chance to get it in two.

[00:05:55]It's a one in 355 today. So probably not getting it in two. We're going to go humid as an attempt. But nope, that doesn't do it. And then finch. And then we could get shill in four if we're lucky. Otherwise, it's whisk shill.

[00:06:08]All right. All right. I never said per was a good starting word. Just has the highest chance to get in, too. That's very different.

[00:06:13]Um, and then tarps.

[00:06:17]We're going to go shine with just this yellow. Yeah. Yes, we're going to go shine, which gets us straight to shell in three. All right. Well, let's check with the official bot. See how people did.

[00:06:30]All righty.

[00:06:34]Shill.

[00:06:36]Okay. Just saving a screenshot so I can analyze with regular mode later. Give me a 93 skill. That's not bad. Higher than average.

[00:06:44]Um, people did style, slime, stein, spine, slept, style, snipe, plume, sling, and I'm the only one who did plush. Yeah, I like slept. I think slept is is a nice word. I should remember that.

[00:07:01]Um, and then Shell was the 99 because it, if we look at the breakdown, it just makes four buckets each with one option.

[00:07:10]So, you're guaranteed to win after.

[00:07:12]All right. And then tarps shine shill.

[00:07:18]It's exactly what we saw from the other bot. 3 starting with shill. 1.5 16.5 44.1 73.1 93.9. Wow. Yeah, it's this trap. Swill, skill, spill, still people losing on shish and shily as well. Whatever this word is. Shilly. Shily.

[00:07:39]All right, that's nasty. So, it's going to be even lower in regular mode for because I' i've It's It's I've never seen regular mode have a higher uh percent solve rate than hard mode, which is kind of crazy. Think about it. It just It just means people playing hard mode are better at the game, even with the restrictions. And a lot of people play hard mode without choosing it.

[00:08:02]All right. So, style, spine, stein, slept, shine, spite, sweet. See, I'm I'm not in the S, the start with S group.

[00:08:12]Pesty flute. Someone else did plush. So, actually, I didn't look at who did best on the previous one, but Shine does the best with 1.6 today. That makes sense because it's just shill after it. Plush actually is uh 2.0 here, so take that.

[00:08:28]You get the H. You get the SH. Just a luck. Um, slate chill shell.

[00:08:35]All right. It actually does a um a filler here.

[00:08:40]The filler actually prevented it from getting a two. It looks like um.5 starting with shill 1.3 12% on turn three is very low. 37.9 on turn four.

[00:08:52]67.3 on turn five. That is crazy.

[00:08:56]91.5. So, it's a big jump. Um, losing on swill skill spill. Still, it should be a crime to not have tried teas. But anyway, shily shish ships shift shims.

[00:09:13]All right. Well, how'd you do?