NYT Wordle #1155: How I solved it

 

Image courtesy: www.nytimes.com/

Today, the 17th of August 2024, is game 1155 of NYT Wordle. I try to solve this daily and have completed 324 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:

🟨🟨⬛⬛⬛

2 yellows. Let's analyze the possibilities that I can think of at the moment:

R in the 1st spot:

🅡🅣✖✖✖

-

🅡✖🅣✖✖

-

🅡✖✖🅣✖

Rusty

🅡✖✖✖🅣

-

R in the 3rd spot:

✖🅣🅡✖✖

-

✖✖🅡🅣✖

Dirty

Forth

Girth

Forty

Birth

Mirth

Worth

✖✖🅡✖🅣

First

Burst

R in the 4th spot:

✖🅣✖🅡✖

Storm

Stork

✖✖🅣🅡✖

Outro

✖✖✖🅡🅣

Shirt

Sport

Spurt

Skirt

Snort

Short

R in the 5th spot:

✖🅣✖✖🅡

-

✖✖🅣✖🅡

Motor

✖✖✖🅣🅡

-

Got about 20 possibilities, think I'll stop for the moment. So the takeaways are as follows:

• The probability is the highest for this to be a ✖✖🅡🅣✖ or a ✖✖✖🅡🅣 word. 
• Regarding vowels, 'I' has occurred 7 times, 'O' 12 times and 'U' 3 times. In addition to this, 'Y' has also sneaked in twice. So this indicates that eliminating them will not be that easy
• Reading into vowels further, most of them are in the 2nd or 3rd spot
• Amongst consonants, 'S' and 'H' have appeared the most number of times
• Eliminating consonants completely is not an option either because I can see the presence of 'P', 'K', 'M', 'G', 'F', 'B', 'W' already, and who knows what other possibilities lie outside this list

The analysis makes me realize that is going to be tougher than I initially thought and I will need a bit of luck to do it in 3 or 4 guesses.

My approach will have to be simple:

• Figure out the position of 'R' and 'T' at the earliest. So my 2nd guess will have to be either ✖✖🅡🅣✖ or a ✖✖✖🅡🅣 word
• Have either 'O' or 'I' in the second guess and in case it is a black, guess the other one on the third
• Have 'S' and 'H' as part of the word I am guessing, as that would eliminate the maximum number of words in the list

The likelihood of the word being 'Short' is lower than 'Shirt' in my opinion, but I will still go for the latter, as 'O' seems to occur more times than 'I'. Wish me luck!

After the second guess:

🟩⬛🟩🟩🟨

I think it was a good guess, but I also got somewhat lucky. Now the question however is whether the word is 'Storm' or 'Stork'. I think it is 'Storm' but I have had many such experiences where I had to choose between two words and I chose wrong. I hope this is not one of those times. 'Storm' it is then for the next guess!

After the third guess:

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

My heart was in my mouth, but I got it. Relief!

This is one of those times when analysis is scarier. How did I miss 'Story' as a possibility after my 2nd guess? Imagine if it was indeed 'Story', I would have still guessed 'Stork' in my 4th attempt without even thinking much. Anyway, lesson learnt!

This was not too difficult, but I can imagine a situation where one is stuck with 2-3 possible words for the last guess.

so another 3/6 brings my Wordle average down to 3.252, which is great.

Also, I beat Wordlebot again today! 

This is the 5th time in the last 2 weeks too.

See you tomorrow!