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Best Wordle guessing strategy

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Re: Best Wordle guessing strategy

#151

Post by KerryJones »

Syzygies wrote: post #138
strstr wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe tares is the optimal word (according to shannon entropy) from the game’s list.

They made a mistake. There are 2,315 relatively familiar words that can be the secret word, and 12,972 words in all that are accepted as guesses. Using the full list as potential guess words, TARES is optimal for a random secret word from the full list, and SOARE is optimal for a random secret word from the short list. Neither of these words appear in the short list. If one sticks to the short list for both guesses a…

Would you mind (or anyone) mind sharing github code to the Shannon method? I'd simply like to learn from it

Re: Best Wordle guessing strategy

#152

Post by KerryJones »

Syzygies wrote: post #65

5.291 soare 5.294 roate 5.299 raise 5.311 raile 5.311 reast 5.321 slate 5.342 crate 5.342 salet 5.345 irate 5.346 trace 5.356 arise 5.360 orate 5.370 stare 5.382 carte 5.390 raine 5.400 caret 5.402 ariel 5.406 taler 5.406 carle 5.407 slane Shown are the twenty best initial guesses using Claude Shannon's definition of information entropy. Each number is the expected number of yes/no questions needed to resolve the rem…

Would you mind sharing your code?

Re: Best Wordle guessing strategy

#153

Post by tobinfricke »

ghusbands wrote: post #121
tobinfricke wrote: post #49

Yet another Wordle solver! https://github.com/nikitaborisov/autowordl We choose the guess that is expected to result in the smallest set of possible solutions after one guess. For the secret answer "QUERY" it suggests the following sequence of guesses: 1. LARES 90 possible answers after this guess. 2. GROUT Only four possibilities now: ['ENURE', 'INURE', 'QUERY', 'QUIRE'] 3. BRIBE This narrows the field down to one p…

For that third guess, you could just use QUIRE. Still reduces the possibilities to one, but has a chance of getting the right answer one step sooner. In general, favouring something within the possibilities, where it doesn't pessimise, might reduce your search tree a bit.

Yup, I definitely agree. I haven't implemented smart tie-breaking logic yet.

Re: Best Wordle guessing strategy

#154

Post by wizofaus »

FWIW, I just had a game where these were my guesses:

IRATE SOUND PLUMB FOUND (the answer)

In fact I nearly always play "SOUND" after "IRATE", even if I know it can't be correct, and in this case I knew PLUMB couldn't be correct - after the 2nd word I knew it was -OUND, but there are a lot of words ending in -OUND, so I wanted to eliminate as many as possible in the next move. PLUMB would either eliminate or indicate POUND MOUND or BOUND as the solution, and once it did the former, it was either FOUND HOUND WOUND, and I got lucky. In fact I should have played WHOMP which would have given me a better chance (given LOUND is not a word). In this sense the game is somewhat different to the coloured peg game "Mastermind", where there's no benefit in making a guess that can't possibly be correct.

Re: Best Wordle guessing strategy

#155

Post by hddqsb »

KerryJones wrote: post #151
Syzygies wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They made a mistake. There are 2,315 relatively familiar words that can be the secret word, and 12,972 words in all that are accepted as guesses. Using the full list as potential guess words, TARES is optimal for a random secret word from the full list, and SOARE is optimal for a random secret word from the short list. Neither of these words appear in the short list. If one sticks to the short list for both guesses a…

Would you mind (or anyone) mind sharing github code to the Shannon method? I'd simply like to learn from it

Here is someone's write-up (with code) using the entropy method: https://jluebeck.github.io/posts/WordleSolver

Re: Best Wordle guessing strategy

#156

Post by SoylentOrange »

Syzygies wrote: post #65

5.291 soare 5.294 roate 5.299 raise 5.311 raile 5.311 reast 5.321 slate 5.342 crate 5.342 salet 5.345 irate 5.346 trace 5.356 arise 5.360 orate 5.370 stare 5.382 carte 5.390 raine 5.400 caret 5.402 ariel 5.406 taler 5.406 carle 5.407 slane Shown are the twenty best initial guesses using Claude Shannon's definition of information entropy. Each number is the expected number of yes/no questions needed to resolve the rem…

I don't think this list is accurate, because the expected number of guesses for the top words should be fewer than 5. I'll post something in more detail later, but the best guesses on the 12,972 5-letter words have an expected number of guesses of around 4.3.

Re: Best Wordle guessing strategy

#157

Post by Syzygies »

SoylentOrange wrote: post #156
Syzygies wrote: post #65

5.291 soare 5.294 roate 5.299 raise 5.311 raile 5.311 reast 5.321 slate 5.342 crate 5.342 salet 5.345 irate 5.346 trace 5.356 arise 5.360 orate 5.370 stare 5.382 carte 5.390 raine 5.400 caret 5.402 ariel 5.406 taler 5.406 carle 5.407 slane Shown are the twenty best initial guesses using Claude Shannon's definition of information entropy. Each number is the expected number of yes/no questions needed to resolve the rem…

I don't think this list is accurate, because the expected number of guesses for the top words should be fewer than 5. I'll post something in more detail later, but the best guesses on the 12,972 5-letter words have an expected number of guesses of around 4.3.

It's a units issue. I'm measuring in yes/no questions, which is the native scale for Shannon entropy. You're measuring in Wordle questions. There's more information in a Wordle answer than in a yes/no answer.

Re: Best Wordle guessing strategy

#158

Post by Syzygies »

Syzygies wrote: post #65

5.291 soare 5.294 roate 5.299 raise 5.311 raile 5.311 reast 5.321 slate 5.342 crate 5.342 salet 5.345 irate 5.346 trace 5.356 arise 5.360 orate 5.370 stare 5.382 carte 5.390 raine 5.400 caret 5.402 ariel 5.406 taler 5.406 carle 5.407 slane Shown are the twenty best initial guesses using Claude Shannon's definition of information entropy. Each number is the expected number of yes/no questions needed to resolve the rem…

A fork using primes: Primel

https://converged.yt/primel/

The best first guess using Shannon entropy is a dead heat between 12953 and 12539. Not surprisingly to the number theorists out there...

If you study the JavaScript, apparently this guy's girlfriend knows every prime.

Re: Best Wordle guessing strategy

#159

Post by ghusbands »

ghusbands wrote: post #114
AnotherGoodName wrote: post #27

You could probably have fun with Player 1) create a predictable process that can guess wordle words Player 2) given the full code of 1 find a word that will not be found by that process in 6 steps The game is over if someone can decide a process that catches all valid 5 letter words in 6 steps.

I believe there are already plenty of solvers doing it in five steps, worst case, as in [1]. I don't think any are doing it in four, but I doubt anyone has yet demonstrated that four is impossible. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29890845

For future readers, the following link claims that five steps, worst case, is incorrect, and six is the smallest maximum: https://www.poirrier.ca/notes/wordle-optimal/
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