I’ve been playing Wordle, both the New York Times version and a copycat version. I’m not great at it. But I’m not that bad at it, either. I have found that my more successful games have a few things in common. Here they are.
- Get a hit or two on the first guess. I like CAKES. I like BAKER. I like ADIEU and GRAIL. Sometimes I’ll play the winning word from the last round just for kicks. If I get skunked on the first guess, it’s not only a wasted guess, but I then have to try to think of a word that uses none (or very few) of the letters above. This all leads to a lower chance
of success. - Have a good guess at where those initial hits belong in the word. I do this by intuition, more than anything. I guess I have a sense of where certain letters are most commonly found. E is often in last position or next to last.
It’s often accompanied by an S or a T. And certain letters strike me as good bets for first position. if I have some success here, I’m really on my way. - Then it’s just being diligent and trying not to guess words with already-tried letters in them. if I’m careless, things can go downhill.
- This is where I most rely on luck to carry me across the finish line. If I’m lucky, the word doesn’t contain unusual letters or letter combinations. Or, sometimes even worse, is when you get a word that could be several other words if you swap out one letter. That’s a war of attrition that I often lose.