NYT Wordle #1161: How I solved it

 

Image courtesy: www.nytimes.com/

Today, the 23rd of August 2024, is game 1161 of NYT Wordle. I try to solve this daily and have completed 330 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:

⬛⬛🟨🟩⬛

Not bad. Let's put together a few sets of possibilities with the information received:

 

🅔✖✖🅒✖:

Epoch

 

✖🅔✖🅒✖:

Bench

Belch

✖✖🅔🅒✖:

Fleck

Check

Speck

I can't think of any more words at the moment. Maybe, and most probably, there are more. Hopefully, there aren't. 

So what we have are words which typically end with either 'CH' or 'CK', have a set of consonants such as 'B', 'P', and 'L', which occur in more than one word. My first instinct is to go with 'Whelk'. But I first want to check whether it will give me enough information to get the word in the 3rd try. Let's check one-by-one:

Epoch: ⬛🟨🟨⬛⬛

Bench: ⬛🟨🟨⬛⬛

Belch: ⬛🟨🟨🟨⬛

Fleck: ⬛⬛🟩🟨🟩

Check: ⬛🟩🟩⬛🟩

Speck: ⬛⬛🟩⬛🟩

So if the word is either 'Epoch' or 'Bench', I will not be able to determine which one is the answer in the 3rd guess. There is one other thing I can do. Have either 'K' or 'H' in the 2nd guess, and not both. Have 'E', and some or all among 'P', 'B', and 'L'. As 'Check' is also a likely solution, I can have a word with a 'C' starter as well if any other word doesn't fit the description of the above mentioned criteria. 

I can try using 'Belph' or 'Bleph' or something like that if Wordle accepts them as words. Say I use 'Bleph', the information I would get is as follows:

Epoch: ⬛⬛🟨🟨🟩

Bench: 🟩⬛🟨⬛🟩

Belch: 🟩🟨🟨⬛🟩

Fleck: ⬛🟩🟩⬛⬛

Check: ⬛⬛🟩⬛🟨

Speck: ⬛🟨🟩🟨⬛

Didn't think this would be the case when I started analyzing, but here we have a word which will give us unique information for each word identified so far. I think this is my best option. I understand that the actual word might be outside the realm of 6 words I have identified, or words like 'Hench' which I think are unlikely to be Wordle answers, but I need to do the best I can with the options I have. If it is something else, we will improvise. So for guess 2, we will go with 'Bleph' and see what we get:

Most anti-climatic guess ever. Wordle doesn't accept 'Belph' or 'Bleph'. One other word which comes to mind is 'Cleph', but I think that's not a word too. I think I am confusing that for 'Cleft', so that's out. I am definitely overthinking this one, so let's just take a few steps back for a bit. What if I ditch 'E' completely and try and gather information from the other consonants? I can have an 'O', which will provide info on 'Epoch'. I think I will try 'Plonk'. Just because I did it for the other two words before, I'll do the same analysis for 'Plonk' too and be a little more sure about this.

Epoch: 🟨⬛🟩⬛⬛

Bench: ⬛⬛⬛🟨⬛

Belch: ⬛🟨⬛⬛⬛

Fleck: ⬛🟩⬛⬛🟩

Check: ⬛⬛⬛⬛🟩

Speck: 🟨⬛⬛⬛🟩

Awesome! Unique information for the possible words. Let's go for 'Plonk' then.

After the second guess:

⬛🟨⬛⬛⬛

 

Well well well! Just like the Wordle two days ago, it seems like the word I least expected to be the solution amongst those I considered, could actually be the one today. I still want to be sure though,

Possible combinations:

🅔✖🅛🅒✖:

Nothing comes to mind

✖🅔🅛🅒✖:

Belch

🅛🅔✖🅒✖:

Leech

🅛✖🅔🅒✖:

Don't think so

'Leech' just made a dramatic entrance to this game and I am in this scenario again where I have to choose between 2 words. Didn't want this to happen, but it is what it is. I think I will choose 'Leech' because it is more likely the answer in my opinion, and even if it isn't, it will give me the correct positioning of 'E' and 'L' for guess 4. So without thinking more, I am going for 'Leech'

After the third guess:

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

I chose correct! Wasn't that difficult, but it made me work really hard to get it in 3. In hindsight, I could have done slightly better. Wordlebot knows it. Skill score is 89 today, pretty high, but not one of the 95+ I have been consistently getting over the last few days.

But I at least beat Wordlebot again! Always satisfying.

My 206th 3/6 in 331 games, not bad at all! Average guesses now 3.248.

See you tomorrow!