NYT Wordle #1164: How I solved it

 

Image courtesy: www.nytimes.com/

Today, the 26th of August 2024, is game 1164 of NYT Wordle. I try to solve this daily and have completed 333 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:

🟨⬛🟩⬛🟩

Exactly like yesterday. Let's put together the mandatory list of possibilities with the information received:

 

✖🅣🅐✖🅔:

Stave

Stale

Stage

Stake

State

Skate

✖✖🅐🅣🅔:

Slate

Plate

Elate

Abate

The key takeaways:

• The probability of 'T' being in the 2nd spot is similar to it being in the 4th spot
• High probability of the word starting with an 'S'
• 'L' appears in 4 of the 10 words. In 3 of those instances, it occurs in the 2nd spot, and once in the 4th spot
• The 2nd spot is either occupied by 'T' or 'L', except for 'Abate'
• Other consonants to make the list are 'V', 'G', 'K', 'B', and 'P'
• 3 cases have a double letter, one being double 'T', one double 'A', and the last being double 'E'

My strategy for the 2nd guess would be similar to yesterday's:

• There is no way that I can eliminate most of the words from the above list with 1 ideal guess. Therefore, I will have to take some risks here
• I will not have 'A', 'E', or even 'T' in the 2nd guess. Instead, I will have 'L' as my 2nd or 4th letter. If it's a black, I will know that 'T' most probably occurs in spot 2. If it's a yellow or green, I should also be able to place the 'T' in its rightful place. 
• The probability of 'S' occurring at spot 1 is the highest, yet, I will just have 'S' anywhere else and if it returns me a yellow, I will know that the word starts with an 'S'. If its a black, even better. I will have a smaller list of words to choose from.
• In addition to this, I will try and include at least 2 out of 'V', 'G', 'K', 'B', and 'P' as possible. I will prefer using two out of 'V', 'G', or 'K' rather than 'P' or 'B', as that would eliminate more words
• It really doesn't matter which vowel I use. Anything which allows me the flexibility to use as many letters as possible is fine with me.

I will go for 'Glisk' again as my 2nd guess.

After the second guess:

⬛⬛⬛🟨🟨

Considering it was 'Skate' yesterday, common sense would dictate that it would be 'Stake' today. I am honestly surprised at the similarity with yesterday's Wordle, which is why I am even taking a couple of minutes to consider whether there might be some issue with the website, or that they might have given us the same word two days in a row by mistake. But no point hanging around either. So let's go for 'Stake'.

After the third guess:

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

One of the strangest back-to-back Wordles in my opinion. For some reason, the stats show that people struggled more with the answer today more than yesterday. It might have something to do with the unexpectedness of this perhaps. 

Anyway, a walk-in-the-park kind of a Wordle today for me. And I also beat Wordlebot again! 

My 208th 3/6 in 334 games, not bad at all! Average guesses still at 3.249.

See you tomorrow!