Word helper or cheat? It depends on the agreement

The short answer

Whether a word solver is a helper or a cheat depends on one question: what did you and the other players agree to? The tool itself is neutral. A solver that sits next to you on a Scrabble board in a tournament is cheating, because every rule set for competitive play says the words must come from your own head. The same solver used to check a game you have already finished, to practice alone, or in a game where everyone has agreed to use help, is simply a tool.

That answer is less satisfying than a rule, but it is the honest one, and it is the answer most experienced players give. This guide sets out the cases so you can decide for yourself, and ends with ways of using a solver that make you a better player rather than a more dependent one.

Where it is clearly cheating

• Tournaments and clubs. Competitive Scrabble bans any outside help during play, and so do most clubs. If you enter an event, assume that a solver, a word list or a phone is not allowed at the table, and read the event's rules before you sit down.
• Ranked or rated online play. Where a game keeps ratings or leaderboards, using a solver undermines the ranking for everyone else.
• Games with a prize. When money, a trophy or a place in a team depends on the result, outside help is unfair to opponents who are playing straight.
• Any game where your opponent expects a fair match. If you are playing a friend who is not using a solver and you do not tell them, you are taking advantage of their trust, even in a casual game.

Where it is fine

• Practice and study. Playing a board against yourself with a solver beside you is one of the best ways to learn words, as long as you read the results rather than just copying them.
• After the game. Entering your racks after a finished game, and seeing what you missed, is how many strong players improve. Nothing is at stake and you learn something from every miss.
• Solo puzzles. Newspaper jumbles, crossword gaps, and word puzzles in a book are between you and the page. If you are stuck, a solver is no different from a dictionary or a thesaurus.
• Agreed help. In some family games, everyone uses their phones, or the strong player helps a beginner. If the table agrees, there is nothing to hide.
• Accessibility. Players with dyslexia, a learning difficulty or a memory condition may use a solver as an aid, and a friendly opponent can easily agree to that.

The grey area: online games against strangers

Most disagreement is about casual online play against people you do not know, in games like Words With Friends. Players who use helpers say it is only a game and the app does not stop them. Players who do not use them say that the whole point of a word game against a person is the contest of vocabulary. Both views are reasonable, and neither is a rule.

What we can say is practical. If you use a helper in that setting, you will probably win more games and learn fewer words. If you do not, you will lose some games and your vocabulary will improve. And every game has its own terms of service, so read the one for the app you play. Some games discourage helpers in their rules, and you accept those rules when you play.

How Wordle and other daily puzzles fit in

A daily puzzle like Wordle is a solo game with a shared answer. Nobody beats you if you use a helper, and the only person you are playing against is yourself. Many players use a solver to check a hard word after the game, or to see whether they could have narrowed the answer faster, and that is a clear learning use. Using one to get every day's answer in two guesses is allowed too, but the satisfaction of the puzzle is gone. Our Wordle strategy guide and Wordle Solver are meant for the first use: study, not shortcut.

How to use a helper and still improve

1. Try first, check second. Set a timer for a minute or two, find your best play without help, then see what the tool shows. The gap between the two is what to study.
2. Learn from the misses. When the solver shows a word you did not know, read how it is built and look at similar words. Our lists of two-letter words and Q words without U are good places to start.
3. Look at scores, not length. A good helper ranks by points. Notice when a short word beats a long one and ask why: it is usually a premium square.
4. Switch it off sometimes. Keep a few games a week where you use no help at all, so you can see whether your own play is improving.
5. Tell your opponent. If you play a friend, say so. A friendly match with a stated helper is still a good game.

What we think

We build word tools, so we are not neutral, but we try to be honest about what they are for. They are for learning, for practice, for puzzles and for checking, and they work best when the person using them is still thinking. Read the tournament rules if you compete, read the app's terms if you play online, and be straight with your opponent. The rest is a matter of what you want out of the game. For how the tools find their answers, see how word solvers work, and for strategy that does not need a tool at all, the Scrabble strategy guide.

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