A communications system for reducing bit errors in a received data sequence provides a method for generating candidate code-word sequences for evaluation by a CRC decoder. The system may determine a most-likely received sequence using the probable code-word list of candidate sequences. The number of candidate sequences may be reduced using computational complexity reduction methods. A communications device also provides a candidate sequence generator for use with a CRC decoder to determine a most-likely received sequence and to reduce bit errors in a received sequence.