Wordle Strategy EnotE – Eliminate not enumerate (Post #2) – using one of the possible answers as an elimination word
Preamble
It is routine to end up in a position where 3 or more possible answers exist. This can happen after the 1st guess, though the probability is small. It usually happens after the 2nd or 3rd guess. There are at least 2 ways of playing at this juncture – 1) enumerate and 2) eliminate.
Enumerate: try one possible solution at a time. If there are N possible solutions, then the apriori probabilities of guessing the correct word are 1÷N, 2÷N……N÷N in 1st, 2nd, …. Nth try. Due to the constraint of the game, N can’t be higher than 6.
Eliminate: enter a guess that eliminates all but 1 possible solution. This way the puzzle can be solved in 2 guesses. There is a special case of the eliminate strategy. Sometimes one of the possible solutions itself works as an elimination word. Under this scenario, it is possible to solve the puzzle in one guess. If the possible solutions are “too many”, then it may not be possible to find one word to eliminate all but one possible solution. In such a case the goal has to be to narrow down the possibilities to a “few”.
Eliminate not Enumerate examples
Example #2: Elimination possibility after the second Guess using one of the possible answers as the elimination word
The advantage of this sub-strategy is that there is a likelihood of solving the puzzle with the elimination word itself, saving at least one guess.
Wordle # 413 (August 5, 2022): Seed word SOARE
There were four possible answers after the third guess (NYMPH) -FUZZY, JUDGY (valid Scrabble word), BUDDY, and BUGGY. The word BUDDY had the potential of eliminating all but one word.
Absence of both B and D: BUDDY, BUGGY and JUDGY would have been eliminate, leaving FUZZY as the answer.
Absence of B, presence of D: BUDDY, BUGGY and FUZZY would have been eliminate, leaving JUDGY as the answer.
Presence of B, absence of D: Buddy, JUDGY and FUZZY would have been eliminate, leaving Buggy as the answer.
Instead of employing the Eliminate part of EnotE strategy, if we had used the Enumerate part of the EnotE strategy, there was a potential of solving the puzzle in six guesses (fourth guess – FUZZY, fifth guess – JUDGY/BUDDY, sixth guess – BUGGY ).
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