Sunday 6 October 2024

NYT Wordle #1203: How I solved it

 



 




Image courtesy: www.nytimes.com/



Today, the 4th of October 2024, is game 1203 of NYT Wordle. I try to solve this daily and have completed 358 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:

🟩⬛🟩



So there are a few fews this could go. One way to think is based on what the second alphabet could be. There aren't too many options, because if it is a consonant, it would either be 'H' or 'W', if it is a vowel, it could be 'U', 'O', 'E', or 'I'. Apart from this, I doubt there are any other possibilities. So let's explore a list of words based on this information:

 

🅣🅗✖🅔:

Thyme

Those

These


🅣🅦✖🅔:

Twine (Not very sure about this word)


🅣🅞✖🅔:

-


🅣🅤✖🅔:

-


🅣🅘✖🅔:

Tinge


🅣🅔🅔:

Tense


Not a very long list, but I think this will do for now. Takeaways:

I will not consider 'Twine' in my analysis, initially at least

Amongst other words, 2 have double E's, 1 has an 'I', and another has a 'Y'

'S', 'H', and 'N' dominate the consonant department

While 'S' always occurs in the 4th spot, 'N' can potentially occur in the 3rd or 4th spot. 'H' is always in the 2nd spot

'Thyme' is an oddball for sure, as the letters in it are unique


Keeping this in mind, I will have the following criteria for my guess:

Place the 'S' in any spot, preferably 1st or 5th, as its presence or absence is what we seek, not its position

Same with 'H', place it anywhere

Have 'E' in the 2nd spot and 'N' in the 3rd spot to verify/eliminate 'Tense'

Something with an 'O' or an 'I' would be ideal


The criteria points towards a word like 'Henis' or 'Henos' ideally. 

Wait a minute. What if I guess 'Tense'? It would definitely yield unique returns for each word in the list above, so that could serve the purpose as well right? Let's just do that and hope for the best. Going with 'Tense'. 


After the second guess:

🟩⬛🟩



Ok this was definitely impulsive, and I am not sure if it was the right thing to do. I will actually think a little more and get back on this train.

Got it! Must be 'Title'. 'Thyme' always felt very unlikely. So going with 'Title'



After the third guess:

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩



Good game! See you tomorrow!