Wordle: scores and discussion

[YitzyS]

4. My strategy w/ wordle is to start with a 3 vowel word like agile or radio, bound to give you a good start one way or another. Then after that I only submit valid guesses and if multiple options, use the most common letters as possible

According to an article by someone who graphed all of the possible solutions “SOARE” is the optimal starting word.

I start with a 2-vowel word, because I feel that you are going to have to reuse vowels in the second or third word if you use them all up at the beginning. If you start with SOARE and you get 2 of the vowels right, but no consonants, you will have to waste guesses to reuse vowels in subsequent turns, in order to identify consonants (as you cannot try consonants without vowels).

Instead, I start with a word that has 2 vowels and popular consonants. Three words that don't overlap letters are ROMAN, CHIPS, and BUDGE. That is often my starting sequence when I don't get stuff right. If I start getting stuff right, I adapt based on the correct guesses.

[Yehuda57]

According to an article by someone who graphed all of the possible solutions “SOARE” is the optimal starting word.

...if the goal is to get the most common letters. But sometimes you want to get some of the secondary letters asap, as once you have those you can easier guess which one of the "SOARE" letters is missing.

[S209]

I start with a 2-vowel word, because I feel that you are going to have to reuse vowels in the second or third word if you use them all up at the beginning. If you start with SOARE and you get 2 of the vowels right, but no consonants, you will have to waste guesses to reuse vowels in subsequent turns, in order to identify consonants (as you cannot try consonants without vowels).

...if the goal is to get the most common letters. But sometimes you want to get some of the secondary letters asap, as once you have those you can easier guess which one of the "SOARE" letters is missing.

Of course everyone can have their own strategy but according to a data scientist who crunched the numbers this is the most efficient starting word based upon their actual published solution list. I’ve done plenty of them and SOARE has been an amazing first word. Apparently it’s a great word for a number of reasons
-S is the most common first letter
-That combination is the word with the highest ratio of letters in possible solutions
-It also has them in the place they are most likely to be

IMO having the correct placement of a letter is worth twice as much as merely having the letter.

[S209]

If you start with SOARE and you get 2 of the vowels right, but no consonants, you will have to waste guesses to reuse vowels in subsequent turns, in order to identify consonants (as you cannot try consonants without vowels).

This doesn’t make sense. The correct word (which is what you should always be attempting to identify, especially in hard mode) will obviously not contain any of the vowels you eliminated. Why wouldn’t you just use the letters you have identified and not eliminated to find eligible words? That’s the whole point.

[Yehuda57]

IMO having the correct placement of a letter is worth twice as much as merely having the letter.

Wordle 212 5/6*

🟩⬛⬛⬛🟩
🟩🟩⬛🟩🟩
🟩🟩⬛🟩🟩
🟩🟩⬛🟩🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Mortifying

Wordle 212 4/6*

⬜🟨🟨🟨🟨
🟩🟩⬜🟩🟩
🟩🟩⬜🟩🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Wordle 212 5/6

🟩⬛⬛⬛⬛
⬛⬛🟨⬛🟩
🟩⬛🟩🟩🟩
🟩⬛🟩🟩🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

[biobook]

My goal is to guess the word in the fewest turns, but also to keep it interesting, so I vary my strategy.
Sometimes I'll start with a word of frequently-used letters, like STARE or SHARE or SLATE. But I've found, as @S209 says, that S _ A _ E is a very common sequence, so it may be quicker to avoid those letters and initially look for other consonants. Then after I get a consonant or two, I consider how I can manipulate them into the above sequence.

Sometimes I'll start with a few one-vowel words to get a handle on the consonants, such as FROCK, STERN, CLUMP, NIGHT. 

Just checked the Jotto game, and it doesn't have SOARE in its dictionary.

[YitzyS]

This doesn’t make sense. The correct word (which is what you should always be attempting to identify, especially in hard mode) will obviously not contain any of the vowels you eliminated. Why wouldn’t you just use the letters you have identified and not eliminated to find eligible words? That’s the whole point.

Lets say this:

SOURE

you still have (presumably) 3 consonants to identify, but (presumably) no vowels. But in the next word, you can't just type DTLMN, or any 5 popular consonants, because every word must contain vowels. And those vowels are usually wasted.

In hard mode, you are right. Your strategy must be to try to find the correct word right away (from the second word), so you can't spend a turn just seeking to identify letters. But in the standard mode, if you have yet to identify consonants, it is often worth doing a random word made up of unused letters.

In my experience, if I start with ROMAN and CHIPS, or another non-redundant word, and I identify 3 letters between the two guesses, I can often already make a pretty educated guess at the answer in the third try.

[Dan]

Sometimes I'll start with a word of frequently-used letters, like STARE

I often start with another word. Same letters though.

[Euclid]

I change it up. Gets boring using the same first word every day. I have a friend who uses AUREI (Google it) - that's boring and stupid.

[Yehuda57]

My goal is to guess the word in the fewest turns, but also to keep it interesting, so I vary my strategy.

I like to keep things FRESH and use different words every day to BREAK the monotony, though I like to think I choose to GLARE at the different words I pick under the GUISE of wanting RAISE the STAKEs. I don't want to SHARE all the words I use FIRST, though in Absurdle I find myself trying to HOUND down the possibilities using different words that aren't as SCARY.

[biobook]

I often start with another word. Same letters though.

This is what added an extra element of fun to the pencil-paper version with a partner, where you each thought of a secret word, then took turns asking each other 5-letter guesses.  If my partner usually began with a word like TEARS, in the next round I would think of a secret word that would give them a 1 with those letters.  In Jotto you don't learn the placement of the letter, so a 1 is the worst possible answer - doesn't tell you anything, doesn't eliminate anything.

[YitzyS]

I change it up. Gets boring using the same first word every day. I have a friend who uses AUREI (Google it) - that's boring and stupid.

You can use AUDIO

[Yehuda57]

This is what added an extra element of fun to the pencil-paper version with a partner, where you each thought of a secret word, then took turns asking each other 5-letter guesses.  If my partner usually began with a word like TEARS, in the next round I would think of a secret word that would give them a 1 with those letters.  In Jotto you don't learn the placement of the letter, so a 1 is the worst possible answer - doesn't tell you anything, doesn't eliminate anything.

We used to play it using 4 letter words to guess the 5 letter word. Each player writes 10 (IIRC) 4 letter words and gets the score on each, then 5, and then 1 at a time until you get it.

[Redbull3]

This is what added an extra element of fun to the pencil-paper version with a partner, where you each thought of a secret word, then took turns asking each other 5-letter guesses.  If my partner usually began with a word like TEARS, in the next round I would think of a secret word that would give them a 1 with those letters.  In Jotto you don't learn the placement of the letter, so a 1 is the worst possible answer - doesn't tell you anything, doesn't eliminate anything.

Yes when you play with a human opponent, strategy could be different bc there is some game theory, it's fair to assume they're probably trying to trick you with uncommon letters. When we play wordle, I am assuming it is a randomly generated word from the pool of valid words so I focus even more on the common letters early

[Yehuda57]

Yes when you play with a human opponent, strategy could be different bc there is some game theory, it's fair to assume they're probably trying to trick you with uncommon letters. When we play wordle, I am assuming it is a randomly generated word from the pool of valid words so I focus even more on the common letters early

There have definitely been times I knew Wordle was out to get me

[biobook]

We used to play it using 4 letter words to guess the 5 letter word. Each player writes 10 (IIRC) 4 letter words and gets the score on each, then 5, and then 1 at a time until you get it.

We did something similar in class - make one list of 10 words, 5 letters each, trade with your opponent - because if we played normally, passing notes back and forth for each turn, the teacher was more likely to catch us. 

(Hope none of my former teachers are on DDF...)

[Yehuda57]

(Hope none of my former teachers are on DDF...)

I wish they were! They thought I'd never amount to anything, and now I have a great post:like ratio on an online forum!

[etech0]

There have definitely been times I knew Wordle was out to get me

Have you been playing absurdle?

[Dan]

They thought I'd never amount to anything, and now I have a great post:like ratio on an online forum!

[YitzyS]

(Hope none of my former teachers are on DDF...)

Aha! Caught you!

Write "I will not pass notes in class" 150,000 times. Have it signed by all 6 of your parents. You have one hour!