please empty your brain below
This shows my starting word of Slate followed by Rhino if no letters are found is quite a good strategy!

David | 26.01.22 - 8:08 a.m. | #

Great stuff, ta. Been using ADIEU to kick off with success, though my streak ended recently thanks to my new least favourite word, KNOLL.

Kevin | 26.01.22 - 8:18 a.m. | #

I tried today's for the first time, before reading your analysis, and got it at the 4th attempt. Shame it uses American spellings!

It's like that ITV afternoon show "Lingo" which I initially thought was mostly guesswork but found myself getting drawn in.

Tim | 26.01.22 - 8:19 a.m. | #

I'm happy to just play without going too deep. If I get lucky so be it! I usually get the word on the 4th guess, although 'FAVOR' was a sad moment for this Londoner.

Jayne | 26.01.22 - 8:41 a.m. | #

Spoilsport.

However, I think you have missed probably the most important piece of knowledge for Wordle success. Which anyone who has ever taught those struggling to master literacy will (should!) know.

Blue Witch | Homepage | 26.01.22 - 8:46 a.m. | #

Agree with Keven about KNOLL's difficulty though. Took me a rare 5 and the need for a pen and paper that one.

Blue Witch | Homepage | 26.01.22 - 8:47 a.m. | #

Excellent! I'm ditching STEAM, and my initial go-to word TAMED was, statistically, rubbish.

Suspect this post might do some considerable Be sure to follow it up with a B-road post (joke!)

Jim McKenzie | 26.01.22 - 8:53 a.m. | #

I used to start with orate and other vowel heavy words, but I've come to think that vowels don't help much, and what you really want are consonants. For example, a while ago the word was panic, and I think that it's easy to get to the final answer from P-N-- than -A-I-. So now I've switched to carts as my starting word - I also did a spreadsheet to choose it.

You can play all the old wordles here.

Ian | 26.01.22 - 9:04 a.m. | #

I haven't been playing long. Nice little game that you can't get addicted to thank goodness.

Caroline | 26.01.22 - 9:07 a.m. | #

TEARS has been my go-to first guess. I don’t understand how you've become aware of which words are included, and when they are due to appear. Not that I want to do the same, and ruin the daily fun. Just intrigued.

Frank F | 26.01.22 - 9:11 a.m. | #

The frequency analysis is interesting. Thanks. I’ve been having some success with AUDIO as a first guess, followed by a word with anything green or yellow plus an E (getting all the vowels early is helpful, I think). But I might try STARE instead.

Andrew | 26.01.22 - 9:16 a.m. | #

STARE is an excellent starter - it should get green 42% of the time - but SOARE is the only 50%-er.

diamond geezer | Homepage | 26.01.22 - 9:44 a.m. | #

Well, just for fun, I deliberately try and start with a different word every time. Nothing crazy - generally something with an E and an A and a couple of popular consonants. Today I went for STEAM. Had to use 5 guesses, though - dicing with danger !

CJS | 26.01.22 - 9:55 a.m. | #

I tend to start with SPEAR. In a way it can be dangerous to start too well, with too many green letters straight up, as then you end up with an awful lot of options and pure guesswork for the remaining letters

A nice little game, and clever that's it's one a day, so the "addiction" is getting a daily sequence of correct answers, rather than anything more time consuming.

Mikey C | 26.01.22 - 10:32 a.m. | #

In a similar tactic to the one Kevin uses,I start with AUDIO.

Richard | 26.01.22 - 10:34 a.m. | #

With his other interests I though DG would always start with BROAD.

popartist | 26.01.22 - 10:49 a.m. | #

Here's further analysis from a programmer who wrote a bot to complete the puzzle.

Their first interation of the code also came up with SOARE as an ideal starting word but they moved on from that as their bot couldn't always then complete the puzzle in six attempts. After some refining they came up with a starting word that will result in finding the solution in the lowest average number of goes. We are talking differences in decimal places of the number of goes though so these suggested starting words are all as good as each other give or take.

However, both of these words don't appear in the solutions list so you have no chance of a "hole in one" using them. So he finishes with announcing the "mathematically optimal" starting word that is actually an answer.

O | 26.01.22 - 10:52 a.m. | #

At least I now know why it's called Wordle.

Jonathan Wadman | 26.01.22 - 11:05 a.m. | #

I tend to use one day's answer as my starting word the next. Makes it more of a challenge.

Nick | 26.01.22 - 11:28 a.m. | #

Yes, the internet might well go into meltdown when FANNY is the word of the day – but I bet PUSSY isn’t in the list!

My starting words are TEARY and PIOUS. Gives me all five vowels plus Y and four different consonants. I can usually guess the word after three or four tries.

ChrisL | 26.01.22 - 11:35 a.m. | #

I've only seen the little griddy thing here on the blog.
Do you only get 4 chances to solve it?

dg writes: Click on the first word in the post for the answer.

Cornish Cockney | 26.01.22 - 11:55 a.m. | #

I hope someone's managed to work out the word at the foot of the post.

⬜🟩⬜⬜⬜
⬜🟩⬜⬜🟨
⬜🟩⬜🟩⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

diamond geezer | Homepage | 26.01.22 - 1:09 p.m. | #

<snip>?

RogerP | 26.01.22 - 1:18 p.m. | #

<snip>?

Joe | 26.01.22 - 1:52 p.m. | #

Just tried my first ever Wordle using Ian’s CARTS as a starter. Got it in 3…. Think I might have found my sport!

Joe | 26.01.22 - 1:55 p.m. | #

<snip> for the word at the foot of the post?

O | 26.01.22 - 2:22 p.m. | #

To the three people who've guessed...

a) You've all guessed the same word.
b) No, that's not a Wordle word.
c) A good Wordler never divulges.

diamond geezer | Homepage | 26.01.22 - 2:26 p.m. | #

Are you suggesting that your ability to get the end word from the start word is a bit of a <snip>?

dg writes: No, because you're similarly wrong.

Ian | 26.01.22 - 3:08 p.m. | #

I've had best success using start words like TEACH, THING and BLOCK.
I will give SOARE a try but I think the useful things to try/eliminate are the common consonant pairs like CH TH NG NT CK BL and so on, because 5 letter words most usually need to use at least one.

dg writes: 79% of words have at least one consonant pair. 17% have two.

Paul | 26.01.22 - 4:52 p.m. | #

<snip>?

ChrisL | 26.01.22 - 5:27 p.m. | #

With no real science behind it I start with MIAOU followed by row 2 using any row 1 results plus an E and perhaps S, L or Y. My average is 4.2 over 25 goes so far.

I will try some these scientific approaches to see if any improvement.

Richard | 26.01.22 - 5:36 p.m. | #

SEDAN followed by BUILT.

James Webber | 26.01.22 - 7:38 p.m. | #

I have distilled the information on the spreadsheet and have a plan with a starter word or two not yet mentioned here or in the links. I wait to see if it will make a difference.

NickW | 26.01.22 - 9:43 p.m. | #

<snip>?

Helen | 26.01.22 - 11:38 p.m. | #

<snip>?

H SE18 | 27.01.22 - 12:30 a.m. | #

'Yes that's correct' to the last three people who guessed, but didn't get the hint about not revealing the answer.

diamond geezer | Homepage | 27.01.22 - 8:30 a.m. | #

WOOTZ?

Vee Jay Em | 27.01.22 - 8:32 a.m. | #

I'm waiting for your reaction to today's news that Wordle has been sold to the NYT.

dg writes: the day before yesterday's news.

Caroline | 02.02.22 - 9:49 p.m. | #











TridentScan v2.10.0 | Privacy Policy