NYT Wordle #1162: How I solved it

 

Image courtesy: www.nytimes.com/

Today, the 24th of August 2024, is game 1162 of NYT Wordle. I try to solve this daily and have completed 331 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:

🟨⬛⬛⬛🟨

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

🅔🆃✖✖✖

Ethos

🅔✖🆃✖✖

Extol

🅔✖✖🆃✖

-

🅔✖✖✖🆃

Exult

Event (I thought of this word after making the 2nd guess, so the analysis below doesn't consider this word)

✖🅔🆃✖✖

Betel

✖🅔✖🆃✖

Pesto

✖🅔✖✖🆃

Depot

Feint

✖🆃🅔✖✖

Steep

✖✖🅔🆃✖

-

✖✖🅔✖🆃

Sleet

Sheet

Sweet

Fleet

Quest

Inept

✖🆃✖🅔✖

-

✖✖🆃🅔✖

Intel

Often

✖✖✖🅔🆃

Bidet

Duvet

Quiet

Onset

Takeaways:

• Lots of words end with 'T'
• 6 'O's, 5 'I's, 4 'U's, and 6 double 'E's make things far more even than I would have liked
• 8 'S's, 6 'L's, and 5 'N's seem to be the most re-occuring consonants
• 'E' occurs most times in the 4th spot, then the 3rd spot, then 2nd, and then the 1st

Going to be a difficult choice. My thought process now is this:

• I would want to have a word with a 'T' in the 5th spot
• The word should ideally have an 'E' in the 4th spot. If not, 3rd spot works too. 
• In terms of vowels, I need to have something other than an 'E'. It can either be another 'E' or an 'O', but a double 'E' might be too risky I feel. So perhaps an 'O' somewhere. The placement doesn't matter too much but a 4th or 1st spot 'O' could be an option
• I have 2 more spots to figure out, and I feel those must be taken up by 2 out of the 3 most frequently occurring consonants, 'S', 'L', or 'N'. The placement is secondary, but a 1st spot 'S', 2nd or 5th spot 'L', or a 2nd place 'N' would be ideal.

As is clearly evident, it is impossible to fulfil all the criteria mentioned above because they are contradictory. So I would need a word which is closest to fulfilling the conditions as possible

I am a little sad that 'Sloet' isn't a word, so I think my next best option is 'Onset'. Without wasting more time, let's go for it and hope for the best.

After the second guess:

⬛⬛⬛🟩🟩

Ok, let me make a list of words which are still possible answers from the above list. The survivors are: 

Fleet

Bidet

Duvet

Quiet

The Wordlebot analysis will be interesting because at this point, I feel my 2nd guess wasn't that bad. However, I think I can safely say that getting this in 3 is almost impossible now. So let me do some damage control and explore more possible words to have a solid 3rd guess.

After racking my brain for more words, I can conclude that either I did a fantastic analysis already and no other words exist, or my brain is still working at 2% capacity. Either way, I think it is very important to figure out the vowels now. And I think 'Quiet' will be my best option, as it will provide info on 'U' and 'I', and could tell me whether the word perhaps has a double 'E'. I hope that with this information, I will be able to figure out the answer with a good deal of precision in my 4th guess. So let's just go for 'Quiet'.

After the third guess:

⬛⬛🟨🟩🟩

The only survivor now from the above list is 'Bidet' now. Let me try and see if there might be other possible words once again, because if it is not 'Bidet', I am absolutely screwed. I'll actually go and take a walk before I guess.

I don't know whether there are others like me, but I take my Wordle very seriously. I took a walk, went to a restaurant and ordered some food, when I realized I missed out on 'Filet' from Filet Mignon. Not saying that it must be the solution, but I think it is more likely than Bidet. So I am going for 'Filet' as my 4th guess

After the fourth guess:

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

It wasn't easy for me because I honestly didn't think of Filet as a possible word initially. That is primarily why my skill score is on the lower side today with an 86/99. Got it in 4 though, which is acceptable.

And just like that, my score is back to 3.250. I am quite happy with my guess distribution though and will look to improve on it further.

See you tomorrow!