SALET opened with a zero — no letters at all in CHUCK. A blank slate, but that’s fine; it dramatically shrinks the field.

CORNI locked in C at position 1 (green), narrowing candidates from 1,059 down to just 6. The solver was hunting hard.

CUPPY confirmed the C and revealed U in the word but not in position 2, leaving just 2 candidates.

CHUFF was a bold move — three greens (C, H, U… wait, GGG in positions 1-2-3) meant the first three letters were locked as C-H-U. One candidate left.

CHUCK — that’s the one. Took five, but systematic entropy targeting got there.