NYT Wordle #1203: How I solved it

 

 

Image courtesy: www.nytimes.com/

Today, the 4th of October 2024, is game 1203 of NYT Wordle. I try to solve this daily and have completed 358 of these over the last couple of years. So here is my Wordle journey for today, which includes my guesses, thought process, some statistics, and, of course, the ANSWER!

I always start my Wordle with 'Trace'. Let's see what that resulted into:

After the first guess:

🟩⬛⬛⬛🟩

So there are a few fews this could go. One way to think is based on what the second alphabet could be. There aren't too many options, because if it is a consonant, it would either be 'H' or 'W', if it is a vowel, it could be 'U', 'O', 'E', or 'I'. Apart from this, I doubt there are any other possibilities. So let's explore a list of words based on this information:

 

🅣🅗✖✖🅔:

Thyme

Those

These

🅣🅦✖✖🅔:

Twine (Not very sure about this word)

🅣🅞✖✖🅔:

-

🅣🅤✖✖🅔:

-

🅣🅘✖✖🅔:

Tinge

🅣🅔✖✖🅔:

Tense

Not a very long list, but I think this will do for now. Takeaways:

I will not consider 'Twine' in my analysis, initially at least

Amongst other words, 2 have double E's, 1 has an 'I', and another has a 'Y'

'S', 'H', and 'N' dominate the consonant department

While 'S' always occurs in the 4th spot, 'N' can potentially occur in the 3rd or 4th spot. 'H' is always in the 2nd spot

'Thyme' is an oddball for sure, as the letters in it are unique

Keeping this in mind, I will have the following criteria for my guess:

Place the 'S' in any spot, preferably 1st or 5th, as its presence or absence is what we seek, not its position

Same with 'H', place it anywhere

Have 'E' in the 2nd spot and 'N' in the 3rd spot to verify/eliminate 'Tense'

Something with an 'O' or an 'I' would be ideal

The criteria points towards a word like 'Henis' or 'Henos' ideally. 

Wait a minute. What if I guess 'Tense'? It would definitely yield unique returns for each word in the list above, so that could serve the purpose as well right? Let's just do that and hope for the best. Going with 'Tense'. 

After the second guess:

🟩⬛⬛⬛🟩

Ok this was definitely impulsive, and I am not sure if it was the right thing to do. I will actually think a little more and get back on this train.

Got it! Must be 'Title'. 'Thyme' always felt very unlikely. So going with 'Title'

After the third guess:

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Good game! See you tomorrow!

NYT Wordle #1199: How I solved it

  

 

Image courtesy: www.nytimes.com/

Today, the 30th of September 2024, is game 1199 of NYT Wordle. I try to solve this daily and have completed 357 of these over the last couple of years. So here is my Wordle journey for today, which includes my guesses, thought process, some statistics, and, of course, the ANSWER!

I always start my Wordle with 'Trace'. Let's see what that resulted into:

After the first guess:

⬛⬛⬛🟨⬛

Ok. Let's put together a few sets of possibilities with the information received:

 

🅒✖✖✖✖:

1. Chimp
2. Chump
3. Chomp
4. Chink
5. Chunk
6. Chuff (Pretty sure it's a word)
7. Chill
8. Clump
9. Clomp
10. Clonk/Clunk (I forgot which one was the actual word. I think it was the latter)
11. Cliff
12. Cloud
13. Colon
14. Comic
15. Cubic

✖🅒✖✖✖:

1. Scoop
2. Scowl

✖✖🅒✖✖:

1. Picky
2. Lucky

✖✖✖✖🅒:

-

Takeaways:

• Well, seems like 'C' being the first letter has a high probability
• In case the word starts with 'C', the second letter seems to most likely either 'H' or 'L'. It seems that apart from those two letters, the probability is highest for the vowels 'O', 'U', or 'I'
• The probability of the 3rd letter being a vowel is high. The distribution is fairly even for all 3 vowels
• I haven't counted, but seems like the other highly recurring alphabets are 'P', 'N', 'M', and 'K'.

Going with the above broad observations, we can strategize as follows:

• Let's choose a word which starts with 'C'
• Use either 'L' or 'H' in the guess, one in the 2nd spot, and the other in any other spot
• Picking two vowels for this guess will be smart in my opinion. But choosing 2 out of the 3 will be challenging. Let's park this for later
• If I pick 1 vowel, I should go with any of the aforementioned alphabets 'P', 'N', 'M', and 'K'
• Another option is to choose with 'L' or 'H', which I am actually leaning towards now. In that case, having 'L' will be more preferable as it seems to occur in other spots two apart from the 2nd spot

So what's the best word which has 'C', 'L', 2 vowels, and 'P', or perhaps 'N'? If 'Colin' is a word Wordle accepts, I wouldn't mind using that. Let's try 'Colin'

After the second guess:

🟩🟨🟨⬛⬛

Let's see which words out of the list could still be a possible answer:

1. Chimp
2. Chump
3. Chomp
4. Chink
5. Chunk
6. Chuff
7. Chill
8. Clump
9. Clomp
10. Clonk/Clunk 
11. Cliff
12. Cloud
13. Colon
14. Comic
15. Cubic
16. Scoop
17. Scowl
18. Picky
19. Lucky

Not bad. 2 words survived, and I doubt the answer will be 'Clomp'. But Wordle has had crazy answers before so it cannot be ruled out. Also, let's see if there are any other possible words which I didn't consider the first time around:

🅒🅛🅞✖✖:

-

🅒🅛✖🅞✖:

-

🅒🅛✖✖🅞:

-

🅒✖🅞🅛✖:

-

🅒✖✖🅛🅞:

-

🅒✖🅞✖🅛:

-

🅒✖✖🅞🅛:

-

Either I have exhausted the possible list of words, or my brain just wasn't able to come up with anything more. Therefore, trusting in myself, I am going with 'Cloud'.

After the third guess:

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Good game! Wordlebot rates my skill 99/99. And my analysis was pretty spot on!

Beat Wordlebot too today!

My 220th 3/6 in 358 games, not bad! Average guesses now down to 3.260. 

See you tomorrow!

NYT Wordle #1197: How I solved it

 

 

Image courtesy: www.nytimes.com/

Today, the 28th of September 2024, is game 1197 of NYT Wordle. I try to solve this daily and have completed 356 of these over the last couple of years. So here is my Wordle journey for today, which includes my guesses, thought process, some statistics, and, of course, the ANSWER!

I always start my Wordle with 'Trace'. Let's see what that resulted into:

After the first guess:

⬛🟩🟩⬛⬛

Alright, so we got letters 2 and 3. With this, I know that the first letter can only be W, P, D, F, G, K, B, or a vowel. Let's put together a few sets of possibilities with this information:

 

🅦🅡🅐✖✖:

-

🅟🅡🅐✖✖:

1. Prank

2. Prawn

🅓🅡🅐✖✖:

3. Drawn

4. Drain

5. Drawl

6. Drank

🅕🅡🅐✖✖:

7. Frail

8. Frank

🅖🅡🅐✖✖:

9. Grand

10. Grail

11. Grass

12. Gravy

🅚🅡🅐✖✖:

-

🅱🅡🅐✖✖:

13. Brand

14. Brass

15. Brash

16. Brain

17. Brawn

18. Braid

19. Bravo

(Vowel)🅡🅐✖✖:

-

Unlike other occasions, I feel that the list of words I put together today should contain at least 80-90% of total possible answers. So let's analyze:

• For the 1st spot, B has come out as the overwhelming favourite followed by 'G' and 'D'
• 10/19 words have 'N's' in them
• Amongst words which do not have 'N', 3 words have 'L's' and 'S's' each, 2 of them have 'V's', and 2 have 'D's'
• In terms of vowels, 5 words have an 'I', 12 of them have a lone 'A', 1 has an 'O', and another has 'Y'.
• In terms of frequency, there are 6 'D's', 4 'W's' in all, 5 'S's', and 3 'K's'

The analysis takes me to the following strategy:

• Have a 'B' in the guess, at any spot
• Have a 'D', either in the 1st or 5th spot
• Include an 'I' in the word
• Have 'N' in the 4th or 5th spot
• Try and include 'W', 'L', 'S', or 'K' in that particular order of preference

I think the most obvious choice is to go with 'Blind'. It fulfils a decent number of criteria, so let's go with 'Blind' without wasting any more time

After the second guess:

🟩⬛🟨🟨⬛

Awesome! There is just one possible solution left, and it is 'Brain'. 

After the third guess:

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Fantastic! I already know that my analysis was spot on today. Wordlebot rates my skill 99/99. 

My 219th 3/6 in 357 games. Average guesses 3.261. 

See you tomorrow!

NYT Wordle #1196: How I solved it

 

 

Image courtesy: www.nytimes.com/

Today, the 27th of September 2024, is game 1196 of NYT Wordle. I try to solve this daily and have completed 355 of these over the last couple of years. So here is my Wordle journey for today, which includes my guesses, thought process, some statistics, and, of course, the ANSWER!

I always start my Wordle with 'Trace'. Let's see what that resulted into:

After the first guess:

🟨⬛🟨⬛⬛

Ok. Let's put together a few sets of possibilities with the information received:

 

🅐🅣✖✖✖:

1. Atoll

🅐✖🅣✖✖:

🅐✖✖🅣✖:

🅐✖✖✖🅣:

2. Adopt

3. Aloft

4. About

5. Allot

✖🅐🅣✖✖:

6. Fatal

7. Baton

8. Patio

9. Satan

✖🅐✖🅣✖:

✖🅐✖✖🅣:

10. Haunt

11. Gaunt

12. Daunt

13. Vault

14. Gamut

15. Jaunt

16. Balot

17. Fault

✖🅣✖🅐✖:

✖✖🅣🅐✖:

18. Vital

✖✖✖🅐🅣:

✖🅣✖✖🅐:

✖✖🅣✖🅐:

✖✖✖🅣🅐:

19. Quota

19 words is fine for now. Let's analyze them first. 

• Highest probability of 'A' occurring is at the 1st or 2nd spots
• For 'T', it is the last spot and the 3rd spot respectively
• 9 O's, 9 U's, 2 I's, and 2 double A's. 
• For O's and U's, 3rd spot makes sense
• Amongst consonants, 'L' and 'N' seems to occur more frequently than others. 
• 'L' occurs in almost all places. 'N' occurs in the 4th place more often

So the ideal word would be something like ALONT or LAUNT, but obviously, Wordle wouldn't accept either. I think I will not use 'A' in this guess at all and focus on getting other info. The word I am thinking of going for is 'Blunt' as it contains both 'L' and 'N', 'N' at the 4th place, 'T' in the 5th place, 'U' in the 3rd place, and a decent compromise in 'B', which does occur 3 times. So, 'Blunt' it is!

After the second guess:

⬛⬛⬛⬛🟨

Bit of a surprise. Let's see which words out of the list could still be a possible answer:

1. Atoll

2. Adopt

3. Aloft

4. About

5. Allot

6. Fatal

7. Baton

8. Patio

9. Satan

10. Haunt

11. Gaunt

12. Daunt

13. Vault

14. Gamut

15. Jaunt

16. Balot

17. Fault

18. Vital

19. Quota

Based on the list of words I made, I think the guess served its purpose. But before going ahead with anything, I will need to re-analyze this to ensure that I include other words which could be possible solutions this time. 

🅐🅣✖✖✖:

🅐✖🅣✖✖:

🅐✖✖🅣✖:

✖🅐🅣✖✖:

Patio

✖🅐✖🅣✖:

Faith

✖🅣✖🅐✖:

✖✖🅣🅐✖:

✖🅣✖✖🅐:

✖✖🅣✖🅐:

✖✖✖🅣🅐:

Vista

(Note for future games: I missed words like 'Adapt', and 'Waist' in the first list)

After thinking long and hard, I feel like the solution should be either 'Patio' or 'Faith'. I, however, feel like 'Patio' was a Wordle solution at some point. Not sure about this, but I do have a feeling. Also, if 'Faith' is not the answer, it will give me a decent indication of whether the word could be 'Patio' or something else. So going with 'Faith' in this one. 

After the third guess:

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Wordlebot rates my skill 81/99. Lower than I expected, but nothing to complain about since I got a 3/6. My 218th 3/6 in 356 games, not bad! Average guesses now 3.261. 

See you tomorrow!

NYT Wordle #1195: How I solved it

 

Image courtesy: www.nytimes.com/

Today, the 26th of September 2024, is game 1195 of NYT Wordle. I try to solve this daily and have completed 354 of these over the last couple of years. So here is my Wordle journey for today, which includes my guesses, thought process, some statistics, and, of course, the ANSWER!

I always start my Wordle with 'Trace'. Let's see what that resulted into:

After the first guess:

🟩⬛🟩⬛⬛

Pretty good. Let's put together a few sets of possibilities with the information received:

 

🅣✖🅐✖✖:

1. Toast
2. Twang
3. Thank

Twang seems unlikely, yet if I go with 'Toast', I will be 2 options if the answer isn't it. 'Thank' makes more logical sense, as it would eliminate 'Twang' as well. 

So let's go with 'Thank'.

After the second guess:

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Wordlebot says even 'Toady' and 'Twain' were possible answers. Even then, I think I made the right choice by going with 'Thank'. 99/99 on skill, so I suppose my analysis was fine. 

My 34th 2/6 in 355 games, not bad! Average guesses now 3.262. It has suffered in the last couple of weeks, but I intend to get it down. 

See you tomorrow!

NYT Wordle #1168: How I solved it

 

Image courtesy: www.nytimes.com/

Today, the 30th of August 2024, is game 1168 of NYT Wordle. I try to solve this daily and have completed 337 of these over the last couple of years. So here is my Wordle journey for today, which includes my guesses, thought process, some statistics, and, of course, the ANSWER!

I always start my Wordle with 'Trace'. Let's see what that resulted into:

After the first guess:

⬛⬛🟩⬛🟩

Pretty good. Let's put together a few sets of possibilities with the information received:

 

✖✖🅐✖🅔:

1. Suave
2. Shake
3. Shave
4. Shape
5. Shame
6. Shale
7. Slave
8. Slake
9. Spade
10. Phase
11. Plane
12. Knave
13. Flake
14. Flame
15. Blaze
16. Blame
17. Blade
18. Whale
19. Glaze
20. Amaze
21. Awake
22. Agape
23. Adage
24. Evade
25. Image
26. Usage

I'm sure there are many more words, but I'll analyzing these for now will at least give me a direction. So let's look at the takeaways. I made a frequency table today:

It is much easier to visualize this now, and make a strategy from here on. 

So it is quite clear that I must use 'S' and 'L' in my guess. As the frequency distribution is tilted towards one particular position for each letter, I can opt to place them anywhere in my guess. 

I think I'll skip 'A' in my guess, as placing it anywhere other than 1st spot is a waste, and placing it there takes away flexibility from the word.

Needless to say, I will not use 'E' either, because I already know its position

So unless there is no flexibility at all, I'll try and use 'U', then 'I', and maybe 'A' or 'E' if nothing else works out. 

In terms of consonants, 'H' is a logical choice too and should be included. 

Out of all the words which has a frequency of 5, 'P' will give me maximum flexibility, so I will go for 'Plush' for guess 2.

After the second guess:

⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛

Before jumping to conclusions, let's find out which words got eliminated from the list:

1. Suave
2. Shake
3. Shave
4. Shape
5. Shame
6. Shale
7. Slave
8. Slake
9. Spade
10. Phase
11. Plane
12. Knave
13. Flake
14. Flame
15. Blaze
16. Blame
17. Blade
18. Whale
19. Glaze
20. Amaze
21. Awake
22. Agape
23. Adage
24. Evade
25. Image
26. Usage

I think it is not a bad outcome. I know that I can't get a 3/6 today, which is alright. At least I have eliminated a ton of possible words. Let's analyze further:

I don't know if its cheating or not, but I clearly remember 'Adage' being an answer a few weeks ago. So I will eliminate that

The word probability of the word starting with a vowel increased dramatically though

Probability of 'K' and 'M' occurring are the highest

If I want to eliminate the most words out of the list above, I think I should go with 'Amend', because I couldn't find a word which has 'K' and 'M', and have a substantial volume of other necessary words.

After the third guess:

🟨⬛🟨🟨⬛

Pretty sure that 'Knave' is the only remaining solution left. So here we go with 'Knave'

After the fourth guess:

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Not a very easy word, but doable. Pretty happy with a 4/6. The analysis was good and that's a win I will take any day.

My 77th 4/6 in 338 games, not bad! Average guesses now 3.254.

See you tomorrow!

NYT Wordle #1167: How I solved it

Image courtesy: www.nytimes.com/

Today, the 29th of August 2024, is game 1167 of NYT Wordle. I try to solve this daily and have completed 336 of these over the last couple of years. So here is my Wordle journey for today, which includes my guesses, thought process, some statistics, and, of course, the ANSWER!

I always start my Wordle with 'Trace'. Let's see what that led to:

After the first guess:

⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛

After the debacle yesterday, I would have preferred a better start. Nothing to analyze, going for my standard second guess 'Pound' for this situation. 

After the second guess:

⬛⬛🟩🟩⬛

Before making a list of possible words let me analyze the information received:

• The first thing I notice is that there must be a finite number of letters which legitimately come after 'N'. Those are 'K', 'G', 'Y', 'S'.
• The second thing I notice is that the two letters before 'U' are most likely both consonants, as 'UU' simply can't be a possibility, and there are little to no 5 letter words in the English language which goes like ✖🅘🅤🅝✖.
• There are a finite number of possibilities for the first two letters as well, such as 'SH', 'SL', 'SK', 'SW', 'SM', 'FL', 'BL', 'KN', 'GL', 'KL', 'WH' or something like these. Not saying these are definite possibilities, but that the make-up of words should follow a convention like these examples.

Putting together all the interpretations together, we can now make a list of possible words that I can think of:

✖✖🅤🅝✖

Flunk

Skunk

Flung

Slung

Swung

I will be honest, I am so tempted to go for 'Skunk' because the other words are all in the past tense, and Wordle usually doesn't have such words as answers. But you never know. And if today is one of those days, and if the answer is actually 'Swung', I will be caught between a rock and a hard place for guess 4. So I will resist my temptation and play the elimination game today. For that, I need a word which has 'S', 'F', 'K', 'L', 'W', and 'G'. Oh wait, that's not possible.

So let's strategize:

• I'll use either 'S' or 'F' in the word
• Having an 'L' or a 'K' makes sense. But having both is better. That's because 'L' will indicate a word starting with 'F', and 'K' will tell me that that word is not 'Slung'
• As there could be no other vowel, using anything works really
• Ok wait, I think I can just use 'Flunk' and it will give me a unique input for all the other words

Just to be sure, with 'Flunk', the inputs if the actual answers are as follows would be:

Flunk: 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Skunk: ⬛⬛🟩🟩🟩

Flung: 🟩🟩🟩🟩⬛

Slung: ⬛🟩🟩🟩⬛

Swung: ⬛⬛🟩🟩⬛

Great, let's go with 'Flunk' then

After the third guess:

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

I did not expect this at all! All blacks to all greens in 3 might be one of the best things to have happened to me in the last month or so. Got lucky perhaps, but Wordlebot thinks my skill was worth 97/99. Awesome! Happy with the comeback. 

Even more happy to beat Wordlebot yet again! 

Yesterday's 5/6 ruined my average somewhat, but good comeback with a 3/6 today to get my Wordle average to 3.252.

See you tomorrow!