Quicksort

Your goal is to sort the full list in as few moves as possible.

Quicksort functions by splitting lists into sublists: Each partition is unsorted, but each list is alphabetically earlier than subsequent lists.

When you make a guess, an existing partition will be split into two partitions: one consisting of words alphabetically prior to your guess and one consisting of words subsequent to it.

The strongest baseline strategy is to create partitions of an even number of words whenever you can.

Even better, if you can guess words directly from the theme, you can land exact pivots and save moves.

Any partition of three words is auto-completed, but it adds +1 extra move to your score.

Without exact word guesses, the best possible score is 13 moves. Good luck!