Techniques are described for decoding a codeword. In one example, the techniques include obtaining a first message comprising reliability information corresponding to each bit in the first codeword, determining a plurality of least reliable bits in the first codeword, and generating a plurality of flipped messages by flipping one or more of the plurality of least reliable bits in the first codeword. A number of the plurality of least reliable bits is equal to a first parameter and a number of flipped bits in each of the plurality of flipped messages is less than or equal to a second parameter. The method further includes decoding one or more of the plurality of flipped messages using a hard decoder to generate one or more candidate codewords.