The Wordle thread (with spoilers!)

[cat]

Who of you is playing wordle?

I started playing a few weeks ago, but I clear my browser cache often, so I don't track my results over time. I think it's a nice challange and I enjoy learning new words. I usually play in regular mode but try to keep to the hard mode rules. This allows for the occasional win on the second guess. Only when I can't think of any more words that could fit (or too many, like still, skill, spill, etc) I use a word to exclude as many characters as possible.
Do you have a standard starting word? How do you play?

Today I got the word on second try

[Babar]

I read somewhere that TRACE or CRATE are very effective starting words.
What are hard mode rules?

[cat]

I use STARE.

Hard mode means that once you have figured out a letter, you have to use it in the following guesses. Which means you can't use two completely different words to check the most common 10 letters in your first two guesses.

[Babar]

Oh, I do that anyway, I thought it was the best strategy to get answers in the minimum time.

[eri0o]

I play but I play on my language.

I learned how to do that share thing it has in both Android and JS, I am almost trying to do that in AGS... 

The Brazilian version I play is named Termo: https://term.ooo/

Ah, I also found the page of one of the first ones in Basic in an old magazine scanned online.

[Snarky]

Today I got the word on second try

Congrats! I got it in 4. Though I actually think it shouldn't be a valid wordââ,¬Â¦

Spoiler

since sauté is spelled with an accent that Wordle doesn't have.

[close]

Oh, I do that anyway, I thought it was the best strategy to get answers in the minimum time.

It's the best (in fact, only) way to get it on the current guess, but it's usually the worst way to get in on the next guess (or the one afterââ,¬Â¦), because you're not maximizing the amount of information you get from the guess if it doesn't turn out to be the right word. Maybe the clearest example is when you have four green, lacking one letter, like with WATCH the other day when people missed it because they kept trying BATCH, CATCH, HATCH, LATCH, MATCH, PATCHââ,¬Â¦ while e.g. CLAMP would eliminate four possibilities in one guess.

If you're trying to minimize your average number of guesses over many rounds of play (not the only way to play the game, for sure, but a reasonable metric for performance), you should only really try to guess the word once you are relatively confident (ideally 50%), or if the guess gives you a lot more information (you have a lot of yellow letters and you're not sure of where they go). The rest of the time you should (1) be searching for missing letters, (2) find the right position for the yellow letters (usually less important, but it depends on what they are and how many yellow and green you have).

Using this strategy and a good starting word (pair of words, rather), you have a very good chance to get it on the third or fourth guess, and you're almost guaranteed not to fail. You sacrifice the chance of getting it on the second guess except by extremely good luck (I've only got it once; LAPSE, where my first guess was LANES), but unless you're very lucky with your first word that's a low probability anyway.

I personally find hard mode/the "stick with what I know" approach not very interesting, since it reduces the game to almost pure guessing with very little strategy.

There's a version called Absurdle that always gives you the "maximally unlucky" result of any guess. If you read the description of how it works, that should give you a good idea of the "optimal" way to play Wordle.

[Stupot]

I also got today’s (272) in two goes. Got very lucky with my first guess

Wordle 272 2/6*

🟩⬛🟨⬛🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

It’s only my third 2-guess win in 55 tries, but I so far have 100% win record.

I generally mix it up with my starting word but it always contains two vowels.

People keep calling this Josh Wardle guy the “inventor” of Wordle. But I’ve been playing this exact game with my students as a filler activity for at least 5 years now. I can’t even remember where I got it from but I’m kicking myself that I didn’t turn it into a web app and sell it to the New York Times for several million dollars.

[CaptainD]

I got today's in 2 as well. Yesterday's took me 6 for some reason... I had it when you have 4 letters but the remaining one could be any of several letters.

If anyone likes Wordle, try Quordle - much harder! You have 9 goes to guess 4 different words.

[cat]

For me, the hard mode is much more interesting. The other way, where you try to get all the letters first is a very mathematical approach, but I enjoy the linguistic challenge of hard mode way better. I like to think about words - words that start with certain letters, end with letters, common collocations of letters (th, sh,..) and discover amazing things like that CATER and WATER are pronounced differently even though they have all letters but one in common.

I also play a German Wordle version and it plays differently. For example, words containing letters like B and G are excellent starters there.

[Mouth for war]

I got hooked immediately after I learned what this was so thanks Cat Got today's word on my third try. Not too bad

[cat]

The advantage is, that there is only one per day - you do not risk binging 

I got it today on my 4th try (I've heard four is considered par, so it's fine). Interesting that my mind thought of ALLOY first.

[Mouth for war]

Yeah that was a little weird actually! I feel an addiction coming. https://www.wordleunlimited.com if you want to play unlimited. Perfect while I'm waiting for my 3D renders to be finished

[Snarky]

There is already a Wordle-clone called Murdle, but I still think that's a good name for a cash-in movie about a serial killer who sends taunting clues to the police and challenges the detectives to catch him by his sixth victim.

[Mouth for war]

Phew...got it on my last try today

[cat]

Awesome idea, Snarky - the ABC murders revisited.

Got it on 4th try today.

[Snarky]

Got it in 2 for Wordle 275 today, and I'm quite happy about the process to get there, as it wasn't just a lucky guess but a fairly careful line of reasoning. (From 1 green and 2 yellow on first guess.)

[Stupot]

I got 275 in 3 goes but I was also pretty pleased with how I got there.

I’ve just done 276 (it updates at midnight local time, so being in Japan means I get a bit of a head start). Took me 4 goes.

[milkanannan]

I’ve been playing the last few weeks, too. Have you guys ever lost one? I managed to get tripped up by RUPEE.

[cat]

@Stupot Putting us under pressure, eh? 

I got 275 in 3 as well, today.

@milkanannan I didn't get CAULK (never heard that word before, even though I have applied it myself in our bathroom), I don't remember if I got RUPEE. I got VIVID only with my 6th guess, but I think this was a fantastic word of the day - difficult, but not obscure.
It happened that I got the word without even knowing what it meant. English language is, in a way, quite predictable. I look up those words in a dictionary afterwards to learn something.

[CaptainD]

Got today's in 3, pretty happy with working it out from one correct letter and one in the wrong place.