So Wordle is running more rampant than Omicron. I got hooked after reading an article in Popular Mechanics on the mathematics of Wordle. That intrigued me, so I started playing at wordlegame.org
I followed that article suggestion. It was looking for vowels predominantly. So I followed that suggestion and using the letter frequency there came up with vowel oriented guesses for the first 2 words which covered most vowels.
Later I adopted a starting word full of vowels to uncover those, this is one of Kitzi's words.
But then I started thinking that consonants are more important, in fact some languages hardly use vowels at all (Hebrew and Arabic). In emphasizing vowels, you waste guesses as vowels get repeated in your third and fourth guess. So using letter frequency and a minimum of vowels I chose a set of 4 words. Those words use 20 different letters, so it usually finds most, and those not chosen include Q, Z and X which hardly ever appear. And by using JUMPS if the U is green you might be using Q. I know CLANK is a bit weird, but C is more common than B of BLANK.
So in most cases after those 4 words I know all 5 letters, or it might have a B, V or W.. A bit tricky with double letters, which I expected to be vowels. BUT they can also be consonants as I was tripped up by RABBI and DADDY.
As usual I beat these puzzles to death, that is how I learned Backgammon playing computer opponents rather than humans, and then Suduko, which I still play the daily "hard" puzzlle at the NY Times. So here I got a streak of 109 wins, and will retire from all but the daily game.
And finally from cartoonist Scott Metzger
Update
While those 4 words work well to brute force an answer. I have switched to 2 or 3 words that allow me to make guesses sooner. Even made my 3rd 2 word solve recently.
Lessons learned the hard way
With still 2 possible words, I ran out of tries (the solution was WATCH)
Probably better would have used CATCH as a third guess to eliminate the double C possibility, and then go on ignoring ATCH and trying to figure out the first letter with words using P M L B W, like PLUMB one of my original word choices.
And sometimes this puzzle is just ...
Still fine tuning, took a suggestion from Nancy
As always fine tuning, after Nancy hit on the first word with THIRD and I hit a few weeks later. I changed my words, now start with STERN, followed by FLACK/BLACK then DOUGH. I still think finding consenants is more important than vowels, as some languages imply vowels. Working on getting my average back down to 4 or below (hard when I first started I would blast with 4 words then guess. Don't really know what my streak is, as I play on my PC, and don't play when traveling. For sure over 100, and maybe getting close to 200.
Seems like I've seen this one before
Well STERN came up as the word (2nd time hit it on one, so switching to RENTS). Spent some time looking at letter frequency, so chose these 3 words now. There are no words that have none of these, unlike the last group which had about 11 words. Maybe swap BUMPY for FOAMY.
