Target Word: HOWDY
Typical Wordle Word Construct: 2 Vowels and one or more compound consonants (seen with >50% frequency)
Today’s Wordle Word Construct: Typical; 2 vowels (Y and O); One compound consonant (WD)
# Of Guesses:4.7 WordleBot average per Marc McLaren*; 4 for WordleGuru

Seed Word: TRACE
Seed Word Revelations: None ☹
# Of Possible Solutions after the Seed Word: Too many to count!

Second Word: SOUPY
Primary Objective for the 2^nd word: Test for additional 3 vowels (O, U and Y) and 2 high frequency consonants (in this case S and P)
Revelations from the 2^nd word:2 vowels (O and Y) in their exact positions
# Of Possible Solutions after the 2^nd word: >50 ☹; with 10+ different consonants including B, D, F, G, H, K, L, M, N, and W

EnotE (Eliminate-not-Enumerate) Strategy deployment: It was not possible to find one word that would eliminate most of the possibilities, leaving me with just a handful (~5). I had to fall back on the second-best option (eliminate all except in single digits, i.e.  9 or less). I didn’t want accounting precision since that would have taken a long – long time.  I picked BLING and didn’t get any hits.  This was a welcome outcome, though.   I was partially successful in eliminating most of the possibilities.

One more point worth mentioning.   I included the vowel “I” in the elimination word not to test for its presence since most of the Wordle words use 2 vowels (counting Y as a vowel), but to come up with the most effective elimination word (per my subjective judgement).

At this point in time only 10 possibilities remained – DOOMY, DOOZY, MOODY, WOODY, WOOZY, MOMMY, HOWDY, DOWDY, HOOKY, and KOOKY. Many of these words are orthographic neighbors (WOODY/WOOZY, HOWDY/DOWDY, etc.) making things even more difficult.  Many of these words are informal/colloquial/regional. It is my understanding that Wordle’s list of target words doesn’t include such words (I’d be proven wrong at the end).

Once again, I could not come up with a word that would eliminate 9 of the 10 possibilities. SO the search was on for the second best option.  I always prefer using one of the possibilities as the elimination word everything else being equal.

For some reason, that I can’t explain, I chose HOWDY.   Some unknown force led me to enter this word.  My rational brain was not in favor of this word.  To me it is an informal word used primarily in North America.

To my utter and pleasant surprise, it turned out to be the perfect choice.   Bingo. 😊   😊   😊

Role of luck in the game: In my opinion, luck plays a larger part than skill in this game in achieving low scores (2 or 3 and sometimes 4).  My experience today is a strong testimony to this belief.

After the third word, I was mentally prepared for a score of 6 or even a failure to solve.

Final thoughts: Clearly LadyLuck was on my side and WordleGods were smiling and guided my hand to enter HOWDY.  It can’t get any sweeter than this.  😊

© 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