I’ll never get the Wordle in less than 3 tries (well, once I got it on the 2nd, but I’ll explain later). Most of the time, it will be 4 or 5 tries.
The reason is my system. Here’s my system:
First word: S-N-A-R-E
Second word: P-I-L-O-T
Then, I look at what’s matched and go from there with intuition. However, if zero or only one of the letters from those first two match, or I just can’t catch an intuition, then I use:
Third word: F-U-D-G-Y
What’s my system?
Letter coverage. The first two words give me coverage of 10 oft-used letters, including the most used vowels. ChatGPT says that gives me about a 90% chance that two or more of those letters will be in the solution. If needed, the third word rounds out all possible vowels and adds another couple of common consonants. Now I’m at 15 and have raised my chances to 98% that at least two of the letters are in the solution and 100% that I know which vowels.
With a budget of 5 tries, I’m spending 2, sometimes 3 of them without regard to the actual solution. But I’m collecting valuable data.
I designed the system to produce a particular outcome — namely, maximize the chances of a solution within the constrained budget.
I did not design it to minimize the number of tries.
We often get frustrated when outcomes don’t meet our goals or hopes. But is the system designed to meet those hopes?
Systems do what they’re built to do.
So, step one is to recognize the system. Step two is to ask yourself — do you need a new system?
P.S. The day I solved the Wordle on the 2nd try was when the word was “snake”.
