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.