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.