NYT Wordle #1159: How I solved it

 

Image courtesy: www.nytimes.com/

Today, the 21st of August 2024, is game 1159 of NYT Wordle. I try to solve this daily and have completed 328 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:

⬛⬛⬛🟩⬛

Not a bad start. Let's analyze this by trying to figure out the possible last letter and moving on from there. Possible variations and corresponding words could be:

✖✖✖🅒🅚

1. Slick
2. Knick
3. Flick
4. Block
5. Shock
6. Flock
7. Clock
8. Knock
9. Glock
10. Pluck
11. Quick

✖✖✖🅒🅗

1. Pinch
2. Conch
3. Munch
4. Lunch
5. Hunch
6. Punch
7. Bunch
8. Pouch
9. Mulch
10. Lynch

✖✖✖🅒🅨

1. Spicy

About 22 words and I'll stop here. So the takeaways are as follows:

• It is very likely that the word is either ✖✖✖🅒🅚 or ✖✖✖🅒🅗
• Except for 2 words in the list above, the word is most likely to have just 1 vowel in it
• in these 22 words, 'I' appears 6 times, 'O' 8 times, and 'U' 9 times
• Other than 'H' and 'K', the most frequently occurring consonants are 'L' (10 times), 'N' (10 times), and P (5 times)

Let's strategize the guess now.

• I can see that except for 3 words, 'L' does occur in only in ✖✖✖🅒🅚 words. So if I confirm an 'L' in the word, I can presume that the actual word might be ending with a 'K'
• Also, I can also be almost sure that if the word does not have a 'K', it will definitely have an 'H', and vice versa
• In a ✖✖✖🅒🅚 word, I can see that the second place is either an 'L' or an 'N'. Therefore, I will try and have a word which has an 'H' or a 'K', and either an 'L' or an 'N'
• In terms of vowels, I will try and have at least 2 out of 'I', 'O', and 'U'
• I have also observed that when 'N' is in the 2nd spot, it is a ✖✖✖🅒🅚 word and whenever it is in the 3rd spot, it is a ✖✖✖🅒🅗 word. So in case I use 'N' in the 3rd spot, I can assume that the word is ✖✖✖🅒🅚 if I get a black or yellow, and a ✖✖✖🅒🅗 word, if I get a green. I will not even have to use 'H', 'K', or 'L' with this approach, unless the word is an outlier of course. But we will take that chance I guess. It is either quite bold or stupid!
• As I am using just 'N', and 2 vowels, I can include 'P' in the guess along with another consonant like 'S' perhaps. 

So let's go for something like a 'Ponus', 'Punis', 'Pinos', or whichever version Wordle accepts.

Mission failed! Wordle doesn't accept any of them. 

Maybe I will try another letter instead of 'S'. An 'L' perhaps? Oh great, Wordle accepted 'Pinol' and here is what I got

After the second guess:

⬛⬛⬛⬛🟨

Looks very disappointing, but let's first analyze.

We know now that the word must have an 'U', or a 'Y' in case the word is 'Lynch'. Oh wait, there is no 'N', so can't be 'Lynch' or even 'Lunch'.

So are we looking at something like ✖🅛🅤🅒🅚? But if the word isn't 'Pluck', then I really don't think there is another word like this.

I think the word is most probably 'Lucky'. No wait, the 'C' is in the 4th spot, so can't be 'Lucky'. Is it really 'Mulch'? Won't lie, when I was making the list, I thought if there is one word which isn't going to be the answer today, it is 'Mulch'. But I don't see any other possibility to be honest. Let's go for it and hope I am right about this. 

After the third guess:

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Wow! I am extremely happy about this. This was slightly difficult, but I figured it out in 3. That's awesome. Wordlebot better rate me 199/99 on skill for this one!

95/99 is fine too, I'll take it. But 67/99 on luck is a little high. Give me more credit for this Wordlebot! I'm kidding, don't care much when I got it in 3.

Wordle average is 3.249 now! Fantastic!

See you tomorrow!