Wordle Bulletin # 548 (December 19, 2022)
My strategy is built to ensure I solve 95% of the puzzles in 4 guesses or less. It is not built to always shoot for the lowest score possible. The score depends a lot on the seed word. Wordle is a game of luck and skill. My goal is to score an average solve rate of 4 guesses. My aspirational goal is 3.5 average and <5% 5/6 guesses.
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Statistical Facts:
Typical Wordle Word Construct: 2 Vowels and one compound consonant (example KN or TCH)/paired consonant (example PP) ; seen with >50% frequency
10 Most frequent consonants (in declining order): R, T, L, S, N, C, H, P, D, and G
6 Vowels (in declining order): E, A, O, I, U, Y
10 Most frequent letters (in declining order): E, A, R, O, T, L, I, S, N, and C
Frequency of the 5 vowels in the five positions: 15%, 49%, 54%, 35% and 24% respectively.
Position of the letter “Y”: About 80% of all the “Ys” in Wordle are found in the 5th position.
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Today’s Wordle:
Target Word: SLATE
# Of Guesses: 1.5 WordleBot average per Marc McLaren*; 3 for WordleGuru ☹ ☹ ☹
Seed Word: ALERT (Top 3 consonants and top 2 vowels) – No change – this is my go-to Seed word.
What we learned from the Seed Word: the presence of A, E, L and T, but position for L only. At this point I felt the highest of the highs, thinking of a 2!
Second Guess: The choice of the second guess depends on the learning from the seed word. After the seed word there were only 3 possibilities – PLATE, SLATE, and ELATE. Frequency wise, SLATE had the edge. I chose not to enumerate the 3 words since there was a risk of scoring a 4. Instead, I chose the elimination route to ensure a score of 3. I am risk averse. I used PESTS as the 2nd word to eliminate 2 of the 3 possibilities. SLATE indeed was the answer consistent with the frequency data. No regrets, though. I don’t play for a score a 2, with a risk of a 4 or higher score.
# Of Possible Solutions after the seed word: 3
# Of Possible Solutions after the 2nd word: 1
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EnotE (Eliminate-not-Enumerate) Strategy deployment: worked successfully.
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Final thoughts: Wordle is a game of luck and skill. Sometimes luck favors the game and some time it favors the player. Today, I didn’t need luck. I am a risk averse person and my strategy reflects this.
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My other work you may find interesting
I write Rhyming Prose (Prose that rhymes). My work in this area can be found on my website, Rhyming Prose — … when a poem won’t do it!
I have also started writing free-verse poems, haikus and songs. My work in this area can be found on my website, Budding Poets Corner – Poet Laureates of Tomorrow
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© 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
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