Poople #388: ITCH to POOP

Path analysis

This route reaches POOP in 10 moves. Breadth-first search reaches every route with fewer moves first, so POOP cannot be reached in fewer than 10 moves from ITCH.

Moves

10

Difficulty

Brutal

Shortest paths

64

The dictionary has 64 equally short routes; the route below is one of them.

1. Move 1: ITCH → ETCH — change the 1st letter from I to E.
2. Move 2: ETCH → EACH — change the 2nd letter from T to A.
3. Move 3: EACH → MACH — change the 1st letter from E to M.
4. Move 4: MACH → MUCH — change the 2nd letter from A to U.
5. Move 5: MUCH → MUCK — change the 4th letter from H to K.
6. Move 6: MUCK → BUCK — change the 1st letter from M to B.
7. Move 7: BUCK → BOCK — change the 2nd letter from U to O.
8. Move 8: BOCK → BOOK — change the 3rd letter from C to O.
9. Move 9: BOOK → BOOP — change the 4th letter from K to P.
10. Move 10: BOOP → POOP — change the 1st letter from B to P.