Guess Who? Strategy: The Best First Question, by the Numbers

The board you are working with

This Guess Who? build has 24 characters and a fixed list of 15 yes-or-no questions. You never type a question and you never flip cards yourself: you pick a question from the box at the bottom of the screen, press OK, and the game knocks down every face the answer rules out. That makes the choice of question the whole game, so it helps to know how often each trait appears on the board.

How many faces each question covers

These counts come from the trait table in the game's own code. The board starts with 24 faces, so a question covering 12 would be a perfect half.

Question	Faces with the trait
Is your character a male?	16
Is your character wearing earrings?	11
Is your character wearing glasses?	9
Does your character have a moustache?	8
Does your character have blonde hair?	6
Does your character have mouth open?	6
Is your character wearing a tie?	5
Is your character bald?	4
Does your character have brown hair?	4
Is your character wearing a necklace?	4
Is your character wearing bunny ears?	3
Does your character have black hair?	3
Does your character have a beard?	3
Is your character wearing a band in the hair?	3
Is your character wearing a bandana?	2

The opening question

Earrings is the most even split on a full board: whatever the answer, you are left with 11 or 13 faces. Glasses (9 against 15) is the next best. The male question is lopsided: a yes leaves 16 faces, a no leaves only 8. The two-face and three-face traits, such as bandana, beard or bunny ears, are long shots that almost always leave 21 or 22 faces standing.

After the first answer, count again on what is left rather than on the full board. A trait that covered 4 of 24 faces may cover 3 of the 6 you still have, which makes it a perfect half at that point.

Each question can be asked once

When you ask a question it is removed from your list for the rest of the round, so you have at most 15 turns. A question about a trait you have already ruled out still costs a turn and knocks nothing down. Before you press OK, check that at least one face still up has the trait and at least one does not.

How the score rewards big cuts

The score in the corner is not just for show. After each of your questions the game works out what share of the faces still up the answer removed. More than 26% earns GOOD and 10 points, more than 40% earns GREAT and 40 points, and more than 60% earns AMAZING and 100 points. Winning the round adds 500. An even split will usually land GREAT; the lucky long shot, when a rare trait gets a yes, is where AMAZING comes from. If you care about winning, play the even splits. If you care about the score, a gamble late in the round costs less.

One quirk worth knowing

In this build the computer picks its secret character with a random number that never reaches the last card, so Vito is never the face you are hunting. You still have to narrow the board down to one face to win, because the game does not let you name a character early.