Wordle Bulletin # 496 (October 28, 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.
Target Word: SNEAK
Typical Wordle Word Construct: 2 Vowels and one compound/paired consonant (2 letters or 3 letters; seen with >50% frequency)
Today’s Wordle Word Construct: Typical; 2 vowels (A and E), 1 Compound consonant (SN)
# Of Guesses: 3.7 WordleBot average per Marc McLaren*; 3 for WordleGuru
Seed Word: SOARE
Seed Word Revelations: 2 vowels (A and E), but not their positions; one consonant (S) in the 1st position
# Of Possible Solutions after the Seed Word: 11 with three sets of orthographic neighbor words – [SPEAK, SNEAK], [STEAD, STEAM, STEAL, STEAK], [SATED, SAVED], SEPIA, SWEAT, and SHEAF. It was time to deploy the EnotE strategy.
Second Word: SWEAT; I could not come up with a single word that would eliminate 10 of the 11 possibilities. So, I had to suboptimize and look for a word to eliminate as many as possible. I took a chance on SWEAT, since I prefer to use one of the possibilities as the elimination word.
I knew I was taking a risk because This word, while confirming the orthographic neighbor set of 4 words, would not have given any hint on which of the four. Similarly, it was not going to eliminate SNEAK or SPEAK. The same for SATED and SAVED. Still I proceeded with SWEAT. It eliminated all but 2. I still had to deal with 2 orthographic neighbor words – SNEAK and SPEAK. Frequency wise N and P in the second position are close to each other. I had to do a mental “coin toss”. I liked the sound of SNEAK vs. SPEAK. LadyLuck was on my side and guessed the right of the two.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________
EnotE (Eliminate-not-Enumerate) Strategy deployment: Was not easy to apply. No word could have eliminated 10 of the 11 possibilities.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________
Final thoughts: Wordle is a game of luck and skill. Today I did well on the luck side.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________
© 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
__________________________________________________________________________________________________
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. My work in this area can be found on my website, Budding Poets Corner – Poet Laureates of Tomorrow