The round that ends on the sixth attempt is usually the one where the answer repeated a letter and you never considered it: four correct letters, five plausible arrangements, and every arrangement assuming five different letters โ so the answer was never on your list.
This page fixes that with numbers taken from the answer list Word Guess actually uses: how often a double occurs, which letters do the doubling, where it sits, how to read the tile colors, and what it costs to test a double too early.
How Often a Double Actually Appears
Of the 2,315 possible answers, 749 repeat at least one letter โ 32.4 percent. Close to one round in three. That is far too common to treat as an exception, and far too rare to assume by default. Broken down by shape:
| Shape of the answer | Answers | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Five different letters | 1566 | 67.6% |
| One letter twice, four distinct letters | 691 | 29.8% |
| Two different letters doubled, three distinct | 38 | 1.6% |
| One letter three times | 20 | 0.9% |
When a double happens it is overwhelmingly one doubled letter in an otherwise normal word. Words built from only three distinct letters โ LEVEL, QUEUE, MIMIC, KAYAK and the like โ account for 58 answers, about one round in forty. Rare, but they are the ones that eat all six attempts.
How the Game Marks a Repeated Letter
The marking is exact, and understanding it turns a confusing row into a precise count. The game colors a guess in two passes: first it marks green every letter sitting in the correct slot, removing one copy of it from the answer's supply; only then does it walk the remaining tiles, marking a letter yellow while a copy is still left over and gray once the supply runs out.
The rule worth memorizing: when you play a letter more than once, the colored tiles are a count, not a location. If one of those tiles comes back gray, the colored ones tell you exactly how many copies the answer holds, because the gray tile is the game reporting that the supply ran out. If every tile you played for that letter comes back colored, the answer holds at least that many and possibly more. Three examples, all with real words from the game's lists:
- Guess SASSY against the answer CHASE: gray, yellow, gray, green, gray. Three S letters, one green and two gray โ the answer holds exactly one S, already placed in slot 4.
- Guess ALLEY against the answer LEVEL: gray, yellow, yellow, green, gray. Two L letters, both yellow and neither gray โ the answer holds at least two L letters, and neither belongs in slot 2 or slot 3.
- Guess EERIE against the answer THREE: yellow, gray, green, gray, green. The green in slot 3 is the R. The three E letters landed one green, one yellow and one gray, so the answer holds exactly two E letters, one confirmed in slot 5.
Which Letters Double, and How Often
Doubling is not spread evenly. The useful figure is conditional: given that the answer contains a letter, how likely is it to contain two?
| Letter | Answers where it doubles | Answers containing it | Chance of a double |
|---|---|---|---|
| E | 172 | 1056 | 16.3% |
| O | 81 | 673 | 12.0% |
| L | 71 | 648 | 11.0% |
| F | 22 | 207 | 10.6% |
| T | 61 | 667 | 9.1% |
| S | 49 | 618 | 7.9% |
| A | 70 | 909 | 7.7% |
| R | 60 | 837 | 7.2% |
| C | 29 | 448 | 6.5% |
| I | 24 | 647 | 3.7% |
E is the letter to suspect: a confirmed E carries a one-in-six chance of a second E, with O and L behind it. A confirmed I almost never doubles, and J, Q and X never double in any answer on the list.
Where the Double Sits
Among the 828 pairs of matching positions across the answer list, 488 are split apart and 340 are adjacent โ 58.9 percent against 41.1 percent. The instinct to picture a double as a side-by-side pair is wrong slightly more often than it is right.
The most frequent arrangement is slots 3 and 4 together, with 198 occurrences โ more than twice any other pairing. After that the field flattens: slots 1 and 5 at 96, slots 1 and 4 at 95, slots 2 and 5 at 92. Only two answers in the whole list begin with the same letter twice.
Word endings are the other pattern worth carrying. Seventy-two answers end in a doubled letter, led by -LL with 25, -SS with 21, -FF with 13 and -EE with 10. If you hold a confirmed L, S or F and slots 4 and 5 are open, the doubled ending belongs on your shortlist.
Why Guessing a Doubled Word Early Costs You
A guess with a repeated letter spends two of its five slots on one question. The penalty was measured by scoring every accepted guess against every possible answer and recording how many candidates survive on average:
| Distinct letters in the guess | Guesses of that shape | Average answers left | Best of that shape |
|---|---|---|---|
| 5 | 8322 | 180.008 | 60.425 |
| 4 | 4185 | 290.455 | 98.125 |
| 3 | 456 | 454.310 | 175.164 |
| 2 | 9 | 650.698 | 495.344 |
The strongest opener that repeats a letter is SAREE, leaving 98.125 answers on average and ranking 493rd of the 12,972 accepted guesses. The strongest opener overall, ROATE, leaves 60.425. Even the best doubled opening therefore hands you 1.62 times the field โ and that is the best case, not the typical one.
The conclusion is narrow: do not spend guess one or guess two on a repeated letter. A double is worth testing once you already know the letter is present, because only then is the second copy the open question.
When Committing to a Double Is Correct
Three conditions make a doubled guess correct, and they usually arrive together late in a round:
- You hold four confirmed letters and an empty slot, and no unused common letter fits it. If R, T, L, S and N are gone and the gap remains, it is probably a repeat of a letter you already have.
- You hold a confirmed E, O or L โ the letters most likely to appear twice โ and your list of five-distinct-letter candidates has run dry.
- Two candidates differ in one slot and one of them repeats a letter. Play that one: it is the candidate your earlier guesses were least likely to rule out.
Worked Example: The Double You Would Have Ruled Out
The answer is TOOTH.
- ROATE returns gray, green, gray, green, gray. O is placed in slot 2, T in slot 4, and R, A and E are gone. That leaves 12 candidates: BOOTH, BOOTY, LOFTY, MONTH, MOTTO, MOUTH, POUTY, SOOTH, SOOTY, SOUTH, TOOTH and YOUTH. Exactly six of them repeat a letter โ half the field, and invisible to a solver who only lists words with five different letters.
- Rather than picking one, test the letters that split the group. SHOUT returns gray, yellow, green, gray, yellow: H is in the word but not in slot 2, and there is an O in slot 3 as well as the one in slot 2 โ a confirmed double-O. The field falls to 2, BOOTH and TOOTH.
- Here is the trap. That final yellow is the T you played in slot 5, and it looks like proof of a second T. It is not: the counting rule works within one guess, and SHOUT holds a single T, so its yellow only says a T exists outside slot 5 โ possibly the one already green in slot 4. BOOTH fits that clue as well as TOOTH does.
- With two candidates and four attempts in hand, play one. The point is that TOOTH had to be on the list at all: it reuses a letter already placed, which is exactly the kind of word a solver drops without noticing.
The round is not decided by a clever deduction. It is decided by whether the doubled word was ever a candidate.
Frequently Asked Questions
If I guess a letter twice and one tile is gray, is the letter absent?
No. Gray means there are no further copies beyond the ones already colored. If another tile for that letter is green or yellow, the letter is in the answer and the gray one is telling you the count stops there.
Can two tiles for the same letter both come back yellow?
Yes, and it is one of the clearest signals in the game: the answer holds that letter at least twice, and neither slot you tried is correct.
How common are words with three of the same letter?
Twenty of the 2,315 answers repeat a letter three times โ rare enough to consider only once the ordinary options are exhausted, common enough not to dismiss on the last guess.
Is there a fast way to spot a likely double mid-round?
Count your confirmed letters against the open slots. When four letters fit and no fifth common letter works, a repeat of a letter you already hold is usually the missing piece.
Does an invalid word cost me a guess while I experiment?
No. A word outside the guess list is rejected and the row stays where it is, so you can rewrite it and submit again. Only accepted words use an attempt.
Which doubled ending should I try first?
Follow the counts: -LL at 25 answers, then -SS at 21, -FF at 13 and -EE at 10.
Related Guides
- How to Play Word Guess โ the full solving method, with the endgame reasoning this page plugs into.
- Best Starting Words for Word Guess โ the measured ranking that shows why doubled openers score badly.
- Word Guess Letter Frequency โ presence and position counts for every common letter.
- Best Puzzle Games โ more deduction puzzles across the category.
Next time a round stalls with one slot open, try a repeat of a letter you already hold before reaching for a new one โ then open Word Guess and count how often that habit saves the fifth attempt.