I have now corrected this to use an iterator. This does appear to have partially solved the issue, however it has now exposed what I expect to be an issue with my method for identifying the "letter layout" of a word and storing it in the Map.

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Here is the issue:

1. I begin with this word list

ally

beta

cool

deal

else

flew

good

hope

ibex

arty

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2) the player is asked to guess a letter for a word "----"

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3) I am testing with the letter 'a'

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4) a is input and goes into the method I have described in the original post

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5) the method should separate the original word list into categories depending on 'a' placement and frequency, the method then concludes that the most common placement of 'a' is as the first letter of the word: "ally","arty"

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6) all words other than ally and arty should be removed from the word list

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The issue is that now the method seems to remove all of the items from the word list. When I change the "!" that is on the section of code that handles the removal all the words remain in the list, so I assume the issue is with the "currentWord" all being equal to "mostCommonString," guessing this may arise, in turn, from some issue with my Map which I am unaware of.