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?