Monday, 30 September 2024

NYT Wordle #1199: How I solved it

  


 




Image courtesy: www.nytimes.com/



Today, the 30th of September 2024, is game 1199 of NYT Wordle. I try to solve this daily and have completed 357 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:

🟨⬛



Ok. Let's put together a few sets of possibilities with the information received:

 

🅒✖✖:

  1. Chimp
  2. Chump
  3. Chomp
  4. Chink
  5. Chunk
  6. Chuff (Pretty sure it's a word)
  7. Chill
  8. Clump
  9. Clomp
  10. Clonk/Clunk (I forgot which one was the actual word. I think it was the latter)
  11. Cliff
  12. Cloud
  13. Colon
  14. Comic
  15. Cubic
✖🅒✖:
  1. Scoop
  2. Scowl
🅒✖:
  1. Picky
  2. Lucky

✖🅒:

-


Takeaways:

  • Well, seems like 'C' being the first letter has a high probability
  • In case the word starts with 'C', the second letter seems to most likely either 'H' or 'L'. It seems that apart from those two letters, the probability is highest for the vowels 'O', 'U', or 'I'
  • The probability of the 3rd letter being a vowel is high. The distribution is fairly even for all 3 vowels
  • I haven't counted, but seems like the other highly recurring alphabets are 'P', 'N', 'M', and 'K'.


Going with the above broad observations, we can strategize as follows:

  • Let's choose a word which starts with 'C'
  • Use either 'L' or 'H' in the guess, one in the 2nd spot, and the other in any other spot
  • Picking two vowels for this guess will be smart in my opinion. But choosing 2 out of the 3 will be challenging. Let's park this for later
  • If I pick 1 vowel, I should go with any of the aforementioned alphabets 'P', 'N', 'M', and 'K'
  • Another option is to choose with 'L' or 'H', which I am actually leaning towards now. In that case, having 'L' will be more preferable as it seems to occur in other spots two apart from the 2nd spot


So what's the best word which has 'C', 'L', 2 vowels, and 'P', or perhaps 'N'? If 'Colin' is a word Wordle accepts, I wouldn't mind using that. Let's try 'Colin'


After the second guess:

🟩🟨🟨



Let's see which words out of the list could still be a possible answer:


  1. Chimp
  2. Chump
  3. Chomp
  4. Chink
  5. Chunk
  6. Chuff
  7. Chill
  8. Clump
  9. Clomp
  10. Clonk/Clunk 
  11. Cliff
  12. Cloud
  13. Colon
  14. Comic
  15. Cubic
  16. Scoop
  17. Scowl
  18. Picky
  19. Lucky


Not bad. 2 words survived, and I doubt the answer will be 'Clomp'. But Wordle has had crazy answers before so it cannot be ruled out. Also, let's see if there are any other possible words which I didn't consider the first time around:



🅒🅛🅞✖:

-


🅒🅛
🅞✖:

-


🅒🅛✖✖🅞:

-


🅒🅞🅛✖:

-


🅒✖🅛🅞:

-


🅒🅞✖🅛:

-


🅒✖🅞🅛:

-


Either I have exhausted the possible list of words, or my brain just wasn't able to come up with anything more. Therefore, trusting in myself, I am going with 'Cloud'.



After the third guess:

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩




Good game! Wordlebot rates my skill 99/99. And my analysis was pretty spot on!


Beat Wordlebot too today!


My 220th 3/6 in 358 games, not bad! Average guesses now down to 3.260. 


See you tomorrow!

Saturday, 28 September 2024

NYT Wordle #1197: How I solved it

 


 




Image courtesy: www.nytimes.com/



Today, the 28th of September 2024, is game 1197 of NYT Wordle. I try to solve this daily and have completed 356 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:

🟩🟩



Alright, so we got letters 2 and 3. With this, I know that the first letter can only be W, P, D, F, G, K, B, or a vowel. Let's put together a few sets of possibilities with this information:

 

🅦🅡🅐:

-


🅟🅡🅐:

1. Prank

2. Prawn


🅓🅡🅐:

3. Drawn

4. Drain

5. Drawl

6. Drank


🅕🅡🅐:

7. Frail

8. Frank


🅖🅡🅐:

9. Grand

10. Grail

11. Grass

12. Gravy


🅚🅡🅐:

-


🅱🅡🅐:

13. Brand

14. Brass

15. Brash

16. Brain

17. Brawn

18. Braid

19. Bravo


(Vowel)🅡🅐:

-


Unlike other occasions, I feel that the list of words I put together today should contain at least 80-90% of total possible answers. So let's analyze:

  • For the 1st spot, B has come out as the overwhelming favourite followed by 'G' and 'D'
  • 10/19 words have 'N's' in them
  • Amongst words which do not have 'N', 3 words have 'L's' and 'S's' each, 2 of them have 'V's', and 2 have 'D's'
  • In terms of vowels, 5 words have an 'I', 12 of them have a lone 'A', 1 has an 'O', and another has 'Y'.
  • In terms of frequency, there are 6 'D's', 4 'W's' in all, 5 'S's', and 3 'K's'


The analysis takes me to the following strategy:

  • Have a 'B' in the guess, at any spot
  • Have a 'D', either in the 1st or 5th spot
  • Include an 'I' in the word
  • Have 'N' in the 4th or 5th spot
  • Try and include 'W', 'L', 'S', or 'K' in that particular order of preference


I think the most obvious choice is to go with 'Blind'. It fulfils a decent number of criteria, so let's go with 'Blind' without wasting any more time


After the second guess:

🟩🟨🟨



Awesome! There is just one possible solution left, and it is 'Brain'. 


After the third guess:

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩




Fantastic! I already know that my analysis was spot on today. Wordlebot rates my skill 99/99. 


My 219th 3/6 in 357 games. Average guesses 3.261. 


See you tomorrow!

NYT Wordle #1196: How I solved it

 


 




Image courtesy: www.nytimes.com/



Today, the 27th of September 2024, is game 1196 of NYT Wordle. I try to solve this daily and have completed 355 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:

🟨🟨



Ok. Let's put together a few sets of possibilities with the information received:

 

🅐🅣:

1. Atoll


🅐🅣:


🅐🅣:


🅐🅣:

2. Adopt

3. Aloft

4. About

5. Allot


✖🅐🅣:

6. Fatal

7. Baton

8. Patio

9. Satan


✖🅐🅣:


✖🅐🅣:

10. Haunt

11. Gaunt

12. Daunt

13. Vault

14. Gamut

15. Jaunt

16. Balot

17. Fault


🅣🅐:


🅣🅐:

18. Vital


🅐🅣:


🅣🅐:


🅣🅐:


🅣🅐:

19. Quota


19 words is fine for now. Let's analyze them first. 

  • Highest probability of 'A' occurring is at the 1st or 2nd spots
  • For 'T', it is the last spot and the 3rd spot respectively
  • 9 O's, 9 U's, 2 I's, and 2 double A's. 
  • For O's and U's, 3rd spot makes sense
  • Amongst consonants, 'L' and 'N' seems to occur more frequently than others. 
  • 'L' occurs in almost all places. 'N' occurs in the 4th place more often


So the ideal word would be something like ALONT or LAUNT, but obviously, Wordle wouldn't accept either. I think I will not use 'A' in this guess at all and focus on getting other info. The word I am thinking of going for is 'Blunt' as it contains both 'L' and 'N', 'N' at the 4th place, 'T' in the 5th place, 'U' in the 3rd place, and a decent compromise in 'B', which does occur 3 times. So, 'Blunt' it is!


After the second guess:

🟨



Bit of a surprise. Let's see which words out of the list could still be a possible answer:


1. Atoll

2. Adopt

3. Aloft

4. About

5. Allot

6. Fatal

7. Baton

8. Patio

9. Satan

10. Haunt

11. Gaunt

12. Daunt

13. Vault

14. Gamut

15. Jaunt

16. Balot

17. Fault

18. Vital

19. Quota


Based on the list of words I made, I think the guess served its purpose. But before going ahead with anything, I will need to re-analyze this to ensure that I include other words which could be possible solutions this time. 


🅐🅣:


🅐🅣:


🅐🅣:


✖🅐🅣:

Patio


✖🅐🅣:

Faith


🅣🅐:


🅣🅐:


🅣🅐:


🅣🅐:


🅣🅐:

Vista


(Note for future games: I missed words like 'Adapt', and 'Waist' in the first list)

After thinking long and hard, I feel like the solution should be either 'Patio' or 'Faith'. I, however, feel like 'Patio' was a Wordle solution at some point. Not sure about this, but I do have a feeling. Also, if 'Faith' is not the answer, it will give me a decent indication of whether the word could be 'Patio' or something else. So going with 'Faith' in this one. 


After the third guess:

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩



Wordlebot rates my skill 81/99. Lower than I expected, but nothing to complain about since I got a 3/6. My 218th 3/6 in 356 games, not bad! Average guesses now 3.261. 


See you tomorrow!

Friday, 27 September 2024

NYT Wordle #1195: How I solved it


 




Image courtesy: www.nytimes.com/



Today, the 26th of September 2024, is game 1195 of NYT Wordle. I try to solve this daily and have completed 354 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:

🟩🟩



Pretty good. Let's put together a few sets of possibilities with the information received:

 

🅣🅐:

  1. Toast
  2. Twang
  3. Thank


Twang seems unlikely, yet if I go with 'Toast', I will be 2 options if the answer isn't it. 'Thank' makes more logical sense, as it would eliminate 'Twang' as well. 


So let's go with 'Thank'.


After the second guess:

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩




Wordlebot says even 'Toady' and 'Twain' were possible answers. Even then, I think I made the right choice by going with 'Thank'. 99/99 on skill, so I suppose my analysis was fine. 


My 34th 2/6 in 355 games, not bad! Average guesses now 3.262. It has suffered in the last couple of weeks, but I intend to get it down. 


See you tomorrow!