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.