People keep pretending hard mode doesn't exist.
posted by keep_evolving at 12:56 PM on April 14 [27 favorites]

I use GROUP. STEAD, and FILMY and I keep telling myself I can do better so I'm glad someone else has done the work. This is definitely the cognitively easiest strategy!
posted by LSK at 12:58 PM on April 14 [1 favorite]

It’s boring, but PIOUS and TEARY, always lead to Wordle in 3 or 4 for me.
posted by rh at 12:59 PM on April 14 [3 favorites]

This was my wordle strategy for as long as I played wordle. I didn't use those words. I used other words but I don't remember what they were so I don't know if they were equally efficient or less so.

I am all for word puzzles as data analysis problems. I found a list of english 5 letter words and used it to figure out the optimal list of words to solve Kilordle in 34 guesses, by figuring out the words that would maximize "each relevant letter in each relevant position". I have an idea for how to modify this to solve it in even fewer, but I made the system in excel and lack the excel skill to program what I'm thinking.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 1:00 PM on April 14

People keep pretending hard mode doesn't exist.

Also that Wordle is about "winning" or "optimizing" rather than "fun."
posted by chavenet at 1:05 PM on April 14 [21 favorites]

I only do it for Quordle, but AROSE TUNIC GLYPH and AROSE LUCID NYMPH do a pretty good job of narrowing the space of choices.
posted by tavella at 1:07 PM on April 14 [2 favorites]

Well this is interesting, though now for me. I play Hard Mode, so couldn't do this anyway, and my target is to get it in 3 or 4 tries. Also, "BUMFS" is nothing, as far as I can tell, so no, I'm not entering that (not just to be snarky, I mean. As I understand it, there's a list of words that Wordle will accept that is significantly greater than the list of words that it will actually pull answers from. "BUMFS," whatever the hell it is, is never going to be the correct answer.

This is also why I recently changed my opening word from "STARE" to "LATER." Wordle (again, by my understanding) doesn't use plural nouns as answers, which cuts down quite a bit on the "S" usage. It's still a valuable letter to know, but not as much as "L" is.
posted by Navelgazer at 1:08 PM on April 14 [3 favorites]

I always start with STERN CLAIM DOUGH.
posted by adamrice at 1:09 PM on April 14

I switched to hard mode very quickly because this strat seemed the logical end game of easy mode. Then I made the mistake of reading the source, and found the word table, and that was the end for long enough that it was the end.
posted by inpHilltr8r at 1:12 PM on April 14

YEAST FLOUR
posted by unknowncommand at 1:12 PM on April 14 [1 favorite]

People keep pretending hard mode doesn't exist.

What's really annoying is when the official wordlebot judges you for playing in hard mode.
posted by advil at 1:16 PM on April 14 [3 favorites]

I use hard mode, and always start with SLATE. My goal is to get through RSTLNE as quickly as possible. So if SLATE doesn't work, I'll try BRUIN. If both of those are no-hitters it gets a little tricker. Otherwise I proceed based on what matched from the most recent word. My stats are:\

1 - 0
2 - 23
3 - 146
4 - 175
5 - 112
6 - 23

Current streak is 175.
posted by grumpybear69 at 1:21 PM on April 14

Another Wordle complaint (and clearly a bug in my opinion). If you play in a new time zone, you lose your streak.
posted by ShooBoo at 1:25 PM on April 14 [3 favorites]

"BUMFS," whatever the hell it is, is never going to be the correct answer.

I was fully with you on this but then I looked it up. While the plural form seems redundant, this word is truly one of the greats!

bumf
[ buhmf ]
noun British.

1. Slang. toilet paper.

2. memoranda, official notices, or the like.

ORIGIN OF BUMF

1885–90; short for bumfodder. See bum, fodder

posted by trig at 1:28 PM on April 14 [6 favorites]

I use ADIEU and STOMP. I can almost always get in three or four.
posted by teleri025 at 1:38 PM on April 14 [2 favorites]

I have a similar strategy for Quordle and Duotrigordle, but that seems unnecessary for Wordle. I usually solve the Worldle in three or four guesses, and that strategy guarantees it will take at least five. To me, this qualifies as overthinking the Wordle.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 1:39 PM on April 14

Every morning, I run a sort of diagnostics test on my brain and eyes and fingers by solving Wordle, Connections, Strands, and two or three mini crosswords.

For Wordle, I always just start with some five-letter word and see what happens. If I have a strategy, it's kinda soft, like try to get some common letters in there. Audio and yeast are pretty good, but I don't have a favorite first word. Anything more than that would start to feel like actual work.
posted by pracowity at 1:46 PM on April 14 [7 favorites]

I think of anything more than two guesses to be a loss, so that strategy would be even more demoralizing than wordle already is.
posted by surlyben at 1:54 PM on April 14

FEAST
PRONG
MILKY

Almost always 3 or 4
posted by tzikeh at 1:56 PM on April 14

I wouldn't use this strategy in normal Wordle-type games, but the Quordle site has a head-to-head version called Victordle Duel where this is perfect.

My wife usually beats me at whatever version of Wordle we might play, but we tried this one and she couldn't figure out how I was solving them so fast. It's because I enter the same three or four words as fast as possible, while she was still trying to minimize the number of guesses. In this one it's speed, not number of tries that matters.
posted by Sophocles at 2:01 PM on April 14

I play hard mode and usually start with STALE or BEAUS or the previous day's word if I am getting bored.
posted by joannemerriam at 2:03 PM on April 14

I asked it "from the list of the letters j k q v x z, i want a list of 5 letter words that contain 3 or more of those letters", it listed one 4-letter word, eighteen 5-letter words with only two of those letters, and only one correct word, "JAZZY"

Someone linked here to a wordle-style game that, instead of having a pre-chosen word, chose after you guessed, trying to foil you. So, you guess, say, WATER, and the game eliminates from the winning options every word with a W, A, T, E, or R in it. It only gives you a letter when it can't eliminate other words with that letter. Then you guess again, say with JUMPS, and it begrudgingly goes, "OK, I can't elminate all the Js, I'll give you the J."

I found that I actually had to be careful not to end up in a position where I'd eliminated so many letters that JAZZY was the only remaining word in its dictionary. All roads led to JAZZY.
posted by Well I never at 2:12 PM on April 14 [1 favorite]

This strategy is interesting to me because it reflects a goal of finishing the puzzle as quickly as possible, as measured by time. But to the extent that I measure my Wordle prowess, I do it by number of guesses, and don't care how much time I spend between guesses considering various options. If I've got three letters in the right place and no obvious answer, I'm happy to spend however long methodically plugging the remaining letters into the first blank and seeing if that reveals an answer to me.
posted by Well I never at 2:15 PM on April 14 [2 favorites]

Well apparently you now need a free account to see stats and be judged by the Wordle bot. I play in hard mode, and if I get it in 5 guesses I am struggling. And how did Dove get it in 2 guesses 4 times; I would think that pretty unlikely with his method.

2 of my favorite starting words are “aisle” and “raise”. A good combination of vowels and RSTLNE letters.
posted by TedW at 2:33 PM on April 14

SLANT PRICE DOUGH is my go-to.

Given the letter frequency ranking of EARIOTNSLCUDPMHGBFYWKVXZJQ, these words put more of the most frequent letters up first.

You'd wait until the 3rd guess to use E? G and H are way down the list and you use them first? This is odd. Unless you're deliberately looking for odd duck words perhaps?
posted by JoeZydeco at 2:35 PM on April 14

I remember wordle back when it was a fun hobby project by a couple who had time on their hands and a love of words. Now it seems to just be a series of lawsuits against people who make their own games.

I'm not sure how these word choices help you in court, honestly.
posted by rum-soaked space hobo at 2:38 PM on April 14 [1 favorite]

I start with a different word everyday (today: FLANK) in hard mode. This is fun. Do it whatever the fun way is.
posted by Galvanic at 2:39 PM on April 14 [6 favorites]

So just as a side note: ChatGPT is terrible at math and spelling. It doesn't know what it is saying, it only is saying what is most likely to come next in the sentence by probability. It has zero context for anything it says and can't even really remember what it just said to you.
posted by hippybear at 2:45 PM on April 14 [1 favorite]

Using the same four words to start sounds like a great way to reduce a fun past-time to work. Sorry, I don't care to play WORKLE.
posted by SPrintF at 2:50 PM on April 14 [6 favorites]

I play TRUE wordle, where you get only one guess and if you don't get it right you have to wait and try again tomorrow.
posted by Pickman's Next Top Model at 2:58 PM on April 14 [3 favorites]

The most enjoyment I get out of Wordle is coming up with an opening word. I do whatever strikes my fancy, today it was BEAST. I got it in 1, once; the word was POINT.
posted by vunder at 3:03 PM on April 14 [3 favorites]

What's really annoying is when the official wordlebot judges you for playing in hard mode.

What do you mean? I play in hard mode and do the wordlebot every time.

My personal wordlebot complaint is when I get it down to two words, I pick the correct one, and it says my guess was worth 96 points but the wrong one--which it picked--was worth 99. I assume it's jealousy, because otherwise it doesn't make sense.
posted by mark k at 3:06 PM on April 14

I find it interesting to think of what an adversarial Wordle word chooser would do to try to thwart this strategy. I did some looking around with the aid of a Scrabble word finder site.

For one, there's the J/K combo, which covers JOKER, JOKEY, JOKES, JUKED, JACKS, JERKS, JERKY, JANKY and JUNKY.

Some more words with two of the unused letters, none of them obscure or with an S at the end:

QUACK, WALTZ, JEWEL, EVOKE, KNAVE, VOWED

So far I've only found one that has three letter slots unused, if they really wanted to stick it to you:

JAZZY
posted by JHarris at 3:12 PM on April 14

AROSE, THING, LUCKY. If this gives almost nothing, DWARF.
posted by Marky at 3:29 PM on April 14

I use Bud Grace’s method. So far it has worked quite well for me.
posted by fimbulvetr at 4:13 PM on April 14

As an aside, those of you who've grown bored of Wordle or would like a more interesting logic challenge might enjoy Lirdle, which is like Wordle except that exactly one of the letter-coloring responses to each of your moves is a lie.
posted by rifflesby at 4:23 PM on April 14 [1 favorite]

I only played long enough to get a 69-day streak and then quit, but my strategy of "FUDGE BLITZ VROWS NYMPH JACKY" contained 24 unique letters in hits first 24 characters, and, though ultimately non-exhaustively useful, being weak to certain ambiguities (PUREE vs RUPEE, IIRC?), got me a 69-day streak of very fast solves, all with precisely six guesses.

"Guess the Wordle in 6 tries" is the rule, after all, not "in 6 tries or less." :)
posted by Earthtopus at 4:27 PM on April 14

Also, I haven't played Wordle since it was free, but I'm wondering... do you have to enter words for guesses? Or could you just enter five letter combinations that aren't words but will test against the solution? Do they check what you type in against a dictionary?
posted by hippybear at 4:35 PM on April 14

You have to enter real words.
posted by pracowity at 4:37 PM on April 14

STARE
COUGH
VINYL

You can also use BOUGH or DOUGH if you feel a lil crazy today.
posted by nushustu at 4:38 PM on April 14

I play Duotrigordle daily, and use audio, shelf, crypt as starting words and that seems to work OK. I do get a bit bored using the same words, so I'll try some of these and see if they work any better. I do focus on solving quickly rather than minimising guesses, so maybe there are different ideal words for those two strategies.
posted by dg at 4:39 PM on April 14

The last one of these I played was Redactle, specifically this one. It was the first time seeing the game, and I got the answer immediately.

I then retired from these games completely.
posted by dumbland at 4:50 PM on April 14

Do they check what you type in against a dictionary?

Yes. If you enter BUNOB, it'll shake its letters at you.
posted by SPrintF at 5:09 PM on April 14

I consider it a win if I get the word in 2 or 3. 4 is a push and 5 or 6 means I'm allowed to go back to bed for an hour. Openers are slate or coupe but occasionally a group of friends will try a shared opening word and compare solutions.

Also hard mode or go home.
posted by cmfletcher at 5:11 PM on April 14 [1 favorite]

When I played duotrigordle, I always started with SHORE LINER since then I'd imagine a little boat, sailing away.
posted by Pitachu at 5:36 PM on April 14

You are not currently logged in. Log in or create a new account to post comments.