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 small sample size, it is too soon to draw any statistically valid conclusions.

No. of puzzles solved: 43
Average: 3.349 (aspirational target 3.5 or less) 😊
% Puzzles solved in 4 guesses or less: 97.7% (Goal >/= 95%) 😊
__________________________________________________________________________________________________

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 5^th position.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________

Today’s Wordle:
Target Word: MATEY
# Of Guesses 4.2 WordleBot average per Marc McLaren*; 5 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): NONE
–  Letter(s) without their position (s): A, E, and T

2^nd word: CHAPS; Since two vowels were revealed by the see word, I did not want to search for additional vowels. Therefore, I didn’t want to use my standard “go to” 2^nd word (SONIC). I chose CHAPS instead, hoping that it would reveal the exact position of the letter A. To my disappointment, it did not. After the 2^nd word there were 6 possible solutions – TAKEN, MATTE, EATEN, MATEY, MATES and MATED. Since Wordle does not choose past tense of words ending with ED as well as plurals ending with ES, the last 2 can be crossed off. It is not clear if the no past tense rules applies to past tense words that don’t end in ED (such as TAKEN, EATEN).  I assumed ghat it does which left me with just 2 possible answers – MATTE and MATEY.  I chose to use MATTE as the 3^rd word, since I didn’t think MATEY is used often.

3^rd word: MATTE; to my disappointment MATTE proved to be not the target word. I still discounted MATEY as a regular word.  This left me with a dilemma – should I enter MATEY or should I assume that one of the rules (no past tense) was breached today.  I “fell” for the latter and entered MATED as the 4^th guess.

4th word: MATED; Sadly, the rule was not broached.  I grudgingly entered MATEY as the 5^th word. And it worked.

5th word: MATEY

# Of Possible Solutions after the seed word: Too many
# Of Possible Solutions after the 2nd word: 6 (4 without past tense and plural)
# Of Possible Solutions after the 3rd word: 1 (not counting past tense)
# Of Possible Solutions after the 4th word: 1

__________________________________________________________________________________________________

EnotE (Eliminate-not-Enumerate) Strategy deployment: Really not needed today.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________

Final thoughts: Wordle is a game of luck and skill.   Sometimes luck favors the game and sometimes it favors the player.  Also, sometimes, a player discards the rules and relies on gut-feel, which is not always correct.

Today I blew it big time. I chose to use a past tense word, knowing fully well that Wordle as a rule doesn’t use past tense words.  I just didn’t believe that the word MATEY would be the answer, since in my books it is not a regularly used word.  I paid the price of 1 extra guess.  It was a sure 4 but ended up being a 5.

I have made 2 mistakes recently, counting today’s mistake as 1 of the 2.  I chose to use my gut-feel word on Wordle # 581 instead of using an elimination word.  I paid a price as 1 extra guess.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________________

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.
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
__________________________________________________________________________________________________