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Solving Wordle using information theory

binghamton.edu

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Re: Solving Wordle using information theory

#31

Post by csande17 »

jezzamon wrote: post #3

I thought this was old news? I remember people making videos about using information theory to solve Wordle back when it was particularly hyped. (After writing this I checked, there's even a 3 blue 1 brown video on this) My favourite along those lines was solving wordle in 1 guess using the distribution of coloured squares on social media https://www.kaggle.com/code/benhamner/wordle-1-6

It's not clear how the strategy in the article differs from the one used by Wordle Bot, the analysis/feedback system that Wordle links to on the victory screen at the end of the game: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/upshot/wordle-bot.h...

The first page of the published paper ( https://orb.binghamton.edu/nejcs/vol8/iss1/6/ ) also claims that the game was developed by "Josh Wordle", so maybe it just isn't the highest-quality scholarship in the world.

Re: Solving Wordle using information theory

#32

Post by macintux »

trollbridge wrote: post #24

Hacker News commenter uses grep -i ^.u...$ /usr/share/dict/words | grep -i c | grep -i -v '^..c..$' | grep -i -v '^...c.$' to crack today's Wordle

I admit after a half hour of flailing a couple of days ago I got desperate enough to use /usr/share/dict/words. Turns out "emoji" isn't in my copy.

Re: Solving Wordle using information theory

#34

Post by headz »

boothby wrote: post #23

I crushed wordle within a few days of its popularity entering my sphere. It was pretty easy to brute-force a decision tree minimizing the average number of guesses using a lowly python script and a few days of qpu time. Don't Wordle[1] is significantly more interesting; I've got a solver but the maximum score takes my lowly python script upwards of a day (per day) to solve using brute force. For now, I solve it with…

I "crushed it" when it came out with Right click -> View source -> Find the list of words. All the future words were in the code already.

Re: Solving Wordle using information theory

#35

Post by calfuris »

dieselgate wrote: post #19
magneticnorth wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The game quickly lost any challenge. I only play on hard mode for this reason. My next guess must always be a possible answer based on my current information, and that varies the puzzle enough from day to day that I still find it enjoyable to play occasionally.

I haven't played wordle much since it was purchased but NYTimes ran a story in the last couple days saying how "Hard mode" is actually easier based on their research. Just throwing it out there as food for thought not in a "gotcha" sort of way. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/18/upshot/wordle-hard-mode.h...

Hard mode forces most people to play smarter than they usually would. I'm not sure if that's the same as being easier. Hard mode is certainly harder for a skilled player, because that player could play normal mode as if it were hard mode but without having to worry about avoiding hard mode traps like _IGHT or SHA_E--if they encounter such a scenario they can just play known-bad words that check several possible solutions at once (e.g. FIRES for _IGHT to check FIGHT/RIGHT/EIGHT/SIGHT).

Re: Solving Wordle using information theory

#36

Post by BoppreH »

cvoss wrote: post #27
boothby wrote: post #23

I crushed wordle within a few days of its popularity entering my sphere. It was pretty easy to brute-force a decision tree minimizing the average number of guesses using a lowly python script and a few days of qpu time. Don't Wordle[1] is significantly more interesting; I've got a solver but the maximum score takes my lowly python script upwards of a day (per day) to solve using brute force. For now, I solve it with…

Another great variant is Unfair Wordle [1]. The opponent does not fix the answer upfront but instead evades the player's guesses as long as possible, providing you with the least information it legally can give (according to the usual rules) while still preserving a valid game completion path. The result is that your guesses end up looking extremely unlucky in retrospect. [1] https://tweakimp.github.io/unfairwordle/

I also found it surprisingly easy, starting from my triple "olden, party, music" (calculated years ago for state space coverage and memorability). Followed by "fight", then either "shark, brash" or "brash, shark".

Maybe it's harder if you're a careful player that doesn't waste the first three words.

Re: Solving Wordle using information theory

#37

Post by bre1010 »

headz wrote: post #34
boothby wrote: post #23

I crushed wordle within a few days of its popularity entering my sphere. It was pretty easy to brute-force a decision tree minimizing the average number of guesses using a lowly python script and a few days of qpu time. Don't Wordle[1] is significantly more interesting; I've got a solver but the maximum score takes my lowly python script upwards of a day (per day) to solve using brute force. For now, I solve it with…

I "crushed it" when it came out with Right click -> View source -> Find the list of words. All the future words were in the code already.

I also noticed this. I was working on my solver but my dictionary kept suggesting options that wordle didn't consider to be words at all (what the heck is usr/share/dict/words anyway??). So I looked through the source for the dictionary wordle is using and then also found the list of all solutions which really took the fun out of that whole exercise :(

Re: Solving Wordle using information theory

#38

Post by cvoss »

BoppreH wrote: post #36
cvoss wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another great variant is Unfair Wordle [1]. The opponent does not fix the answer upfront but instead evades the player's guesses as long as possible, providing you with the least information it legally can give (according to the usual rules) while still preserving a valid game completion path. The result is that your guesses end up looking extremely unlucky in retrospect. [1] https://tweakimp.github.io/unfairwordle/

I also found it surprisingly easy, starting from my triple "olden, party, music" (calculated years ago for state space coverage and memorability). Followed by "fight", then either "shark, brash" or "brash, shark". Maybe it's harder if you're a careful player that doesn't waste the first three words.

Yeah, it's definitely more challenging and fun on a self-imposed "hard mode" where you must employ the information that is revealed.

Re: Solving Wordle using information theory

#39

Post by kevmo314 »

gkoberger wrote: post #10
tialaramex wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another small benefit: Everybody understands this isn't what the job is. Nobody is hiring you to beat Wordle, and you solving this is clearly not somehow on the path to their actual task, they are asking you if you can write software which solves a problem and you're demonstrating that you can do that, which makes sense. I think "Solve 100 Wordles programmatically" sounds like a lot of work, so that'd probably be a "…

Well, the 100 Wordles is just "Solve one Wordle" in a for-loop. If you're an even somewhat decent engineer, it takes under 10 minutes to get it working (inefficiently). Then we encourage people to do whatever they want next: improve their average score, build a frontend UI for it, solve on Hard Mode, etc. In the past, we never did technical interview questions like this. We always asked people to bring their own proj…

Next week on HN: Solving Multiple Parallel Wordle with SIMD

Re: Solving Wordle using information theory

#40

Post by trollbridge »

macintux wrote: post #32
trollbridge wrote: post #24

Hacker News commenter uses grep -i ^.u...$ /usr/share/dict/words | grep -i c | grep -i -v '^..c..$' | grep -i -v '^...c.$' to crack today's Wordle

I admit after a half hour of flailing a couple of days ago I got desperate enough to use /usr/share/dict/words. Turns out "emoji" isn't in my copy.

Those are my favourite Wordles. It becomes more of a challenge.
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