I have a scrabble dictionary containing 200k words in capital letters. I want to do a wild card search. For example: pattern = "G.NT". Regex regex = new Regex(".*" + pattern + ".*"); I get 3 matches using: List<ScrabbleWord> s = ScrabbleWords.Where(p => regex.IsMatch(p.Word)).ToList(); I get 2 matches using: List<ScrabbleWord> s = ScrabbleWords.FindAll(p => regex.IsMatch(p.Word)); There should be 300+ from AGENT to GENTRY to UNGENTLY Any advice please. Thanks