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My lazy Wordle strategy: same words every time

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Re: My lazy Wordle strategy: same words every time

#71

Post by frosted-flakes »

mimimi31 wrote: post #66
iso1210 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I play in Hard Mode, so that type of method rarely works

I've also been playin on hard mode almost since the beginning. While it usually does make the game more interesting, it also annoyingly often makes your win depend on pure luck. Ironically this happens more often when your first guesses were very good. Imagine having SHA?E confirmed and now being forced to stupidly guess between SHAPE, SHAKE, SHARE, SHAME, SHAVE or SHADE instead of eliminating half of those possibili…

If you run into that situation, then just turn off hard mode and put PRIDE to eliminate some words.

Re: My lazy Wordle strategy: same words every time

#73

Post by frosted-flakes »

adenozine wrote: post #43
AnonC wrote: post #41

I thought it was in that linked video or somewhere that I found a list of starting words to try to make it easier to solve it based on letter frequency and getting a few vowels in within the scope of the Wordle word list (not a dictionary list). These are the words I use: SOARE TREAD (or TRADE, which is an anagram) ADIEU By default my game play is like “hard mode” (only use letters already found to be correct and avo…

I thought this too at first, but this is where the real strategy comes out, because you can guess MULCH and that will tell you if it's LATCH or MATCH. or CLIMB, that would also eliminate BATCH. There's intelligent ways to guess to eliminate more letters. Hard mode is only hard because it eliminates this possibility of constraint narrowing. I think Hard Mode is not a good name for it. The game is already plenty hard.

I think Strict Mode is a better name.

Re: My lazy Wordle strategy: same words every time

#74

Post by idunno246 »

mimimi31 wrote: post #66
iso1210 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I play in Hard Mode, so that type of method rarely works

I've also been playin on hard mode almost since the beginning. While it usually does make the game more interesting, it also annoyingly often makes your win depend on pure luck. Ironically this happens more often when your first guesses were very good. Imagine having SHA?E confirmed and now being forced to stupidly guess between SHAPE, SHAKE, SHARE, SHAME, SHAVE or SHADE instead of eliminating half of those possibili…

I found that only happens if you try to hit the most common letters in your first guesses. If you use middle of the road letters you tend to get only a couple while eliminating a lot - s and e would be bad early letters because they don’t reduce enough words

Re: My lazy Wordle strategy: same words every time

#75

Post by twobitshifter »

phphphphp wrote: post #60
jeffbee wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There isn’t a hard mode strategy that assures a win, though. You have to get lucky or lose sometimes.

Sorry, can you explain what you mean here: I play hard mode and I always get the word within 6 guesses — and I’m no savant, I’m an idiot, and I don’t cheat — no looking at the word list. The same is true for my friends who play on hard mode: no cheating, always finish. Why is luck required for hard mode?

I lost this week on FOYER without repeated letters, there are plenty of words with ER endings and O as a second letter. —- VOICE LONER TOWER JOKER POSER HOMER ——-

The last two were unlikely to be the word, but I try to finish in only a few minutes and those popped to my head before foyer. But I could have guessed BOXER or DOPER or some other words I’m sure. When I’ve lost it’s usually because I have 3 letters and guessing only 2 new letters at a time doesn’t let you eliminate the other options fast enough.

Re: My lazy Wordle strategy: same words every time

#76

Post by a5b6ff »

Using the "same words every time" (i.e., a fixed set of initial guesses) has been studied before [1,2,3]. It is one of the few remaining open questions about Wordle. Interestingly, it can be done in 6+1 guesses [4] (COMBO FATTY GRRRL SPUDS VENGE WHILK, then the possibilities are always narrowed down to a singleton). However, it is unknown whether it is possible within 5+1 guesses, which would make Wordle 100% solvable even with such a constrained approach!

It is unfortunate that 3Blue1Brown's excellent video has been so often misquoted as providing "optimal" guesses for Wordle. Of course, one can legitimately argue that using maths takes the fun out of the game... but if we *are* going to use maths, then the information entropy approach is simply not the one most suited to this specific game (because the dictionary is fully known).

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30094398

[2] https://www.poirrier.ca/notes/wordle-optimal/#fixed-guesses

[3] https://github.com/alexandres/magicwordschallenge

[4] https://github.com/alexandres/magicwordschallenge/issues/2

Re: My lazy Wordle strategy: same words every time

#77

Post by archi42 »

Obviously anyone can play however they like and how they enjoy the game. But I feel like this "enter three optimized words and win" is too easy. So instead I go with hard mode, and have to think some more. I still start with the same word every time, but from there on most parts vary. I also allow myself to fall back to normal mode if finding the word depends on pure luck (e.g. _ATCH).

Bonus: If you and your friends play hard mode, you can try to do a reverse wordle on their solutions.

Re: My lazy Wordle strategy: same words every time

#78

Post by mostertoaster »

twobitshifter wrote: post #75
phphphphp wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, can you explain what you mean here: I play hard mode and I always get the word within 6 guesses — and I’m no savant, I’m an idiot, and I don’t cheat — no looking at the word list. The same is true for my friends who play on hard mode: no cheating, always finish. Why is luck required for hard mode?

I lost this week on FOYER without repeated letters, there are plenty of words with ER endings and O as a second letter. —- VOICE LONER TOWER JOKER POSER HOMER ——- The last two were unlikely to be the word, but I try to finish in only a few minutes and those popped to my head before foyer. But I could have guessed BOXER or DOPER or some other words I’m sure. When I’ve lost it’s usually because I have 3 letters and gue…

Yeah this was the exact one I was thinking.

Our wordle slack group lots of people lost on foyer.

I had started with some random word with lots of consonants (all black result), so when I got to having just o e and r, I only had two clear possibilities I could see left with three guesses.

Re: My lazy Wordle strategy: same words every time

#80

Post by jimbob45 »

mostertoaster wrote: post #10

Since switching to hard mode, I almost never start with “good words”. Too much risk of getting the 10 possibilities with 3 guesses remaining type situation.

Same. I start with QUARK every time. It’s mostly to one day achieve that elusive 1-guess solution but it often ends up making my life easier by avoiding pigeonholing myself on hard mode.
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