This sounds like the optimal strategy for a single guess. But shouldn't the optimal strategy for solving the game include that there are multiple guesses? While

This sounds like the optimal strategy for a single guess. But shouldn't the optimal strategy for solving the game include that there are multiple guesses? While some specific word might provide the highest reduce in entropy for the first guess, it might actually negatively impact the entropy reduction of remaining possible words compared to another first guess. E.g. if RAISE is the optimal reduction in search space for the given word list, what's the best 2nd guess for every possible word? Now taking the average 2nd guesses into account, is there a better first guess?