Wordle Bulletin # 598 (February 7, 2023)
Strategy
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.
My current performance vs. the goals:
I started using the current set of seed and 2nd words on 12/9/2022. My performance since then is summarized below. Due to relatively small sample size, it is too soon to draw any statistically valid conclusions.
No. of puzzles solved: 60
Average: 3.40 (aspirational target 3.5 or less) 😊
% Puzzles solved in 4 guesses or less: 96.7% (Goal >/= 95%) 😊
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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/M
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: APPLE
# Of Guesses: 3.7 WordleBot average per Marc McLaren*; 4 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:
– Letter(s) with their position (s): 1 (A)
– Letter(s) without their position (s): 2 (L, E)
Typical or atypical target word? —Typical
— # of Vowels: (Typical 2); 2 (A, E)
— # of Compound/paired consonants: (Typical 1); 1 compound /paired consonants (PPL)
2nd word: ANGLE; After the seed word, 9 possibilities, including multiple orthographic neighbor words (AMPLE, AMBLE, ANKLE). I could not come with a word that would eliminate all but 1. So, I had to deploy the EnotE© strategy twice. The first elimination word is ANGLE – one of the 9 possibilities. It narrowed the choice to 4 words. I chose AMPLE as the 2nd elimination word, again one of the 4 possibilities. It led to the answer.
# Of Possible Solutions after the 1st word: 9
# Of Possible Solutions after the 2nd word: 4
# Of Possible Solutions after the 3rd word: 1
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EnotE© (Eliminate-not-Enumerate) Strategy deployment: Used it twice. Could not come up with one word to eliminate all but1 possibility. ☹
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Observation: Recently I have been deviating from the tried-and-true 2nd word – SONIC. In each case I have found that either SONIC would have been a better choice or at least as good a choice. In today’s example, I should have stayed with SONIC since after the seed word, I could not come up with a single elimination word that would have eliminated all but 8 possibilities. I will put my trust in SONIC!
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Final thoughts: Wordle is a game of luck and skill. Sometimes luck favors the game and sometimes it favors the player. Luck was not in my corner today.
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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
© 2023 Ashok Gupta All rights reserved.
EnotE (Eliminate not Enumerate) is copyrighted by Ashok Gupta
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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