How to win at Wordl: Or how to suck the fun out of word games

 How to win at Wordl

Or how to suck the fun out of word games

 

I could have gone with “How to solve Wordl”, but that would have been disingenuous of me. Just look at the number of tweets, WhatsApp posts and statuses sharing the solved emoji grid! Don’t tell me people don’t consider it a minor accomplishment every morning! Though the creator Josh Wardle intended it to be “..just a game that’s fun”, people often brandish the solved grid as a sort of badge of honour. If you are the kind who thinks that solving the puzzle doesn’t matter, and it’s the playing that counts, then this one’s not for you! I for one think that we shouldn’t begrudge people their harmless daily dopamine hit, particularly after a miserable 2 years.

 

A couple of clarifications before I proceed. What I am going to tell you here aren’t some unfathomable set of rules. These are just little devices that help solve a puzzle with greater certainty, which I am sure have become obvious to many others who have solved a few. I just intend to provide a short list that I find useful. Secondly, the classic Wordl is a pretty easy game, and my suggestions apply more to the purportedly more complicated versions involving 2 (https://zaratustra.itch.io/dordle), 4 (https://www.quordle.com/#/) and 8 words (https://octordle.com/), and a combative version of the game (https://qntm.org/files/absurdle/absurdle.html). And perhaps also to versions which involve guessing words longer than 5 letters (https://hellowordl.net/). So here goes.

 

The first word is all important!

If there’s just one take away from this entire piece, it is this. From a Bayesian perspective, I would go with a word with the greatest likelihood of hits. Identifying such words is rather easy. In general, the commonest letters used in the English language are the 4 vowels (other than U), and the consonants R, S, T and N, with L, C and U following close behind. (https://www.lexico.com/explore/which-letters-are-used-most) Now, it seems that Josh Wardle restricted his list to just over 2000 words that his partner of Indian origin was familiar with. There is really no way of knowing what these words are. But a good approximation would be the list that Morse (of the Morse code fame) arrived at by manually counting the number of letters in printers’ type. This list was presumably representative of the most common English words in regular use (though it may have excluded some modern words). Nevertheless, the most frequently used letters still remain the same as above, with some additions such as H, D and L. (https://www.lexico.com/explore/which-letters-are-used-most) But I think that this distinction matters little to your choice of first word. First because you just need 5 letters for the first guess. And second because, there’s some controversy about whether the New York Times expanded Wardle’s original word list. (https://www.thenationalnews.com/arts-culture/2022/02/16/is-wordle-harder-since-the-new-york-times-took-over-it-why-its-users-think-so/) So, the first rule is to go with a word made of 5 of the most commonly used letters. There is a very large number of choices here. Some may prefer to use a new word every day. But the word really doesn’t matter, it’s just the principle. So you can plug away using the same word every day. If you decide to go with one word, try to use one which you will not get tired of. TEARS first thing every morning may not be ideal.

 

The second word is important too

In the classic Wordl, the choice of second word becomes crucial if you get no hits (or one non-informative hit) with your first guess. Needless to say, this word should contain the most common letters which you haven’t used yet. The next 5 most common letters become even more important for other versions of the game which involve guessing 2 or more words. These multiword versions allow for a few more guesses (for example Quordle allows 9 guesses for 4 words). So, by using 2 “undirected” (probability-based) guesses, you increase your chances of getting hits in at least one of the words. The number of “undirected” guesses you can safely use will depend on the number of guesses you are allowed in total. In my opinion, you will be alright with 2 with most versions, except for Octordle, where you may often end up needing 3. Purists will complain that with this approach, the multiword versions tend to become jumble word problems. What’s worse, by following a fixed number of undirected guesses, the supposedly fiendish Absurdle can be tamed into producing a single desired word every single time! I am disappointed, but I can’t approach this any other way. I am not a gambler I guess!

 

The solitary vowel

When you know that your word has just one vowel, it narrows down your list of possible words quite considerably, depending on the position of the vowel. A solitary vowel as the third letter makes it highly likely that you simply have to identify two, 2-letter consonant blends, one at the beginning and one at the end. Some common blends at the beginning of words are BL, CL, PL, and GR. Common ones at the end are NT, RT, and ST. So for example, if you have an A as the 3^rd letter, guesses could be along the lines of BLAND, GRANT, PLANT, depending upon which consonants you have already identified. But before we go looking for 2-letter consonant blends, we need to be sure that the vowel is not repeated. An example with E as the third letter could be the word EVENT. Likewise, a solitary vowel as the second letter points to the possibility of a 3-letter consonant blend such as TCH and STY (examples, BATCH, MISTY, etc.).

 

One missing letter

Many games are tragically lost with just one letter missing. The problem arises from the tendency for premature closure, when there are actually multiple viable choices. One is tempted to try each one of these till all the possibilities are exhausted. This becomes all the more important in the multiword versions of the game, where every wasted guess drastically reduces the chances of your completing the puzzle. For example, in this morning’s Wordl, one could arrive at the correct combination of STOR_ on the fourth guess and still end up losing! Your 5^th guess could have been STORM, and 6^th could have been STORK (today’s word was STORY). The sensible thing to do in such cases is to use a word such as MURKY to identify the correct consonant. In the multiword versions, it’s better to move on to guessing the other words, and in all likelihood you will identify the correct letter in the process. One other thing to keep in mind is the possibility of repeated vowels (occurring one after the other) being the missing letter. One Wordl which I presume flummoxed many was when the day’s word was RUPEE.

 

There can be many other common sense rules to solving a Wordle puzzle: When you have U (and an additional A or I), always consider Q as a possible consonant; if you have a C, always see if CH or CK are possibilities. Similarly, with an H, think of TH or CH. With K, think of CK, and LK (remember CAULK?). And I am sure that you can come up with a few more.

 

I hope, with these common sense tools, some of you will attempt the next Wordl with more confidence, and others will be emboldened to go on to the multiword versions. For the others who think that I’ve sucked the fun out of the game, I have this to say: A few simple rules will not take away all the fun. You’ll still lose the occasional Quordle!