Strategy
8-Letter Openers for Letter Box
A long opener is attractive: one word that covers most of the board. On the current live boards, though, honesty comes first — no 8-letter word in this site's word list fits any of the seven boards, so the checked openers here are all 7 letters.
The live truth
Every live checked solve starts with a 7-letter word: CAPTURE, GARDENS, JOURNEY, FATHOMS, DOLPHIN, CRYSTAL, OVERLAP. That is the benchmark to aim for on these boards. Claiming an 8-letter opener for them would be inventing a word that the game would reject.
When 8-letter openers do exist
The word list does contain longer words — for example DISCOUNT and GRATEFUL are in the list. Whether one fits a board depends on the board's letters and sides, not on the word alone. Type a custom board into the solver and look at its playable-word list: if an 8-letter word appears there, it obeys the side rule and the no-repeat rule for that board, and it is a real opener candidate. If none appears, no amount of wishing makes one fit.
How to judge an opener
Length is not the whole story. A good opener uses letters from at least three sides, ends in a letter that starts many words, and leaves a bridge word that can cover the rest. A 7-letter opener that leaves a clean 5-letter bridge beats an 8-letter opener that strands a rare letter. Aim for the chain, not the first word alone.
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