When to use a probe guess

A probe is a guess that is unlikely to be the answer but splits many candidates — or confirms letter multiplicities — on one or more boards.

Use probes when:

• Multiple boards have overlapping candidate sets and you need disambiguation more than a solve.
• The ranked suggestions in the solver label a word as a probe on several boards.

Avoid probes when one board has a tiny candidate set and a direct solve is available with comparable information gain.