Having trouble getting a perfect score on your daily Crosswordle run? Don’t worry, we understand!

While Crosswordle is easy to pick up and play, it’s a whole different matter to consistently get a perfect score on your daily games. We know the feeling of going beyond just winning and wanting to beat the daily puzzle with the best possible swaps, that’s why we’re here to help you!

Do you want to get the best possible scores every single time you play Crosswordle? Then check out this video tutorial or read our guide below!

Assess your puzzle

First things first, let’s know what we’re going to play with. Assess your current puzzle and determine what to do based on what’s given. Let’s use this sample puzzle moving forward:

In Crosswordle, the colors of the letters are key to winning the game, as they dictate the next courses of action you need to take. Remember the following mechanics:

• Green letters are in the correct position and cannot be swapped.

• Yellow letters are in the correct horizontal or vertical word but in a different position.

• Grey letters are incorrect and should be in a different horizontal or vertical word.

After knowing which letters are what color, you now have to know the letters themselves. Remember what letters are permanent in each word, and pay extra attention to vowels in particular as they are important in the formation of every word.

Deduce and eliminate

After a quick assessment of the puzzle, the first thing that comes to mind is to form the closest word possible and work your way from there. When trying to deduce a word, try the following lines of thought:

• What are the start and end letters of the word?

• How long is the word?

• What letters are confirmed in the word?

• What are the other letters available in the puzzle?

And in this example, we’ve got two possibilities to start off with:

Based on the number of Ks present in the puzzle, the top word has a strong chance of being PICK. But wait! The normal line of thinking would be to just swap a K with the I and move to the next word, but we’re aiming for the best possible score, so that means using the least number of swaps. There are multiple Ks and we don’t exactly know where all of them fit just yet, so it’s best to leave that one alone for now.

The next one is the word on the bottom, which only needs two correct guesses to complete. Based on the currently available letters and what’s already confirmed, this word is most probably SUGAR. And since there’s only one R available, it’s a strong guess we can take our chances on, so let’s swap it in!

And would you look at that, we were right! This word is definitely SUGAR! Not only that, but the C we swapped ended up lighting up as a yellow letter in a horizontal word. This is one of the best strategies to use with your swaps—hitting two birds with one stone!

However, while we’ve already deduced this word only needs a U to complete, there are three usable Us available in the puzzle, and if we’re aiming for the best possible score, we can’t just pull some random U and swap it in there.

Carefully pick out your swaps

This is the most challenging part of playing Crosswordle—making the right swaps. Remember, we only have a limited number of them, so every swap we do must, ideally, turn one letter green.

Deducing words with little to no information

Since we’ve hit a wall with the first two words we’re sure of, let’s try whittling down the grey letters first, and let’s start with this:

There’s only one confirmed letter in this word, and we don’t know what comes next to T or what the word ends with, so we’ll have to take a look at the other existing letters around the puzzle. Most words tend to end with a consonant, and we currently have a lot of them available.

Based on what’s usable, this word could end with a -NK or -CK, as the leftmost vertical word and the topmost horizontal word coincide and start with the same letter. Both these words definitely start with a consonant, and C is the only consonant they share. There are two Cs available for swapping here, meaning that we can make use of the other C for other words.

With the other C free for use, TRUCK comes to mind first. But the letter U on this vertical word is grey, not to mention there are no available Rs for swapping, so TRUCK, TRICK and TRACK are out of the equation. The two rightmost words end with K, and we know the rightmost one can’t end in -NK. At best, there’s one N and one C available for swapping, so the rightmost word likely ends in -CK and the word next to it (second from the right) likely ends in -NK.

With that process of elimination, the chances of this word ending with an -NK become a lot stronger. Let’s test that out right now!

Excellent! Our guess seems to be on the right track! With the N lighting up as green, we can now definitely say this word ends with an -NK, and with the present letters available, that means it should be THANK or THINK. But since the A is grey, it’s most probably THINK. Let’s go ahead and act on that deduction.

That was a really good move, and we were able to get both H and U to their correct positions! Since we already have this vertical word in the bag, we can take a look at the longest vertical word we just pieced the end letters on. We now know it ends with a -US, and in this puzzle, there aren’t many words you can form with the currently available letters that end in that.

So that leaves one definite word we can input: CURIOUS. Just to be safe, let’s slot in the yellow O up top next to the green -US!

That move just confirms we were correct, so this long vertical word is already in the bag. Now we’ll solve the longest horizontal word, since most of it is green and yellow already. We’re now sure it starts in C because of CURIOUS, so we’re left CxPxTxx, with a yellow I, C and L. One word comes into mind with that length and possible letters: CAPITAL. Like before, let’s play it safe and slot in the L at the end.

Yup, this longest horizontal word is CAPITAL, confirmed. Since we’ve already bagged this one too, look at the TH- word we left. We already know it’s THINK, and we can now safely clear it. And since we’re going to swap that I with the K, we’re going to hit two birds with one stone again!

Don’t get tunnel vision

This is what separates players who just want to complete the puzzle from those who want to win with the highest score—remembering the whole puzzle. Oftentimes, when a player spots a word they can immediately complete, they rush to complete that word as fast as possible, then proceed to solve the puzzle by piecing together words one at a time.

But in reality, you can actually solve a Crosswordle puzzle faster and more efficiently by leaving the words you already know the answer to behind for a while and tackling the other surrounding words. Just moving around the letters in the right way makes the puzzle eventually solve itself, so keep that in mind!

Well done! We only need to deduce the last vertical word on the upper right. Based on what letters are available, the word can only be LUCK or LACK, but the A is grey, so that only leaves one word; LUCK is the correct answer. But just to make sure, let’s swap in that K from the rightmost word with the A in the word next to it.

Yup, that’s two words completely filled in, and the rightmost word is confirmed to be LUCK. Good job! We’re now in the final parts of solving the puzzle, and this is the part where you have to get it exactly right to achieve that perfect score.

Finishing strong

We now know all the words in the puzzle, and all we need to do to get the best possible score is solve it using the least number of swaps. We currently have 11 swaps remaining, so we can easily get the high score with this many left!

Let’s start with the rightmost word, LUCK. We need to put a U there and also swap the A where it should be. There are two Us available for play right now. If we swap the top left U with the A, we only get one word filled in, which is inefficient. But if we swap top right U with the A, we get the U and A to their correct positions at the same time. Neat! Let’s do that right now.

Now for the leftmost word. We need that C to go up top, but swapping C and U and then swapping the I in is inefficient; that already took three swaps. So we’re going to hit two birds with one stone again. Let’s swap the bottom I with the U first.

SUGAR is done, as we swapped the U to where it belongs and we got the I in the correct vertical word but wrong position. Now we simply swap the yellow I and C together to complete the word.

That word is complete! Instead of using three swaps for just one word, we were able to get two words for just two swaps, excellently done! Now for the last two swaps. Just get the now grey C and swap it with the A in the rightmost word.

LUCK’s solved and just swap the remaining yellow letters, and that’s it, your puzzle is now cleared!

Some puzzles are easier than this, and some are harder, but as long as you stick to the basic strategies and tips we taught you here, no Crosswordle puzzle is unsolvable for you.

Good luck and always remember to have fun!