Wordle 825: No, Not the Prime Minister

This is going to be a short post because I got the solve in two! There's only so much I can get out of a game that went so quickly for me. I opened with SLOPE. I did consider continuing on with my -IGHT words, but I just felt that wasn't really getting me anywhere the last few days, so I pivoted to something else. SLOPE got me a yellow S. Which put me in a bind since I usually put my one yellow letter at the start of the word for my second guess. I was helped here a bit since S is unlikely to be the last letter and it does not make a ton of sense as the second letter. I was looking to put the S either third or fourth. This led me to TRUST or maybe TRYST, but I was against those guesses since they double up on the T, and that just seems like an unnecessary move to make that early. TRUST led me to TRUSS, but again it doubles a letter. But I did like the RUS in the middle of the word. after looking at it for a bit, BRUSH came to mind. I hit enter and got my 13th solve in two.  

Wordle 824: Billionaire Playboy Philanthropist

I'm sticking to my theory from yesterday about -IGHT words. I just want to test this out, see what happens. I decided to go with SIGHT today and got a pleasant result. I got a green S and a yellow T. So I'm definitely in a better position than I was yesterday. For the second guess, I moved the T to the second position. For some reason, the letter U was calling to me today, so I went with it for my third letter. From there, it was easy enough for me to guess STUMP. I got a green tile for the T, but everything else was gray.

From here, I needed to decide which vowel to use for my next guess. I was still feeling the single-vowel guess, so I went with A and chose STARK for my third guess. I was very frustrated to see three gray tiles turn over to the end the word again.  At this point, I knew I needed to use the O and E in my next guess and the first word to pop in my mind was STONE. I hit enter for a solve in four. Nothing great about this solve. Maybe I should've used E earlier in the solve, but it's hard to second guess anything about the process, today's solve was more due to bad luck rather than any bad guesses on my part.

Wordle 823: Let the Right One In

I opened with FIGHT today and realized that I don't think I've opened with a -IGHT word to this point. I don't know why. There are lots of good, high-frequency letters in the four base letters. And then you get to choose from E, L, N, F, T, M, R, and S (and maybe W?) for your fifth letter. It just seems like you're going to get a hit on something, or at least eliminate a lot of words. I was delighted to hit enter. Until I saw the result. I got nothing but grays for my opening guess. And when I checked Wordlebot afterwards, there were 1,082 possible words left after the guess. Maybe the -IGHT words aren't that great after all.

Wow, from here, I felt that I needed a word with an E. I also felt that a word that ended in -RE would be good. I typed STORE, but the T was eliminated, so I turned to my inner Ghostbusters fan and remembered that Egon collected spores, molds, and fungus. SPORE for my second guess. I got greens for S, R, and E. To me, it was obvious that the other vowel in the word was A, so I had SXARE. Now I just needed to figure out it the answer was SCARE or SNARE.

I've started to see Halloween decorations in stores and Food Network is starting to air their various Halloween-themed baking shows, so SCARE was on my mind for my third guess. I did not solve in three, but it did confirm that the answer was SNARE. I feel good about a solve in four, although SNARE is an odd word. Ensnare, yes, but snare on it's own feels incomplete. So while, yes, SNARE is a word, I feel like it needs something else with it, like snare drum. Oh well.

PS After looking at Wordlebot, I'm embarrassed that I didn't see that SABRE was a possible answer for this puzzle. As a UVa alum, that's just a bad oversight by me.

Wordle 822: No Cigar

Well, I've fallen into the trap that I always do with blogs/writing. I've fallen off the train and haven't written in forever. My streak is up to 13 with today's win. And I've gotten to 88 birdies with 89 bogeys. I had it at 88-88 until Saturday when it took me 5 turns to get ANGEL. I also got yesterday's wordle in two, going FRONT to FRANK for the win. So I've caught you up with the noteworthy happenings on with my Wordles in the past week.

I opened today's game with TRIAL, which only got me a yellow L. I wasn't sure where to go from here, so I fell into my usual pattern of putting the one letter I have at the front of the word. Which led me to... um... uh... LOCUS? Look, I found it really hard to to think of a word that started with L, didn't have an R, and had an O. But I got to LOCUS eventually and actually got a lot of good information out of it. I had yellows for L, O, C, and S. On the one hand, this was great, I knew what to work with, on the other hand, this all looked like alphabet soup to me. Eventually, I land on SCOLD, which is a good, but odd guess. And it isn't the right word. But I do get a green O. I also know where the L and S go due  to process of elimination. I've XLOSX. Putting C at the end makes no sense. CLOSX is CLOSE. Of course. Wow, I feel dumb for not using or even thinking about E. Damn, I should have had that solved in three. 

Wordle 811: Recalculating

I opened with RIDGE today and got greens for the R and E. This is odd since I don't think that I've ever gotten a puzzle with the first and last letter. I probably have, but this is throwing me out of whack. It has pretty much stopped me in my tracks here. Where do I go from here? Especially here, where I just want to use RANGE or ROUGE, which can't work. I struggled and then I thought about what got me into the rabbit hole of NYT Games, the crossword. And a word that is used often in the crossword is RUPEE. Let's give that a try, I guess. 

RUPEE is not the answer, but it does give me a yellow U, so progress has been made. Wow, REVUE would have been a good second guess too, but the option of a second E has been taken away from me. I keep thinking about ROUGE, which isn't right, but there has to be an O in this word. I type in ROXUE and thinking through it. Then I see it. I see the answer. ROUTE. I hit enter and see green tiles turn over until I get to the T, which is gray?!? I do a quick scan of the available letters and see that ROUSE looks to be the answer. I hit enter less confidently than before (but still pretty confidently) and get a solve in four. 

Wordle 810: Back on the Saddle

Time to start building a new streak. That's the only way to look at it. I opened with PLACE because I felt like I was in the bad place after yesterday's puzzle, and I'm trying to work my out of three. I got yellows for the L and the E, so I've got some letters that I will work with going forward. I wanted to go with LEAST, but I knew that can't be right. I played around with LE--- words for a while before deciding to move on to other options. I knew it wouldn't end in -LE, but I did like the idea of the L in the fourth slot. This led me to SHELF. I briefly considered SHELL, but didn't like going with double letters so early. So SHELF for me second guess.

Which gave me the locations of the E and the L. Here I got stumped again. I tried to think of something to do, and it was only once I started playing with different vowels that I saw what had to be the answer: either YIELD or WIELD. I decided to go with the YIELD and was shocked *shocked* that it wasn't the answer. The D was yellow though. I tried it as the second letter, but that didn't look right. So I typed DXELX, and saw that the answer was either DWELT or DWELL. I went with DWELL because DWELT is honestly a word I've only ever seen used at church. DWELL for a solve in four was a good way to get back on the saddle. Although, if I had gone with SHELL, maybe I could've gotten a solve in three. 

Wordle 809: Oh No

I ran my streak up to 146. And then today happened. I lost for the first time since April. Just a bummer all around. I mean, it was bound to happen at some point, but it still feels wild that it happened. 

I opened today with MOVER and got all grays. Undeterred by this result because even getting all grays is still a result that teaches you about the word. I felt after this guess that I should use the letter A in the next guess, which I did with PLAID. I only got a green for the A. So at this point, I started to worry a bit. But I figured I should look for common suffix endings. I debated with SH, TH, and CK. I decided to go with WHACK because it had the H elsewhere in the word. It was good to include the H since I got a yellow for it and everything else was gray.

So it's getting a little bit iffy at this point. I went with STASH. This got me the ending of the word with greens for A, S, and H. I was very certain STASH was the answer. But nope. I struggled to find my fifth guess. I ended up going with ABASH. And then I struggled more for the last guess and came up with QUASH. I didn't get any more letters and the game told me the answer was GNASH. Which sucks. When I checked Wordlebot, I see that for my final guesses ABASH, QUASH, and GNASH were the only available words that could work, but I never even really thought or considered GNASH. I don't really know what I would've done differently in this game. GN is such an odd combination. Maybe I could have used one of those letters earlier in the game, but I don't know. I do take some consolation in the fact that at the moment, 7.6% of solvers didn't get the answer, so my streak went down on a tough answer. Oh well. Tomorrow is a new day. 

Wordle 802: I Can Hear It

My streak is still alive, I just haven't done any writing the last couple of days. I will try to post tomorrow, but then I'm not going to post again until Tuesday due to Labor Day.

I opened today with BRAIN. A good word for any kind of mental endeavor. I got a green I and a yellow A from this. My initial though was to guess MANIA, but that wouldn't work due to the N. I liked the idea of ending with -IA, but I wasn't able to think of any other five letter words that could have fit. Oh, I guess MAFIA could have worked, but I didn't think of it when I was solving the puzzle. My inability to place the A at the end meant I had to move it forward in the word. I decided to go with XAXIX and that led me to VALID for my second guess, which got me another yellow for the D. 

At this point, I was pretty much locked into using that A as the first letter. I brought the D with it to the front for ADXIX. This stumped me for a bit, but then I saw ADMIN, which led to ADMIT for my third guess. I got the positions of the A and D from this guess. The A was green, but since the D was yellow, I now knew it was the third letter of the word. AXDIX. I played a bit with the last letter being C, but that didn't work. I was struggling, but then I looked at the remaining vowels. Then I saw the answer: AUDIO for a solve in four. I imagine there were a decent amount of solves in one or two today. I mean, all these ADIEU had to have gotten the answer on the next guess, right? That's the whole point of that guess, right?

Wordle 796 & 797: Back on Track

I opened Thursday's game with PRINT, which gave me a yellow tile for the R. This didn't give me a lot to work with. I decided against trying to put R at the front of the word and came up with COVER. I got a green O, which gives me something to really start building my next guesses around. I couldn't build anything initially until I started looking at using Y. This got me to DORKY, which was a really good guess. I got a yellow D, but more importantly, I got greens for the R and Y. So I have XORDY. I briefly considered LORDY, but that seemed ridiculous, so I went with WORDY for a win in four. Pretty good solve for a Thursday.

Today's puzzle started with a guess of CLAIM for me. I got yellows for the C and A. So I had two letters to consider as I thought about my second guess. I played with the letters for a bit and came up with RECAP for my second guess. I got the position of the A and another yellow for E. This stumped me and I played around for a while trying to figure out where everything went. I knew C was either second or fifth, but fifth didn't make sense. So I was looking at ECXAX, XCEAX, or XCXAE. I eliminated the last option quickly. With E at the front, all I could see was EXACT, which was wrong for a lot of reasons. So I focused on XCEAX. I wanted to see BEACH in that combination, but I knew that was wrong, but it did lead me to OCEAN, for a solve in three. (Finally!).

Wordle 794 and 795: It's Tough Out Here

I'm going to get Tuesday and Wednesday's recaps today. Both of these puzzles gave me a big slice of humble pie and showed my why it's so hard to try to get solves in three.

Tuesday I opened with STRAW, which got me a green tile for S and grays for the rest, which is a good opening, all things considered. It at least confined me to one part of the dictionary. I figured that I should try a word that ends in E because that makes sense to me. After some thought, I decided to go with SHINE, which got me green tiles for S, I, and E. Which is pretty much a kiss of death for getting this solved in three. There are options here (seven according to Wordlebot when I checked post-solve) and getting the right answer will take some luck. I go with SLIDE, and neither of the letters are correct. I get the solve in four by going with SPICE, which I probably should've used on my third guess since I love spicy food. Oh well, at least it was #NoYellows. Oh, wow, SHINE was the second most popular guess for the second turn among all players according to Wordlebot. Kind of interesting to see that I was aligned with the plurality of players on that. 

Today, I started with CRAFT. Not sure if I was using the noun or the verb, but CRAFT was the guess and it got me a me yellow R. Which is not very helpful. My first instinct is SEWER, but I decide against it because of the repeated Es and the W in the middle. By the way, TMNT: Mutant Mayhem is a fun little movie that you should check out. I default to my second guess strategy of moving a yellow letter to the front of the word for my second guess and come up with REPLY. I get a green E from this guess. I'm focusing on the green E as I work through words for guess number three and use DENIM, which gets me no new letters. And I forgot the R. Dammit, a wasted guess. At this point, I figure I should return to my initial instinct and type in SEWER. I get a second yellow E. I'm working through the possibilities and type XERVE. I wish I could guess NERVE, but I know that's wrong thanks to my DENIM guess, so it wasn't a total waste. XERVE feels like the best construction available, and then I consider that maybe the V is repeated. VERVE. Is that how you spell it? Personally, I would've spelled it vurve, but that can't work. I hit enter on VERVE and get a solve in five.

My streak is up to 133, but my birdie to bogey ration has taken a hit as I'm now at 80:85. I was so close to having those be even about a week and a half ago. I still think I'll get to even (and eventually more threes than fives), but it's going to be a challenge. 

Wordle 793: Surf's Up

I've been cranking away at the Worldes, but I have had a chance to write anything about them. Friday was tough, I got the solve on my sixth and final guess. Saturday was a solve in four, and yesterday was a solve in five. I want to get the workweek started off strongly, so I can get some solves in three this week. I opened with FUDGE today because it was an answer that tripped me up on the NYT Daily Mini crossword. FUDGE didn't really help me out, with only a yellow tile for the E, but it got me going. I didn't really want to start the word with E, so I played around looking for words where it was the second letter. Instead of looking for a second vowel, I landed on PERCH for my second guess. This was very fruitful as I got greens for E, C, and H.

This is where I decided I would really focus in and try to get a solve in three. As noted in the intro, it's been a while since I had a birdie, so when my second guess turned up so many positive letters, I decided to go for it. I was struggling to find a word, so I was looking at the ending of the word based on what I had. R was out as the third letter, but maybe T? XETCH? FETCH, LETCH? FETCH is a good word, but F can't be in the answer. Switching T for N led me to WENCH, which didn't really inspire confidence. Then I thought maybe a vowel could be the third letter. XEACH is good. I thought about REACH, LEACH, and then I thought, "hey, a lot of people are going back to school today, maybe it's a themed answer?" I don't know if themed answers are even a thing anymore after the Thanksgiving/FEAST backlash, but I can't resist it. I hit enter on TEACH and get a gray T followed by four greens. Damn. From here, I decide that BEACH is probably my best guess, and I hit enter for a solve in four. So close. Insert Ken joke about my job being BEACH. That pushes my streak up to 131, which is a pretty good feeling. I'll get it in three tomorrow. 

Wordle 789: Just Off Target

Didn't post this morning because I just wasn't feeling up to it, but I did do the Wordle. And I'm feeling better about myself, so let's get into it. I opened with BLOCK, which turned up nothing positive. That's always a bummer, but I pushed forward. My next guess was SHAME. I'll just leave it at that for my reasoning. I got yellows for S, A, and M. This perplexed me and I wasn't sure where to go next. When I checked Wordlebot post-solve, I see that I apparently eliminated all words except for the answer, so I guess it made a bit of sense that I wasn't sure what to do.

I wasn't sure what to do with the S. I put it at the end. I know plurals aren't allowed, so I guess I was thinking about verbs. Which is how I got to RAMPS. I'm not sure if verbs are allowed. I haven't really thought about it. But I guess they aren't in the word bank because there was only one word left, and it wasn't RAMPS. But here's where it got more confusing: the S was green. So what can this word be?

I knew the M had to be either first or second, I knew the A was either first or fourth, and I wasn't really sure where to go. Maybe this word ends in a double S? Hmm. XXXSS, with the A and M somewhere in the front of the word. AMXSS, AMASS isn't correct, but that gets me to AMISS. I hit enter for another solve in four. Wow, AMISS is such a good word and a tricky one, too. I can't complain that I didn't get it in three, this is not a word that I was thinking of in any way until it hit me in the face in the fourth guess. My streak is up to 127 at the moment.  

Wordle 788: My Difficult Solve

VOCAL is my opening guess today. I don't know why. I ended up getting a yellow C, so maybe not the best guess, but I've got something to work with here. My usual tactic when I have one letter is to use it as the first letter in my second guess. I throw the C there and CRAVE is the first word I think of, which is terrible since it has two letters that I know aren't in the word. That gives way to CRAZY, but again, not gonna enter it. I'm doing my best to get away from the letter A, so I think about what I should do with that second letter. CR or CH to start this word? Since CR keeps pushing me to A, I go with CH and then enter CHEST for my second guess. I get a yellow S, which isn't the greatest result, but it is what it is.

I don't really know where to go for my third guess. I look at SC as the starting point for a word, but I don't really get anywhere trying to build from there. So I start moving the C around. Putting it last is terrible. It's too far away. I'm looking at SXXXC, and that just isn't helpful. Also, the chances of a word ending with C are probably pretty low in general and feel non-existent with this puzzle. So I guess it's the fourth slot for C. What vowel is going to get me from SXXCX to an actual word? I look at it for a while and think of SPICE, but I know the E is out. I'm about to start from scratch when I see the Y. SPICY sounds good; tastes good too. But it's not the answer. I do get a green tile for S, though.

Wait, does this word end in C? No. That's stupid. I type in SCUXX. All I can think of is SKUNK, which can't be right. SCUDS? SCULL... c'mon. What is this? As I continue to sound out SCU words, I somehow stumble onto SBRUB. Which could actually work out. SCRUB for nice par save! I was lost on this one until I stumbled into the answer. SCRUB is a good word; good show too. 

P.S. Yes, I know the show is SCRUBS. I can hear the (non-existent) commenters saying, "Actually, the show is..." I know what the show is called. I just wanted to mirror what I had written after my SPICY guess. Surely, you can give me a bit of leeway to have that stylistic flair.

Wordle 787: Cards, Files, and Fingers

I briefly considered starting with EAGLE today because I nearly had a solve in two yesterday. I thought it would be a funny little bit to do, but once I typed it in, the double E just isn't something that I can get behind for an opening guess. So the joke dies. I thought for a moment or two and decided to use GRAND, which gave me yellow tiles for N and D. This is an interesting result because I would have thought those letters would either go together in a five-letter word or would not be in the same five-letter word. Deny is the first thing that comes to mind, but since it is too short, I run through denies, denied, and denial in my head even though they are all too long. But I like the DE to start these words, and it leads me to DENIM. DENIM gives me yellows for D, E, N, and I.

WHAT? This result seems like a joke. I just can't figure out what the heck is going on here. But it does seem like an interesting challenge. I start playing with the letters, starting my words with E. I get ENIDS and ENIDY, but those all seem like fake words. Using I gives me IDENT. Nope, I'm not hitting enter on that. NIDES? Oh, that could be SNIDE, which feels like a good guess. And it mostly is, but it's not the right word. The S is gray, but I do find that the N goes in the second slot. I look at ENIDS again. Is that like a bug or something? Then I realize the D can't go there, but I do know where it has to go based on my other guesses. So I have -ND--. I look at the letters and see INDEX for a solve in four. This is a good result for a word with a unique like X in it. After that second guess had so many yellows, I was hoping I'd be able to get a birdie, but, honestly, X would never have come to mind as a letter to use in that guess. X, Q, and probably Z are letters that I don't I would use that early in a solve, so I'm perfectly fine getting a solve in four.

Wordle 786: Fly Like an Eagle

I spent the last part of my Friday post writing about how close I am to having as many birdies as bogies in my Par 4 version of Wordle. I had only one more bogey than birdie, so I was certain I'd be even or have more 3's than 5's soon. It felt great. So of course both my weekend solves went five guesses. Two bogeys after being confident that I was a birdie machine, that I was getting better at this game. Well, the machine kicked my ass over the weekend. But I have to admit, QUICK and WRATH were excellent words. If I have to get bogeys, I want it to be because the words are unique and interesting rather than due to me making stupid mistakes. This weekend was definitely a case where the former was true.

I started my puzzle today with FRONT. No real reason other than it was the first word to come to mind when I opened the app today. FRONT was not the best as I only got a yellow tile for the N. I felt betrayed by my guess. Like I had been bit by a snake in the grass. Which led me to the second guess: SNAKE. I see a green S, then a green N, a green A, wow is this happening? The K is green as well. Holy cow! A solve in two! What a way to strike back after my two bogies over the weekend! Then the E is gray. What? Is Wordle dyslexic and tying to spell SNACK? This is unreal. The only thing that makes sense as I look through the letters is SNAKY, which is that even a word? I have no choice but to hit enter and get a solve in three. So I notched another birdie to bring me to 80 compared to 82 bogies. I'll get there soon.

Wordle 783: Is It Me You're Looking For?

I fiddled around with a few different words before I decided to go with SPORT because I was watching the Spain-Denmark game in the Women's World Cup last night. SPORT was, I thought, a decent guess, but all I got correct was a yellow O. Knowing that the O wasn't in the middle meant I needed to use at least one additional vowel, so I started thinking about words with the letter E in them. Eventually, I had COVET typed in, but knew that couldn't work because T wasn't in the word. This led me to COVEN for my second and the thought that maybe I should go to confession. COVEN got me an additional yellow for the E.

I knew the word had a O and E, so I typed in XEXOX. This naturally led me to XEROX, but I didn't hit enter because of the R. XENON was also out because of the N from my second guess. I was glad that I had eliminated letters that prevented me from wasting a guess on an X word because it was awfully tempting to try it. I couldn't think of anything that had O at the front of the word, nor could I come up with anything for the E at the front. I typed in XEXOX again, and then I saw HELLO. I hit enter for a solve in three and to extend my streak to 121. I also now have 79 solves in three compared to 80 solves in 5. It's been a goal of mine to get those even and then eventually to have more solves in three for a while, so it feels really good to be on the precipice of that. 

Wordle 782: Now You Have My Attention, Wordle.

I start today with FLAME. No real reason other than it's the word that came into my mind and I couldn't think of any better alternatives. So, FLAME on! Despite my Johnny Storm enthusiasm, I only get two yellow tiles for my guess, the M and the E. For my second guess, I've narrowed it down to two guess: METER or EMITS. EMITS would put me in a better position for guesses going forward. I'm tempted to play it safe, but decide to go with the slightly riskier play of METER. I get three yellows for my guess as T joins the list of letters I already know.

So I guess EMITS is the play for the my third guess. I pause for a moment just to make sure I'm not overlooking anything. TEMPO won't work. TXMEX doesn't yield anything. I'll go with EMITS, it was a contender for my second guess and it is still in play. Oh, this game just got interesting. I got green tiles for E,M, and T, but EMITS was not the word. I type in EMETX to see if there is anything. Neither O or U make sense in the middle, so there must be a Y. That when it hits me: EMPTY. EMPTY for a solve in four that pushes my current streak to 120. 

Interesting addendum to this post. I checked Wordlebot to see if there was anything interesting to learn about my solve. For my third guess, the bot gave me a skill score of 0. My first assumption was that meant that EMITS isn't a valid guess, but the game took it, and Wordlebot said it was a "valid guess, but it's unlikely to be a solution based on what I've learned from playing Wordle." What the fuck does that mean? EMITS is either a word that can be the answer or its not. If it's not, we shouldn't be able to guess it. Part of me is okay with the game accepting it as a guess because it led me to solving the puzzle, but I'm also annoyed by the smug response to my guess from Wordlebot.

Wordle 781: ER, ER, ER, What Do I DO Here?

I start my Wordle with HOMER because I am listening to the Nats Chat Podcast as I play and Joey Meneses hit two homers to beat the Phillies last night. (We won't talk about the afternoon game the Nats and Phillies played.) HOMER was a good word for me as I got green tiles for the O, E, and R. This is a bit scary since I've pretty much just got to guess to find the two remaining letters. Like, this could go sideways on me pretty quickly here. I guess POKER and it is not the answer. See how hard this could get for me?

I want to be strategic, but it's really hard to do. I do know that MOVER can't work because of my first guess, but do I stick with the V in the middle? This leads me to LOVER, is that a good guess or just a stab in the dark like POKER was? I don't know. I am buoyed by that fact that there are only so many XOXER, but there is still a lot to choose from. Just typing my X thing now brought to mind BOXER. I don't know. I go with LOVER for my third guess just to get things moving. And it turns over all green! A solve in three after feeling such despair is a very good result. I won't worry myself about how much of the win was due to luck because it just feels like a good win. I'm also curious to see how a certain TikTok Wordle player will react to today's solution.

Wordle 780: Skin of my Teeth

OK! I made it back to do the second blog post of the day to get everything back on track. I played Connections before I did today's Wordle. One of the categories in Connections was superheroes, and the Flash was one of the four heroes in the group, so he was on my mind when I started Wordle. FLASH as my first guess got me a yellow tile for the L. When I get one yellow letter, I usually put in the first spot for my next guess. I don't have a good reason for this tendency other than the fact that it helps me think the puzzle through. It's a lot easier to think of words that start with L than trying to fit the L elsewhere. But I felt like mixing things up today and decided to put L at the end of the word which led me to PERIL for my second guess, which only got me a yellow tile for the L.

Well, I guess I better return to my usual tendencies and think of words that start with L. With L at the front, I have to think about which remaining vowel I want to use: O or U. I opt for O, so I have LOXXX. The first word I am able see after typing this in is LOBBY, so I enter it for my third guess. And I still don't know exactly where the L goes because the first tile is still yellow. I also get a yellow B, so that's good, and a green Y, which is great. So I feel that we are now in the adjective/adverb realm with the Y at the end. I put the B at the front, and put U, which I know is in the word second. The L has to go third, so BULXY leads me to BULKY for my fourth guess. Everything is green except for the K.

So I just need to find the fourth letter. I look through my available letters and type in BULGY for my fifth guess. Which is not the answer. I am panicking just a little bit since I am at the sixth and final guess and there could be a chance of getting this wrong. I look through the available letters and don't see anything. Maybe it's a double letter? BULBY or BULLY. BULBY isn't a word, so BULLY is the guess. I hold my breath as I watch the green tiles turn over and the fourth tile is green as well. Close call here, but it pushes my win streak up to 118.  

Wordle 779: Swept Away

I meant to do two posts yesterday, the weekend wrap-up and the Monday wordle, but I never got around to the Monday post. So now I have the same dilemma, do I write a combined post or plan to get two separate posts? I'm going to tempt fate and try to get the Monday post and the Tuesday post, but we will see what happens.

I opened with STING and got all gray tiles for my guess. After that, I wanted to get a guess with two vowels in it. I played around trying to think of something and landed on RELAY as a good and unique E/A word. I felt really pleased with myself for having a unique word, and I got rewarded with just a yellow R. Wow. I know that getting gray tiles still gives you information to help you solve the wordle, but man, is it depressing to only get one correct letter (in the wrong place!) after two guesses.

So I'm in complete vowel-hunting mode at this point, so I need something with O and U in it. And an R. I have to use the letter that I have. This pushes me to PROUD, which finally gets me some green tiles. The R and O are in the correct positions. I get a feeling that there needs to be another vowel in this word, so it leads me to thinking about a double O. I type in XROOX. I replace the first X with a B, so there is BROOX. So my next guess is going to be either BROOM or BROOK. I'm not sure if BROOK is spelled that way or similar to the name, so I go with BROOM for guess four. Green B, green R, green O, another green O, and then a gray M. Damn. So close. I type in BROOK for a solve in five, which isn't the worst, but not the best either. Oh well. 

Weekend Wrap-Up

For Saturday's wordle, I opened with PULSE, which got me a green tile for the E. I knew I needed a second vowel, but did not want to go with an a, so I chose FORCE for my second guess. I got a yellow for the O, so I had two vowels and whole lot of nothing beyond that at this point. I took a while for my third guess but eventually I decided to either guess ADOBE or ABODE. I opted for ABODE because I recently saw The Lion King at the Kennedy Center. So Hakuna Matata. ABODE was nearly the answer! The only letter that wasn't green was the B. So at this point, I just needed to scan my available letters to find the answer and the only thing that made sense was ANODE, which was good for a solve in four.

Sunday, I was decided it would be cool to have a thematic link with my opening guesses for weekend. So PULSE led me to ALIVE for my opening guess Sunday morning. I got a yellow L out of it. For my second guess, I moved the L to the front of the word. I needed a vowel for the second letter when I realized that I only had O and U available to me. I put the O there and then since I had been thinking about the two vowels, LOUSY came to me as a logical guess. I got yellows for the L and Y and a green for the O, which didn't make a lot of sense. To avoid being stumped, I typed XOLXX on my screen. The only two things that I could think of from this setup was YOLKY (which wouldn't work) and YOLO_, which is nothing. So I had no choice but to type XOLYX. Seeing the X's at the front and end of the word must have triggered something inside me because the word POLYP popped in my mind. I hit enter for a solve in three on a puzzle that I'm sure probably broke a few streaks. I'm feeling pretty good about this solve even thought ALIVE is a word that is pretty much the opposite of my early game strategy since it has so many vowels. Sunday it paid off since I was able to use the abundance of vowels to eliminate a bunch of words and lead me to the answer in three guesses.

Wordle 776: If You Ain't First, You're Last

When I started yesterday's Wordle with THIRD, I had the brilliant stupid idea to start Friday's puzzle with FIRST. Even though it is stupid, I decided to stick with the idea, so FIRST was my FRIST guess today. And FIRST pulled its weight, giving me a yellow R and a green T. After looking at what I had, I decided to see if the word ended in RT. COURT and ABORT were the two words that made sense to me, but I wasn't sure which one to pick. I thought it through and decided to let alphabetical order make my decision for me. ABORT did confirm that the answer ends in RT, but it wasn't the answer. I did get a yellow A in additional to the green R.

Every word I thought of for my third guess started with S, which is not in the answer. SMART, START. I decided to type in something off the wall to see if it triggered anything and ended up typing in whart, which probably isn't a word. But it did lead me to CHART for my third guess and a solve in three. This was a good solve, and it was really great because I broke my streak of stupidity today. I guess I could have had a solve in two if I really took a long time to think it through, but solving in two involves a lot of luck. As the puzzle played out, I think both COURT and ABORT would have led me to CHART in three. 

Wordle 775: Red Solo Cup, I Lift You Up

I started today with THIRD as my first guess. I wanted to make a joke about THIRD being the third word I thought of, but I didn't feel like doing the joke math to make it work. So let's all have a moment of silence for the joke that I killed in the cradle due to laziness. OK. THIRD did give me yellows for T and R. My initial idea is to think of a word that ends in RT. SHORT comes to mind, but won't work, obviously, so I need to look elsewhere. I've had two days in a row where I used a guess that couldn't work because I already knew the letter didn't go in that slot, so I'm being extra vigilant about that today. 

As I was thinking of potential second guess words, START is a word that really intrigued me. The double T gives me pause, but screw it, I pull the trigger on it. There is not a double T in the word, but there is an A. And then I realize I fucked up the one thing I was trying to avoid. Maybe you saw it earlier than I did. I put R in the fourth slot in both of my first two guesses. Dammit. What is wrong with my brain this week?

For my third guess, I want to use RATIO, but the I has been eliminated. I need to look elsewhere. I don't see much with R as the second letter, but then I stumble onto PARTY. Sure, let's have a PARTY, I've already fucked around enough with this puzzle. I hit enter and am pleasantly surprised that PARTY is the answer. I'm glad to get a solve in three, but man, I have really been out to lunch this week using guesses that are invalid. 

Wordle 773 and 774: Two for One!

It is hilarious that I wrote a post on Monday about the need to write every day and then on Tuesday, I did not write a post. I wish I could say I planned that joke out, but no, I just got busy on Tuesday and never got the 20 or so minutes that I take to write up my thoughts about the day's solve. Reality is sometimes lamer than a good joke. Oh well. I'll do quick recaps for Tuesday and Wednesday in this post.

I opened yesterday's Wordle with a guess of WREST. I can't for the life of me remember why I chose that word, but it got me yellows for E and T. For my second guess, I wanted to put -TE at the end of the word, and there were two words that popped out at me to accomplish this goal: SLATE and PLATE. I was hesitant to use either. SLATE is always one of the words recommended by Wordlebot early in the solve, and I do not want to robotic about my solves. Thoughtful, yes. Robotic, no. Which leads me to my hesitance for PLATE: I used it as my second guess in Monday's puzzle. But I didn't see any other way to get where I wanted to go without using PLATE, so PLATE was the second guess, which got me a green for the T.

From here, I knew the E was either first or second, but I couldn't think of any words to start with an E that would work, so I typed it in the second spot. Looking at XEXTX gave me the feeling that the answer could end in Y, and then, because I love trash bags, I was able to quickly type in HEFTY for my third guess. I got a green for the E and a yellow for the H. I looked at this result and saw that the answer for the puzzle was TEETH, which I could have struggled to get because I don't usually consider repeating letters until late in the game, and this answer had repeating Ts and Es. That's a bummer for me, but I got a solve in four, so alright.

Except I didn't solve this Wordle in four guesses. TEETH was wrong. Which is something I should have seen because my first guess WREST let me know that E wasn't the third letter. I made a dumb mistake here that I should have seen. The answer was TENTH. Damn, that stings.

Today's Wordle started with a guess of BINGO! I don't know why. But once I thought of it, I couldn't let it go, so B-I-N-G-O and BINGO was the guesso. This gave me a green B and a yellow G. Really fortunate results for a ridiculous opening guess. From here, I quickly guessed BRAGS, which was wrong. And a bad guess since the G was in the same spot as my first guess. Just a very poor, dumb mistake made by me there.

The only bright side to that guess was that it left me with just E and U to use as far as vowels were concerned. I looked at B,G,E,U and came up with BUGEL, which is the incorrect spelling for BUGLE. BUGLE as my third guess got me the correct location for G and a yellow E. Okay, so now I figured the word was BEGXX because you need to have a vowel between the B and the G. BEGAN/BEGIN/BEGUN are all eliminated, BEGGAR is too long, and Y makes no sense with what I have so far. Then I type BEGE and BEGET makes itself obvious. I hit enter for a solve in four, which is pretty good considering I threw my second guess away.    

Wordle 772: Let's Do It Again

Last week, I didn't really post much. I blame my lack of enthusiasm for writing due to the fact that I had a bunch of four-turn solves. So I wasn't sure what to do with a bunch of average games. But the point of this blog is to force me to write to everyday, so I'm back today, even though (spoiler) I have another solve in four.

I started today with DRINK. I had avoided words that had K for my opening guess for a while, but I was drinking my coffee when I played this morning, so I went with it. I don't usually do the whole "what's around me or what's going on in my life" thing that I've seen some online Wordle influencers (is that the right term?) do, but today just felt like the day to try something different. Back to my opening guess; DRINK gave me all gray tiles, which, whatever.

I consider giving in to the Wordlebot and using its recommended opening word, SLATE, but I just don't want to give into the machines like that. Luckily, since I was holding a mug in my hand, it wasn't to hard to jump from SLATE to PLATE for my second guess. And now I've got some positive results, with yellow tiles for L and T and a green for E. 

For my next guess, I really want to type in STALE, but I know that won't be right. I'm stuck, so I start typing in X's for my blanks. I fiddle with T and L in first spot and get nowhere, so I go back to my initial thought, STXLE. I look at it and see STOLE. Wow, this is going to be a very rewarding solve in three and a great way to start the week.

But it isn't a solve in three. The O is wrong. What the hell can this be? STELE? That's ridiculous. So is STULE. What the hell? Oh, there's the answer: STYLE. Yep, the sometimes Y is the other vowel in today's word. Even though it's a par solve, I still feel good for being able to get it after have my initial guess be all gray. 

Wordle 766: They Go Round and Round

I've continued my streak over the weekend, but yesterday things got scary. I had to go into my final guess yesterday with HO--Y and a strong feeling that it would either be HOBBY or HOPPY. I was at best at a 50/50 guess with only one try remaining. I went with HOBBY to extend my streak to 103, but I was very nervous. When I checked Wordlebot afterwards, I found that my odds of winning were even lower because there was a third option (HOOKY) that I hadn't even considered.

I start today's puzzle with a recognition that I got pretty lucky yesterday and hoping that today's solve with be less stressful. I open with TRAIL and get a green tile for the L. I was debating between TRAIL and TRIAL, and then I realized it really didn't matter because the odds of solving on the first guess are infinitesimal. Getting that green for the L at the end really throws me for a loop, though. I'm stumped because I'm thinking of words like FERAL and CORAL, words that won't work because the A and R have been eliminated. It's a this moment, that I think "Hey, maybe there's a double letter here." The first word with a repeating letter that comes to mind is SPOOL. I'm not the biggest fan of it, but it's the second guess, let's be bold. I type it in and get no additional green or yellow tiles. 

Now, I take a pause. I'm having trouble coming up with a word for my third guess. I keep on thinking of words that have A in them. I consider that maybe the repeating letters is a good idea. I spend some time trying to find a word that ends with ---LL, but this leads me nowhere. I keep trying to make SKILL work, when it won't. I fiddle around, not really getting anywhere until I see the W and WHEEL just appears for me. I type it in for a solve in three that owed a bit to some good luck, but that was definitely easier than yesterday.

Wordle 762: It's Me and Wilt and Then Everyone Else

I'm looking to extend two streaks today: my win streak to 100 and I want my fourth day in a row where I don't get a positive result on my opening guess. I want to give an honest, legit guess to achieve this. Otherwise, I'd guess xenon or zaddy or something stupid and be done with it. So I'm thinking about what to do when BRINK pops into my mind. That feels appropriate, I'm on the brink of something here, I hit enter and get a green B and a yellow R. NO! It's over. I'm crestfallen. Now I have to refocus so I can work on solving this.

I start going through B words that will fit. BRISK immediately comes to mind, but won't work for very obvious reasons. I try to think of other words, but BRIAR, BRAND, BRANK (BRANK? BRAKE was what I was thinking) and other words that won't work keep coming to mind. I decide to get away from the letter A and BORED appears to me pretty quickly. I hit enter and get a green tile for the R. BARNS pops out to me as a possible guess, but there aren't plurals like that in Wordle, so I again abandon the letter A and focus on the other remaining vowel: U. At this point, I see two options: BURPY and BURLY. I really want to go with BURPY, but that doesn't seem like a word that will appear in the esteemed New York Times, so I delete the P and go with BURLY for a win in three. 

This gets me to 100 consecutive wins, which I guess have all been documented on here. I think I had missed a day early on during the blog project. Wow. 

UPDATE: Yes, I forgot to play one day early on, but there was also the BORAX loss back in April, which I felt was a ridiculous answer/word. Ah, yes, my anger over that is all coming back to me now. Going on a run from April 13 to now is pretty good. Let's see how far I can take this.

Wordle 761: Hat Trick

Two days in a row where I did not get a correct letter on my opening guess, can I make it three in row? I type in PRIME and find that, yes, I can make three days in a row without a single correct letter. I don't know what the odds or the probability of being able to do that is, but I imagine it's pretty small. Part of me wants to try to keep this going as long as possible. But I have to make legit guesses. I could guess QUIPY or some other stupid word from here to keep it going. That's not what I'm looking to do. The last three days according to WordleBot, my opening guesses had luck scores of 8, 7, and 7. I'm threading some kind of needle here, I just don't know how or why I'm doing this. I want to let it ride. 

For my second guess, I decide to get back to basics. I type in SLACK and hit enter. I get greens for the L, A, and K. To get such a positive result on my second guess buoys me and makes it easier for me to laugh about the streak of ineffective opening guesses. From here, I think there are only two words still available to me as valid answers: BLANK and FLANK. I take a moment to think it through and feel pretty confident that I have a 50/50 situation on my hands here. I decide to go with BLANK as my third guess, and it is not the answer. FLANK for a solve in four it is. Let's see if I can get four all-gray opening guesses in a row tomorrow.

Wordle 760: Two Posts in One Day?!?

Ok, I'm back with my second post of the day because I have to be better at being consistent with my posts. I opened today's puzzle with SHAPE. I wanted to get back to a guess that had a high probability of giving me a positive result because yesterday I struggled. Although, as I think about it, I had a high probability word yesterday as well that just didn't work out. I put my own objections to the side and submit the guess. I get no positive results on my opening guess for the second day in a row. Damn.

This lack of opening luck is pretty random, but it's enough to drive me to drink. Which is a good word to guess. DRINK gets me yellows for I and N. I'm feeling pretty good about this train of thought. So I follow up with what would be a good flavor for a drink for my next guess. I type in MINTY and get a green tile for my N and a yellow for the T. I put the T in the first slot and see that TONIC is the answer for a solve in four. I should've gone from DRINK to TONIC because gin and tonics are great, simple cocktails that everyone should enjoy. 

Wordle 759: Rock Me Like a Wagon Wheel

Missed a few posts that I should have written but didn't. I'm not going to go back and do catch up posts, so here we are. My streak is still active at 97 days. I open yesterday's puzzle with STAIN and this guess is a stain upon my me because I get no correct letters, which is a bummer. I move to PROBE for my second guess and get yellows for R and E. But at this point, I'm kind of stumped and I don't really want to guess a word that ends in -ER. After some thought,  I decide go with DECRY, which gives me an additional yellow for the Y. It's at this point that my solving experience goes off the rails.

I'm stumped. Like legitimately stumped. I mean, close-the-game-and-do-other-stuff stumped. I have no idea what to do. It makes sense that I am stymied because as I will learn when I consult Wordlebot (post-solve), there is only one possible word that can solve this puzzle. I don't know. I finally finally decide on SHYER as my fourth guess and get green tiles for YER. I felt good about this guess, but didn't realize until later that the guess had no chance of being correct, since the S had already been eliminated.

The same thing happened with my fifth guess FRYER, which got me a green F, but again, had no chance of being correct since the R couldn't be second. So while guesses four and five weren't valid guesses, even though I thought they were at the time, they weren't wasted and got me to the correct answer FLYER for my sixth guess.

This was a tough one that I was eventually able to solve, but it was a struggle. 

Wordle 754: I am the Master of the Seas

Oops. Forgot to write about yesterday's puzzle. Luckily, the Wordlebot site has archives now. So we can do this!

I opened with SHORT to honor Martin Short for his Emmy nomination for Only Murders in the Building. Way to go, Marty. No, I went with SHORT because I was stumped and it was the only word that popped into my head. My tribute to Marty got me a yellow tile for R, so thanks.

One of the words that always pops into my head when there is a yellow R is REPLY. I don't think I've ever used it, because the Y scares me. But screw it, I've had some quick solves lately and I'm on a three-month win streak. If not now, then when? I type in REPLY and hit enter. I get yellows for the R and E. This makes think of all the -ER ending words. So I figure I had better check to see if that's the case today. I type in GAMER for some reason and get yellows for G, E, and R and a green for A. All right, that was a good guess.

I know where the A is and, based on my prior guesses, the R has to be third. -AR--. I know E is either first or last. An E at the front with G towards the back doesn't make much sense, so I throw it at the end. And the G has to go fourth based on where I've put the other letters: -ARGE. I want to type in LARGE and be done, but I see my second guess and know the L is out. I take a moment and type in BARGE for a win in four. Pretty good puzzle for Thursday.

Wordle 753: Let's Go to the Carnival

 I briefly considered using START as my opening guess. But that's too risky of a guess for me. I pivoted to SHARE for my first guess and got green tiles for H and R. Hmmm, SHORE, SHORT, and CHORE are words that pop to mind, but none of them can be used. I focus on consonants that could go in the first slot. What can go in front of the H? P, T, C, and maybe W seem to be my best options.

I go with THIRD for my second guess. I get a green tile for the I, but my consonants are incorrect. Okay, I'm seeing two possibilities at this point: CHIRP and WHIRL. I'm sure there are probably other possibilities, but those are the ones that have jumped out at me. I decide to go with CHIRP for my third guess, and it is wrong. I type in WHIRL and get my solve in four. It looks like I did have it narrowed down to a 50/50 guess. I'm pleased with the fact that I narrowed it down after two guesses, and it's hard to be upset with a solve in four. It's also pretty funny that the last letter I had considered when thinking about what the first letter could be ended up being the one.

Wordle 752: The Full 90

I opened today with FLASH. I briefly considered FLACK or FLECK, but no. FLASH was the opening guess today and it rewarded me with a yellow A and a green H. This is a pretty good result and much better than yesterday, when I got nothing correct. I'm feeling pretty good about this. Since I know the H is at the end, I get a feeling that fourth letter is either a C or a T. Now I just need to determine where the A goes and start building a word for my second guess.

I put A at the front, but that doesn't make any sense. I type in TEACH, but that won't work because of the placement of the A in the third spot. Still, I consider it, because it'll give me more info, but since it's a throwaway guess, I don't like it. I do like the EA combo, so I keep that, but move it forward. Moving it back to 3/4 wouldn't make any sense. So now I've got EA--H with the hunch that a C or T goes fourth. EACH is too short, so I mentally put a T there. EA-TH and then EARTH pops out to me. I hit enter for a solve in two and am feeling pretty good about myself.

It's here that I again must gripe about WordleBot, which gave me a skill score of 66 and a luck score of 93. Okay, there is luck involved in getting a solve in two, but WordleBot felt that my first guess had more skill than my second guess, which I just disagree with. After FLASH, WB tells me that there were only 12 words to choose from. That was the lucky guess. EARTH had some thought behind it. The other thing that annoys me is that WB also "solved" the puzzle in two guesses, but it gave itself a luck score of only 82. Sure, WB had an additional yellow tile after its first guess, but that doesn't feel like it should be worth 11 points. I don't know. Anyways, my streak is up to 90, which is pretty cool.

Wordle 751: Christmas in July?

I stared at the blank tiles today and had nothing to put in for my first guess. I briefly considered FLUNK for an opener because I had nothing to go with. But I've been annoyed with all the times I've used K in my opening guess, so I pivoted away. I ended up going with TRAIN for my first guess. This felt like a good guess because there were a good amount of common letters, but I got nothing but gray tiles. As I thought about my second guess, I decided to return to a word with one vowel. I had a brief thought to put a Y at the end of my guess, but couldn't figure out what to do. I had FOLKY for a second, but I don't think that's a word. Folksy, yes, but folky? I don't think so. Anyways, I ended up settling on DUCKS (the verb) for my second guess.

And got five more gray tiles. At this point, I knew I needed to start getting some correct letters on the board. Much to my chagrin, I went vowel hunting. As I cast about for a word with O and E, I stumbled onto GOLEM, which hit the mark for having both available vowels and also being a unique word. I got green tiles for O and L. At this point, I knew that there was a Y at the end of the word. I should've listened to my earlier instinct.

I looked at the available letters and the only thing that made sense was the word being -OLLY. From there, I had the puzzle down to either JOLLY, FOLLY, or HOLLY. I was much less sure about HOLLY, since that doesn't look like how it is spelled. Two out of the three words were Christmas adjacent words, so I decided to go with JOLLY for my fourth guess. And it was wrong. I briefly considered doubling down on Christmas in July, but I that doesn't feel like the correct spelling for HOLLY. So I turned to FOLLY for a solve in five.

PS That is the correct spelling for HOLLY.

PPS For some reason, Wordlebot didn't like my guess of FOLLY, even though it was the correct word. I guess it wanted me to pick a word that would give me the answer on the sixth guess since there were three possible answers (FOLLY, HOLLY, and LOLLY) and only two guesses left. It kind of annoys me that Wordlebot is willing to use throwaway guesses to eliminate letters. I don't have the game set to hard, but I try to play by that concept of needing to use found letters in subsequent guesses. I'll allow moments of stupidity to let me stray from the hard concept. Part of me wants to change the setting, but I don't want to mess with anything since my streak is up to 89.

Wordle 748: Homer Approves

I'm not even going to go through the motions today: I got the answer in two. I went SLANT then DONUT for my two guesses and DONUT was right. Getting a solve in two on a Friday is just a really good feeling. Everything is coming up my way. 

I'll do a brief recap for those who want it. SLANT was a return to the one-vowel rule I usually use. I liked this guess because I didn't initially have a K word. I didn't go SLACK to SLANT. SLANT just popped up, and, for today's puzzle, it was a good guess; I got the yellow N and the green T from it. It didn't feel like there were too many options for my next guess. In fact, when I checked WordleBot afterwards, it said there only 11 possible words left after my first guess. I didn't think the N would go in the first two spots, I fiddled around and typed in MOUNT then changed it to MONUT because the N can't be fourth. Then I got rid of the M because what the hell is MONUT supposed to be? So I had -ONUT which quickly led me to DONUT. Viola!

I do have a little bit of a gripe with WordleBot, though. It gave me a skill score of 68 and a luck score of 92. Granted, I don't know how the formula works to calculate these scores, but I feel that it is overrating my luck in solving today's puzzle. Yes, there has to be a degree of luck to getting a solve in one or two, but I feel the luckier submission of my two words was SLANT, not DONUT. WordleBot viewed it the opposite, giving me a high skill/high luck score for my first guess and a low skill/high luck score for my second. There was luck, but there was also some skill involved, especially since 16% of the people in the same situation that I was in chose DONUT for their second guess. I don't know, it seems like the WordleBot is just mad that I got to the solution in fewer guesses than it did. 

Wordle 747: It's a Jet, It's a Plane

I break my one vowel rule today and open with SHAPE. I kind of felt that mixing it up would be good since my openers have gotten a bit stale the last couple of weeks. I'm rewarded with getting... nothing but gray tiles. I've written before how getting nothing right on the first guess actually is kind of helpful since you're still gaining information. Even with that attitude, it's a bit depressing to see nothing but gray turnover. I quickly type in FLUNK for my second guess and get a yellow N. As the tiles were turning over, I was getting ready to laugh at the idea of having consecutive guesses that were all gray, but the N stopped it from happening. Damn you, N.

I decide to go vowel hunting on my third guess. Wow, I'm really playing against my tendencies here, but you have to do what you have to do sometimes. This leads me to INTRO, which gives me yellow I and N. Now I'm a bit stumped since I have to decide if I is the lone vowel, if it's doubled up, or if Y is the second vowel. I decide to go with Y being in the word for my fourth guess and come up with DINGY. This is an excellent and evocative word to be the solution. It is not the solution today. 

But I've got the correct placement for I, N, and Y. And I know that D is in the word, just in the wrong place. -INDY is the answer. I type in WINDY, look through my available letters, see only MINDY and CINDY as alternatives, and hit enter for a win in five with WINDY. 

WINDY kind of makes me wonder if this is a themed answer since it's Wordle 747. WINDY is plane adjacent. Am I stretching? I might be stretching, but then again, it is pretty plausible. Themed answers do exist!

 

Wordle 746: Post Firework Solve

I got yesterday's puzzle, but didn't blog about it because it was the 4th of July. So now I'm back again with today's post. I opened with GHOST, not sure why, but it seemed like a good enough word for a guess. I got a yellow tile for the O, so it wasn't terrible. I didn't feel good about moving the O all the way to the front of the word, so for my next guess, I slotted it into the second position. I knew putting it there would mean I needed a second vowel, and I went with A, so I found my way to POLAR pretty easily for my second guess. I didn't get an additional letter, so I was momentarily stumped.

I tried a few random letters to get me somewhere, but only stumped myself. At this point, I figured I'd lean into using vowels to try to get something going. I threw the O at the end and started working from there in my mind. I decided to get ---EO and worked from there to get VIDEO. This gave me a green for the V and yellows for E and O. At this point, I knew the word was V--O- with one of those blanks being an E. E made no sense as the third letter, so I had to go with VE-O-. And then it was apparent that the word was VENOM for a solve in four. I am curious if VENMO is or will be an acceptable answer some day.  

Quick recap for 7/4 since the Wordlebot now saves your past solves. I went CHAMP, GLARE, TRADE, IRATE for a solve in four. I was feeling pretty good about my guess for GLARE since it was Independence Day, but I guess we are never doing themed answers for special days after people got mad about FEAST being the answer on Thanksgiving. 

Wordle 744: Back and Better Than Ever

I'm back after a week at the beach. I was able to get all of my solves in, but didn't write about them because I was at the beach. It's pretty self explanatory.

I started today's puzzle with SPORT. I was thinking about the word portly, but that's six letters instead of five, so it wouldn't work and I made the leap to SPORT from there. I got a yellow for the O and T, so I had some positive stuff to work with going forward. I tend to move the letters that I have found to the front of my subsequent guess, and I follow that pattern here, moving the T and the O all the way to the front so I could guess TOUCH.

I found a green tile for the O and yellows for the T and H with this guess. I start to play with the letters and type in TOXHX. I'm thinking about this for like a minute before I realize that T can't be at the front of the word. Good thing I caught that stupid error. So now I need to do some serious thinking. The T can only go in either the third or the fourth slot. I can't see it in the fourth, so I put it third. I type in HOT-- and from there, HOTEL quickly comes to me for a solve in three. My streak is currently up to 82; is it too early to start thinking about hitting the 90-day mark? 

Wordle 774: I'm Ready For My Close-Up, Mr. DeMille

I'm ready to get this thing solved quickly after yesterday's annoying solve in six. One thing that I've noticed from WordleBot is that SLATE is one of its most suggested words. So screw it, let's give in to the machines. SLATE for the win! Ok, SLATE for yellow T and E! 

I want to guess EMPTY, but that won't work, so I need to find a different word that starts with E. I go with ETHIC and get another yellow tile for C, but I am still looking for my first green tile to start honing in on what this word is. Hmm, I should probably see if this is a word that ends in -ER. Given the letters that I have, I have to guess CUTER. I get greens for C and E. I'm a little bit stumped, but I type in CXXET. After looking at the board, it has to be COMET. Would've been good to use that around Christmas time. But it's not COMET. I guess the answer is COVET, which is a very biblical word for the solve. I end the work wee with a solve in five. A little disappointing, but better than yesterday's result. 

I'll be on vacation next week, so I doubt that I'll post, but who knows? 

Wordle 733: C'mon, the Answer is Right in Front of Your Nose

I wanted to open with WREST, but a W that early feels like a waste of a letter. So I swap the W for a C and go with CREST for my opening guess. The C is not in the word, but I got yellows for the last three letters in the guess. So I've got a lot of letters to work with here. As I look at what I have I settle on either SLATE or STALE for my second guess. I don't even consider any alternatives. It's one of these words that I'm going with. I settle on SLATE and get yellows for the S and A and greens for the TE at the end, so going with SLATE was clearly a brilliant choice by me.

I play with the A and S and determine that the word has to be -ASTE. I've got some options here, but I figure I'll go with WASTE since WREST was my first thought for the opener. I never should have been seduced by the W. Ok, so I can solve this in either four or five because the only remaining options are HASTE and PASTE. So I've got a 50/50 here and decide not to overthink this and make HASTE with my decision. (See what I did there?) Haste was wrong. Ok, it's PASTE for a solve in five. 

Only PASTE is wrong. WHAT?!? I don't understand. That was the only option left. This makes no sense!

It's at this moment that I see where I messed up. It's the T. I had looked at my unshaded letters and since I didn't see T, I never considered TASTE. I got got by a repeated letter. Damn. I solve on my final guess with TASTE to extend my streak to 71.

PS When I check WordleBot, it turns out that BASTE was an option that I totally overlooked. I would've been irate if the answer had been BASTE.

Wordle 732: Disappointment in Four

 I wanted to start with an A today. I used MARSH earlier in the week and want to do that again. I type in TRASH, but decided against that. I switch to CRASH for my first goal. I get greens for C, R, and A, and for a brief moment, I'm thinking this is the improbable solve in one. Unfortunately, it's not the solve in one. I get gray tiles for the S and H. I've got three green tiles and now I want to try to get this solve in two.

I start running through the possible answers that I could get. CRAVE, CRATE, CRAMP, CRAZY, CRAZE pop into mind. I really want to get this in two, but I also feel that I should be a little bit strategic. Most of the words that I could think of end with E, so I decide to use one of those words. But I do decide to get a little bit wild and decide to go with CRAZE for my second guess. It's a swing, but one I feel good about. I do get a green tile for the E, but the answer was not CRAZE. For my third guess, I decide to go with the word that I feel strongest about which for some reason is CRATE. Sadly, that is not the answer either. I type in CRAVE, but wait to see if there is anything else it can be when I see CRANE. So I know I've got a 50/50, which is a bummer. I think about it for longer than is necessary because this is straight up a game of chance at this point. I go with CRANE and get a solve in four.

The result is a bit disappointing based on where I started, but getting it in four is best than getting in five. One good thing about today's solve, though, is that when I check my results against WordleBot, I got it in fewer guesses than the bot. So I feel a little bit better about getting the solve when I did because it was one where once you get the structure, it was kind of a crapshoot to solve. So my disappoint dissipates a bit. My streak is up to 70.

Wordle 731 and Long Weekend Catch-Up

I opened today's Wordle with PRINT. The word sprint was on my mind, but sprint is obviously too long, so I dropped the s and went with PRINT. This was a good opening guess since I got greens for R and T. I decide to stick to my one vowel strategy based on the placement of the two letters that I have. So wonder about E, but don't really get anywhere. I put an A in the middle and build out from there to get DRAFT. This guess results in a yellow F. So I've got a pretty good idea that the word starts with F, since having it in the middle really doesn't make any sense.

So I've got FR--T. Instead of focusing on whether E, O, or U is the vowel, I decide to look at what could be the fourth letter. What makes sense among the letters that I have left that could go in front of the T and make sense? I look through my letters and the only thing that doesn't feel odd is the S. So I've got FREST, FRUST, and FROST. Gee, I wonder which of these I go with for my third guess? FREST. Just kidding, I go with FROST for a solve in three to extend my streak to 69. Nice. 

Ok, long weekend, so a few quick notes on Saturday - Monday.

- Saturday was a solve in three. I don't have the path I got to get to RANCH saved, but I mean, come on, all roads lead to RANCH, don't they?

- Sunday was a solve in solve in four. CRASH>SHONE>SHILL>SHYLY. I give them credit for using a word with Y and only Y as the vowel. For a brief moment, I was wondering if SHULK was a word for my fourth guess. But then I played with Y and it snapped into place. Also, they used an adverb for the answer which is kind of wild.

- Monday was a tough one that I was able to solve in five. MARSH>PAINT>CAGED>BAYOU>KAZOO. I was mad but also impressed that I have three guesses in a row that only had the green A. For the fourth guess, I briefly considered KAYAK, but I think that's already been the answer. My understanding is that the answers aren't going to repeat and each day is unique. So I steered away, but kept the Y in the middle and got to BAYOU. After that guess, I was able to KAZOO pretty easily since I had the K in mind and barely any letters to choose from.

Wordle 727: Strip Search

I think I've written about this before, but I find myself using the letter K a lot in my opening guesses, and it's not because I'm a big fan of Franz Kafka. It's just that it seems like a lot of my opening guess gravitate to ending in K. PRICK, PLUCK, STUNK, STUCK, TRACK, FLACK, I don't know why, but it's just where I go with one-vowel words. So one of the things that I have to be conscious of is trying to avoid that tendency with my guesses. So when I typed STICK today (I've been hearing "Stick Season" by Noah Kahan on the radio a lot lately), I deleted it because it had a K. But I liked the S at the front. So I thought about STRIP, but I didn't use it for some unknown reason. I next had SPARE and was about to hit enter, but I didn't like it because I was really breaking my tendencies with that guess. You can only zig so much when you normally zag. Luckily, SPARE led me quite naturally to SPLIT, which had the added bonus of moving the lone vowel out of the third slot. I hit enter and got a green tile for the S and yellow tiles for the P and T. 

At this point, I threw strategy out the window and decided to go for a win in two. I knew I would be able to solve this puzzle, so I took a gamble. I went with STOOP for my second guess, hoping that my boldness would pay off. It almost did. I got greens for the S, T, and P. This is the general structure of the word that I assumed would be right after my first guess. At this point, I took a step back because I would rather solve in three than in four. I started running through the possibilities: STEEP, STREP, STAMP, STUMP, STRAP. I kind of wanted to double down on the double repeating vowel, but that just felt off. Ultimately, I decided to go with STRAP because my initial feeling way back at the start was to use STRIP. STRAP for my third guess, and it came up all green. Ironically, I would have had the solve in two if I'd used STRIP as my first guess. I'm not going to complain about a solve in three, but, man, I was close to something really good. Streak is up to 65.

Wordle 725 and 726: 50/50

I didn't get a chance to post yesterday since I was at my son's high school graduation. So I'll give a short write up of yesterday's puzzle and then a normal write up of today's puzzle. I don't remember my exact path to victory yesterday, but it was a solve in four. I got to my third guess and and had a C, R, M, and E. Some letters (I think the E for sure in the last spot) were in their correct places, but some were not. I looked at my letters and narrowed down the potential answer to either CREME or CRIME. I went bold and guessed CREME, which was incorrect. So I was able to get it in four with CRIME. I liked that I got it to a 50/50 guess, but I also don't like that I got it to a 50/50. 

Today, I opened with THINK and every tile was gray. I talked about this scenario earlier this week, I think. It sucks, but it does give you information to work with, so you it's not the worst. For guess number 2, I pivoted to E and A hoping to get some correct answers. I guessed DREAM, and got yellow tiles for E, A, and M. Luckily, the ER ending is eliminated. I think about what to do and come up with MAPLE for my third guess. I don't get any new letters, but I do get the correct positions for the three that I already know.

So now I have to try to figure out those last two letters. Let's see MASSE, MAYBE... I think those are my only two options. Looks like I've got another 50/50 thing on my hands. Based on the uncertainty, I decide to go with MAYBE and get rewarded. Of course it was MAYBE. When in doubt, definitely maybe is the answer. Streak is up to 64.

Wordle 724: Rainbow

One thing that occurred to me during yesterday's solve that I didn't include in my post was that PRISM would be a good opening guess. It's got a good mix of common letters, and I is good vowel to get out of the way early since its probably the 3rd most common vowel. I even wanted to use it as my second guess yesterday, but couldn't/wouldn't since SHALT was my first guess. So I used it today and got a green tiles for P.

So now I was working my way through the P section of the dictionary. I figured it would be good to get the most common vowels out of the way. I thought about PHASE, but it had an S, so it was out. From there, I saw "please" but since that is too long to be a guess, it led me to PLEAD for guess number 2. I got another green for L. I laughed at the idea of trying to get each successive green letter on each guess, but that sounds like something that would be impossible to pull off. 

I knew, or at least felt super strongly, that the third letter was the vowel. The first word to come to mind was PLOTS. I considered it, but it had two strikes against it. I reasoned that PLOTS as a noun is probably not in the word bank, but PLOTS as a verb could be. But I wasn't certain. In any case, there's an S, which isn't in today's answer. I swapped the O for a U and came up with PLUME, but has an E. I deleted the last two letters and looked at the N next to M and arrived at PLUNK for a solve in three that extended my streak to 62.

PS - I tried to figure out if the descending steps of green letters could work, and it looks like it would've died at guess four. It also would've required taking a dive on guess three. I'll keep an eye out to see if we find a puzzle that doing it would work for. Or maybe I won't. I dunno. But this is definitely something that can probably only be done by reverse engineering/dumb luck.  

PXXXX - PRISM

PLXXX - PLEAD

PLUXX - PLUME

PLUNX - PLUN?

PLUNK - PLUNK

Wordle 723: Sometimes It's Better to be Lucky than Good

I open with SHALT today, which does not give me any correct letters. Not really sure why I picked such biblical word, but that's where I ended up after only being able to think up a bunch of one-vowel six-letter words. While getting nothing correct sucks, I still maintain that it is a useful gathering of information. Knowing the letters that can't work is almost as useful as knowing the letters that can work.

For my second guess, I want to use an E in the word because I feel like using the most common vowel. Unfortunately, I am in a brain funk this morning and everything I want to use has an S, H, or T in it. So that's not getting me anywhere. I start looking at letter combinations that could be at the front or end of a potential answer to get me going somewhere. I land on WR--- and am ready to type in WRING for my second guess. But as I'm typing on my phone screen, I make a typo and spell WRONG. I briefly considered fixing the mistake, but decide to let it slide and hit enter. Everything turns up green! That's a very lucky solve and my ninth solve in two overall to push my current streak to 61. 

Quick note on the wordles from Friday to Sunday. I was out of town this weekend, and while I did finish all three, I won't be writing up a review for them. I will say that I made the same dumb mistake on Friday and Saturday of entering a guess that had no chance of being correct because I put a letter in its yellow spot on subsequent guesses. I don't what the heck that was about.   

Wordle 719: Missed It By That Much

I opened today's puzzle with SPLAT. I remembered that earlier in the week I was looking for words that had the vowel somewhere other than the middle slot and came up with SPLAT. SPLAT is a great onomatopoeia word, so I was disappointed that none of the letters were correct. I turned to FROND as my second guess pretty quickly and was rewarded a green square for R.

But I only had one correct letter through two guesses. Working from the R, I was able to turn to CRIME, one of the few times that turning to CRIME is a good thing. This rewarded me with green tiles for C,R, and M. From here, I had to put U in the middle. I had CRUM-, so getting to CRUMB was pretty easy from there for a solve in four.

This answer is both good and bad for me. Good because I was able to get it and extend my streak to 57. But devastating because CRUMB is exactly the kind of the word that I would like to use for my opening guesses. It hits what I'm trying to do as far as using four consonants and, ideally, an uncommon vowel. Just a bummer because under a different set of circumstances, this could have been a solve in one.

Wordle 718: Something's in the Air, and It Ain't Love

Greetings from the smoke-filled environs of northern Virginia where we can barely see down the street today because of the Canadian wildfires. Actually, the haze isn't that bad, but apparently the air quality is. I was outside for a bit to get my nephew on the school bus, and the air did seem to smell a bit smoky/ashy. So stay safe out there. 

I opened today with SPORT. I was a little bit worried that the SPO part of the word wouldn't be very helpful, and it wasn't. But I did get yellow tiles for R and T. So not bad for an opening guess. And now my game got intense. I saw on Twitter (yes, I'm still on that hellhole of a site because we're still waiting for a viable alternative to rise) that Patton Oswalt got today's answer in two guesses. Now, he admitted it was lucky and Oswalt is kind of a random celebrity to compare yourself to, but I saw it and it was in my mind, so what are you gonna do? I scoured my available letters, trying to think like Patton Oswalt, which is a fool's errand, the man's mind is one of a kind. I also learned from when he posted that Patton is a-do-the-Wordle-at-midnight person (or maybe it's 9 PM for him in LA. Whatever, wherever, let's move on, there are way too many parenthetical asides in this post.) I wanted to guess RETRO, but came up with TREND for my second guess. I did not get the solve in two.

I did get yellows for TRE. So I had something to work from at this point. For some reason, this felt like a TH word to me. I don't know why, but that's the path I pursued. I didn't really want to put TH at the end like in BROTH (which wouldn't work as a guess anyway because of the O, which has really been a thorn in my side this game, also I already needed to work with an E in the answer) so I looked for where else I could put this letter combination. TH to start was out. I wanted OTHER, but again that damned O wouldn't let it work. But it led me to ETHER for my third guess. Now this was a good guess. It got me an ER at the end of the word and yellows for T and H. I now knew the word was H-THER based on previous guesses. So I had HATER, HITER, and HUTER for available options, and only one of those is actually a word. HATER for the win in four. I'm at 56 for the second time to tie Joe DiMaggio's streak. I wonder if people's streaks ended today since we got a dreaded -ER word. Also, HATER is probably a word that skews younger, so it might trip some solvers up. 

I do want to toot my own horn after looking at my results in the Wordle Bot. ETHER was such a good guess for today. Coming out of my second guess, there were 21 possible answers, and ETHER eliminated all possibilities except for the answer.  I kind of knew that intuitively based on what I wrote above, but, man, it's nice to see the numbers behind the solve.

Wordle 717: On My Honor

I'm ready to attack this puzzle after yesterday's ENNUI fiasco. I don't think it was a fair word because it's French. I get that is it used by English speakers, but it just feels like a cheat. Is ADIOS an acceptable answer now?  Enough about yesterday.

I open with PINCH because as I mentioned yesterday (dammit), I'm looking for one-vowel words that don't have the vowel in the middle. I get a yellow for the C, so it's not a total loss, but far from ideal results on my opener. For the second guess, I'm going with CREST. There was a brief moment where I was trying to find something that worked with CLAS-, but CREST feels good. Okay, I get yellows for C and S and the T is in the right spot.

I briefly fiddle with the idea of S at the front, but that's not something I really explore. I start looking my available vowels. I type in ACOST, but I think that's actually spelled with two C's, so I that won't work. But ASCOT will work. I get a gray A, so I know it's wrong, but then I get yellows for everything else.

SCOOT. I want to type in SCOOT so badly, but that won't work. So I take a breath and type in SCOUT, which is correct. Man, I should've spent some more time with S at the front before my third guess. I also could have looked at U more closely, but trying to find an A or O intuitively seems safer than looking for U. I don't know what the numbers would say, but that felt like a justifiable pick. The streak is now up to 55.

Wordle 716: Whoa (In a Keanu Voice)

I'm starting with IMPLY today. Just trying to see if I can find different positions for the vowel in my one-vowel opening guesses. It kind of worked, I got a yellow tile for the I. Although, to be honest, I'm not sure if this qualifies as a one-vowel word because of the Y at the end. I would ask the audience for a ruling, but there is no audience, so who knows?

Anyways, back to the game. I fall back into old habits and look for a second vowel on my second guess. CIDER is my guess, and I get yellows for the I and E. So I'm making progress, even if it's not the most ground-breaking approach. The vowel placements look like they are going to be a bit odd. I'm looking at them in the second and third spots. I see FEIST, but she's a singer, so that won't be the answer. But HEIST could be. HEIST is not the answer. and I still don't know any of the other letters of the answer.

So now, I'm struggling. I is either fourth or fifth, but I don't have a good handle on either. Maybe it ends in -IE? BOWIE? Is there a version of the word that isn't a name? WOWIE? That's not a word. Or is it? Screw it, I'm going with BOWIE. Wow. Grays except for the yellows again for the I and E. So I is definitely at the end of the word. And E is is first or third. And I still have no consonants and no clue what the hell this word is.

I want to guess FUNGI, but that omits the E, so it can't work. Is QUEUI the plural of QUEUE? No. That's not real. I'm just typing random stuff now and getting nothing. This sucks. Eventually, I type in NAEVI and finally get my first green tile. I also get yellows for the E and the N, so now I know that E is first letter. Yay. NAEVI, by the way, area type of birthmark, if my google search is to be believed. At this point, I am resigned to the fact that I'm going to lose my streak to some stupid, obscure word. Whatever.

For my final guess I try ENUKI. It's not accepted. ENUJI. Not accepted. I'll spare you all the potential answers I tried. I finally type EUNUI. Is that how you spell EUNUI? Meaning the extreme boredom of everyday life? There are two n's aren't there? ENNUI? Is that it? It's correct? It's correct! Wow. What a rollercoaster. I honestly thought ENNUI was a French word. Wow. I am stunned.

I was at my wit's end. This is, I assume, what it feels like to complete a marathon. Happy you completed, no desire to ever do it again or think about it.

Update: interesting addendum. So I checked my results in WordleBot and saw that after my third guess, there were only four words left as the possible answer: BOGIE, ZOWIE, FOGIE, and of course ENNUI. So how come my guesses of BOWIE and NAEVI were accepted? Wordle, you lied to me and said I never had any goldfish. Then why did I have the bowl, Bart? Why did I have the bowl?

Weekend Catchup - Wordles 714 & 715

I've mentioned on here that I view a correct answer in four as par with everything else being above or below par. This weekend gave two puzzles that I was able to solve in five and three, so my score for this weekend was an even par.

Saturday's started off with FRONT, getting me a green square for the N. Coming out of that guess, I figured there would be a vowel at the end of the word, so I went with SHINE for my second guess and all the new letters were gray. This was a disappointment and I had no clue what the word could be. The thought of there being a double N entered my mind, but I didn't want to follow that path until I had a vowel so my third guess was PLUNK. Again all of my letters were gray. So I now knew that the vowel was A; I also had a pretty good feeling that the were indeed was a double N. This assumption pushed me to put a Y at the end of my next guess. I came up with CANNY for my fourth. This guess, unfortunately, was wrong. But I did get green tiles for ANNY. So now I just needed to find that first letter. After looking at my available letters, the only thing I could think of was NANNY, which was ridiculous. I mean, come on, three N's? NO way. But NANNY is what my available letters showed me, and it was the answer. NANNY in five feels pretty good, even though it's a bogey. I haven't checked, but I imagine a lot of streaks ended Saturday.

Sunday's game opened with SLICK. I got a yellow square for the S. From there, I went with PASTE as my second guess, figuring the S wouldn't be at the end of the word and wanting to get the A and E used to try find something to work from. This was a good guess as I got yellow tiles for everything but the P. So now, I was determined to try to get this puzzle solved in three. I wanted a birdie. I played around with the S in the second spot, but didn't get anywhere other than typing in ASTER, which sounds made up. I didn't even bother with S in the final spot. So I looked at it in the fourth spot. I fiddled around for a bit typing in some nonsense words. I think my best words were adest or maybe atest. I finally landed on LEAST and was about to guess that when I looked at my first guess and saw that I already used the L. But I liked the way -EAST looked. I scanned my available letters and saw that BEAST and FEAST worked. So now I figured I had a 50/50 coin toss. I wasn't sure which guess to make, but ultimately went with BEAST. That first tile turned over green, and I knew I had a win in three. Felt really good to get that one.

Wordle 713: Does Anyone Know What the M in M Bison Stands For?

Okay, back to the normal format. Sort of. This is super late, but no one's reading, so I can post at any time I want to. I played this puzzle around noon, but I wanted to write up yesterday's entry and then give this one its own post, so just bear with me.

I opened with TRICK and go a yellow tile for I, with everything else gray. Based off this, I knew that there would be another vowel somewhere in the word. So I had two choices: pick A or E and go with something safe or go wild with either O or U. I was feeling pretty good, so for my second guess I took a swing for the fences rather than just trying to eliminate more letters. I don't know why, but I just felt supremely confident in guessing BISON. I mean I was really feeling good about it. That was definitely going to be the answer. Until the B turned up gray and the I was still yellow and everything else was gray. 

So nope, that wasn't the best guess. For my third guess, I decided to get an A in the word. After some thinking, I decided to go with PLAID as my guess. This was a pretty good guess as I got green tiles for the I and the D. With ID at the end, I felt confident that U was the third letter. I wanted SQUID, but the S was out. Then I thought FLUID would be good, but the L had just been gray in PLAID. I was stumped until I moved that U up a space to the second slot and got to HUMID, which is a great word for the start of summer. Today was the hottest day of the year so far in the DC metro area, so it lined up. Today's win got my streak up to 51.

Wordle 712: Oh boy.

Posting a day late, and there will be a rant, so this is going to be a different type of post. 

Time got away from me last night, and I didn't take a screen shot so I can't go guess-by-guess like usual. I do know that I got JAZZY on my sixth and final guess. I remember that I didn't get any correct letters on my first two guesses. I don't remember when I got it to -A--Y (it was probably the fourth guess) but I remember one of my guesses was BAGGY. I was a little worried as the game went on, but by the time I got to my last guess, I wasn't too worried because the only word available to me at that point based on previous guesses was JAZZY. So I got a solve in six. Hey, sometimes that happens. Better to get get it late than not get it at all.

Which brings me to my rant. I read the NYT Wordle solver review thing and Thursday's solver, Miya Lee, did not get the answer. No shame in not getting it, it was a tough puzzle. Also, props to Lee for even writing the column because she's dyslexic and stated that she doesn't usually play word games because of it. Everybody's brain works differently and we should celebrate that fact. 

Now, you might be saying to yourself, "I thought he said there was a rant coming? This doesn't feel like a rant, WTF?" Here it comes: Lee's second guess was ADIEU. She guessed ADIEU after guessing OVULE and getting all grays; this was an objectively bad guess by a rookie who only used ADIEU because her aunt told her to. But I'm not here to destroy Lee. I'm here to destroy ADEIU. ADIEU is just a terrible guess. And yet, every day it's the opening salvo for many players. WHY?!? It's a stupid word.

It makes no sense to guess ADIEU. I get the temptation to hunt for vowels to help give order to your subsequent guesses. I do. I used to hunt for vowels. But I would only look for two vowels at a time. (Look at me, justifying my own stupidity) I get the idea that you can find the answer after getting a vowel around which you can build a word. There is an aspect of it that makes sense. But it really doesn't make sense to guess a nonsense word like ADIEU. You're not gaining much by knowing there's an E in the word, but it's in the wrong spot. Many words have an E! Do something constructive with your guesses.

You should be trying to gather as much information as possible in your guesses. Getting something correct in the first guess makes it feel like you're making progress and that you can then hone in on the correct answer. But regardless of what your guess is, you are going to gain information. Even your wrong letters help push you to the correct ones. And look, there are more consonants than vowels, so get some of those out of the way. You're going to have to use vowels in your guesses anyways. You know the vowels are going to be there at some point, so play the game smarter. You don't have to run the ball on first and second down hoping to get yourself into 3rd and manageable. 

Also, don't be a slave to the boring routine of using ADIEU. This is a game about words as much as it is about strategy. Have fun with your words. Pick new stuff every day. Try new things. Zig when others zag. Don't follow the wisdom of the crowd. Go with words that make you smile, words that strike your fancy. Just because we are trying to be smarter about our guesses doesn't mean we have to be boring. Don't be boring. 

ADIEU is a stupid, stupid word. Maybe the NYT should just make the answer ADIEU so all these people will start using different words. Free us from the tyranny of ADIEU as an opening guess.

Wordle 711: Hey, Let's Go Get Slurpees

Wow, it's Wordle 711! Let's go get some Slurpees! Honestly, I think it's probably been at least five years since I've had a Slurpee, and probably a bit longer than that. But maybe today is the day to change that.

While I consider whether or not to get a Slurpee, I open with PLANT as my first guess. I told you I wouldn't start with TRASH today. The other (cynical) half of my prediction was incorrect since the T is gray. But the L and the A are yellow. I was wondering if maybe I was using A too much in my opening guesses lately, but today it worked out.

Usually when I get two letter on my first guess my impulse is put them at the start of my next guess. Today, however, I fought against that urge and put the AL at the end. I wanted to be bold and guess USUAL, but I chickened out and went with a guess that could give me some actual information: I submitted MORAL as my second guess. But I didn't get a lot out of this guess. The A and L were both yellow and the rest was gray.

What a bummer, but that feeling gave me my next guess: SADLY. Sadly, it was not the answer, but I got the position of the L and a pretty good idea of where the A is supposed to go at this point. The A was either at the beginning or the end of answer. I honestly did not really consider much with the A at the end because that just seemed too odd. So I put A at the front and started to work the answer out. I had a feeling the the word ended with an E, but I did a quick check to see if an LK could work at the end. Based on prior guesses, the LT and LL endings were out, and since I couldn't find an LK, I was fairly confident with LE as the end. From there, it was just a matter of time util I saw AGILE as the answer.

AGILE in four is a pretty good result. Words with three vowels are just going to be ones that I will probably only be able to get in four based on my one vowel opener strategy. But this was a good result and fairly quick solve, so I found it enjoyable.

Hi, It's Been a While

Lots to catch up on in this post. I blame the Memorial Day long weekend. My last post was Thursday's puzzle, so let's do a quick recap of the last few days. Friday, the answer was SWINE.  I don't recall my path to getting that answer, but I think I got there in four guesses. Loved SWINE as an answer, just a really solid word that is unexpected yet also pretty common, I guess. Also, we got a W in the answer, so that's pretty cool.

Saturday, I did take a screen shot of my solve, and I got RAMEN in three. This was a maybe a bit of luck on my solve. I went with SPLAT as my first guess then AMEND as guess number two. I did make a decision to put A at the front, which got me yellow tiles for the first four letters. At that point, it was just a matter of shifting everything over a space and plugging in the R.

Sunday, I did not screen shot, but I did get SKIMP as the answer. I honestly have no recollection of how many guesses it took.

Yesterday was a tough one for me even though I solved it in four. I opened with TRASH and got a green S. Building off that, I went with CLOSE, giving me the last two letters and a yellow O. Guess number three was OBESE because at this point I figured there would be three vowels in the answer. Since the O wasn't green, I now knew the location of the O. So my fourth guess was down to either HOUSE, MOUSE, or LOUSE. And since the L and H were eliminated. I got MOUSE in four. I consider this a tough one since it pretty much flies in the face of my strategy of looking for consonants. But I got there.

Today (Tuesday) I again opened with TRASH. This was completely accidental. I like to mix my opening words up and didn't realize I used it Monday. I got all gray tiles on the guess, which was a bit of a bummer, but I deserve that for repeating my opening guess. My second guess was LUNGE, which gave me yellow tiles for L, N, and E. This was good because it gave me letters to play with, but terrible because I didn't know what to do with them. I was on the theory that there were two vowels in the answer, so I came up with MELON for my next guess. I still didn't get a green tile, and this is where my game came off the rails.

My initial instinct was to guess INCEL, but I had doubts as to whether that was in the word bank or not. I deleted it and stupidly guessed ELFIN, which was a complete wasted guess because I knew the N couldn't be at the end of the word. It's just completely devastating to me to waste a guess like that. I've mentioned viewing four as a par for Wordle, and wasting a guess is like when you have a good lie in the fairway and then you chunk your next stroke. It's just a complete waste of a good opportunity. Devastating.

So now I have to regroup. After looking at what I have on the board, I still think there are two vowels, but that means I have to have a repeating E. But I'm not seeing it. I play around and get the feeling that N should be the second letter. This leads me to the KN opening and I see that it can be KNELL or KNEEL. So I've got a 50/50 guess with two guesses left. At this point, I know I've got this solved, I just don't know the score. I go with KNELL and do not see five green tiles. KNEEL it is for a solve in six.

When I look at Wordlebot, I see that I had the puzzle down to four possible words by guess three when I wasted my fourth guess. One of the four remaining possible words was INCEL. From INCEL, I would have gotten to KNEEL on the next guess, so I did give away a stroke so to speak on that. Just a real bummer. Current streak is up to 48. Tomorrow I will not open with TRASH, which means tomorrow's solution will be TRASH.

World 705: From Downtown!

I open with PLANT today. No real reason, but it gets me two yellow tiles: the L and the A. Now I have to decide what to do with this info. I briefly consider USUAL, but that's a wasted guess unless the answer is USUAL. I'm not really one of those swing for the fences players, so I'm not going to do it. LAUGH feels like a better guess, although I do wonder if I should see if there is an E in this answer or not. Since the A is not the third letter, I'm guessing there are two vowels in the solution. Eh, I decide to go with LAUGH for guess 2.

Okay, I get location of the A. I also learn that G is also in the answer. I wonder about GALLY, but I feel the same about it as I did with the USUAL idea. It just doesn't feel right. I play with G at the front some more, but that doesn't really get me anywhere. I move it to the third spot MAGLY? No, that feels made up. I play around for a bit and end up on BAGEL, which I feel good about. I hit enter.

And... (Marv Albert voice)... YES! I get a solve in three. This is very exciting, dear reader. I feel like I'm in a groove this week. I would've had a solve in three yesterday, but chose wrongly. I had a solve in three on Tuesday. What will Friday bring?