Wordle Bulletin # 476 (October 8, 2022)
Target Word: VIGOR
Typical Wordle Word Construct: 2 Vowels and one or more compound consonants (seen with >50% frequency)
Today’s Wordle Word Construct: A-Typical; 2 vowels (I and O); no compound consonant
# Of Guesses: 4.4 WordleBot average per Marc McLaren*; 4 for WordleGuru
Seed Word: SOARE
Seed Word Revelations: 1 vowel (O) and 1 consonant (R) but not their exact positions
# Of Possible Solutions after the Seed Word:>25
Second Word: UNITY
Primary Objective for the 2nd word: Test for the remaining 3 vowels (U, I and Y) and 2 high frequency consonants (in this case N and T)
Revelations from the 2nd word: 1 vowel (I) but not its exact position
# Of Possible Solutions after the 2nd word: 6 – BROIL, DROID, CHOIR, VIRGO, and 2 orthographic neighbors (RIGOR, VIGOR).
EnotE (Eliminate-not-Enumerate) Strategy deployment: It was quite a challenge to come up with one word that would eliminate five of the six possibilities. I could not come up with one, so I had to fall back on the second-best option (eliminate 4 of the six).
An overriding objective in the selection was to ensure at least 1 of the 2 orthographic neighbor words got eliminated. I wanted to use one of the 6 possibilities as the elimination word (the preferred option always) but could not since my overriding objective was not being met.
I chose. BRAVO. It is worth noticing that I used A as the only vowel in the elimination word, even though it is absent from the target word. It is OK to do so if the resulting word serves the purpose. BRAVO did the job.
Gutfeel: I was quite sure that the last letter is an R. But I was not willing to play the enumeration game, since there were three possibilities ending in R.
Final thoughts: The EnotE strategy worked, despite the fact the elimination word could only have eliminated 4 of the 6 possibilities. Clearly LadyLuck was on my side. That is why we say Wordle is a game of luck and skill.
© 2022 Ashok Gupta All rights reserved.
Wordle and WordleBot are trademarks owned by the New York Times.
*The WordleBot score I refer to comes from Tom’s Guide by Marc McLaren. Marc writes his post at around 7 AM U.K. time.
https: //www.tomsguide.com/news/what-is-todays-wordle-answer#section-previous-wordle-answers
