# What's your Wordle approach? **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Tags:** board-card-word-game\ **Created:** [January 7, 2022, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-wordle-approach/957372 "2022-01-07T14:08:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![SunUp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ea5d25/32.png) [@SunUp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SunUp)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2022, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-wordle-approach/957372/41 "2022-01-14T23:55:24Z")
Sure, it can be a funny game at times, but I’ve never done more than giggle after the first word. ---
**Author:** ![rocking\_chair](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rocking_chair/32/2918_2.png) [@rocking\_chair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rocking_chair)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2022, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-wordle-approach/957372/42 "2022-01-15T01:37:11Z")
Snort. ---
**Author:** ![Darth\_Sensitive](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/58956e/32.png) [@Darth\_Sensitive](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darth_Sensitive)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2022, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-wordle-approach/957372/43 "2022-01-15T20:04:35Z")
I’m consistently using ARISE DONUT Some Y word that hits a consonant hole while moving my good vowels ---
**Author:** ![Darth\_Sensitive](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/58956e/32.png) [@Darth\_Sensitive](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darth_Sensitive)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2022, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-wordle-approach/957372/44 "2022-01-15T20:08:56Z")
But I might start trying: ARISE DOUBT LYNCH Gets all of ETAOIN SHRDLU plus y, d, b ---
**Author:** ![Bullitt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bullitt/32/5725_2.png) [@Bullitt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bullitt)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2022, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-wordle-approach/957372/45 "2022-01-19T02:03:26Z")
I start with IRATE, followed by LOCUS. These are among the most common letters, and no letter is repeated. I’ve knocked off 10 letters, and 16 remain. Depending on the green and yellow results I can try a guess (and I can also try a guess with the second word). If I need to eliminate more letters then I can use HYMEN, then GAPED. Again, these are from the most common letters. With these words I’ve eliminated (or found) 17 letters, and only 9 letters remain. But then that only leaves two remaining guesses. So far this has worked and my streak is 26 since I started playing. Let’s see if I can keep that up. ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2022, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-wordle-approach/957372/46 "2022-01-19T02:14:34Z")
> [@Bullitt](#): > > If I need to eliminate more letters then I can use HYMEN, then GAPED. Paging Doctor Freud. ---
**Author:** ![Bullitt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bullitt/32/5725_2.png) [@Bullitt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bullitt)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2022, 8:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-wordle-approach/957372/47 "2022-01-19T08:24:59Z")
Exactly. ---
**Author:** ![Lsura](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7993a0/32.png) [@Lsura](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lsura)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2022, 12:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-wordle-approach/957372/48 "2022-01-19T12:40:07Z")
Normal mode, start with a different word most days, whatever sounds good and pops into my mind. If I get some letters there, great! I then work with those to try to figure out what words have them. If I get no letters, I try for a word that doesn’t share any of them, but sometimes I need to repeat a vowel. ---
**Author:** ![Roger\_That](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/roger_that/32/8505_2.png) [@Roger\_That](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roger_That)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2022, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-wordle-approach/957372/49 "2022-01-20T20:13:12Z")
A bit of a puzzler: has anyone tried playing WORDLE backwards? Coming up with the least likely 5-letter word you can think of. Perhaps QUERY, and then seeing which word you can make out of the other 21 remaining letters that will still yield 16 letters out of which a 5-letter word might be made and so on. Seems to me in theory that you’ve got 30 boxes to put letters into, and only 26 letters to work with, so it would be awful hard to come up with even four rows of gray letters to start the game and still have a valid 5-letter word to put in the fifth row. ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2022, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-wordle-approach/957372/50 "2022-01-20T20:53:56Z")
You can have double letters, though. ---
**Author:** ![Gorsnak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gorsnak/32/7587_2.png) [@Gorsnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gorsnak)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2022, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-wordle-approach/957372/51 "2022-01-21T14:14:37Z")
I’ve recently changed my approach, which was to try to nail down the vowels early. You’re going to have vowels pretty much nailed down by the 3rd guess regardless of what you do. My early focus now is on consonants that commonly appear in “consonant dipthongs” (why isn’t there a name for two consonants together like there is for two vowels?) So, L, M, N, R, S, etc. Ruling these letters out (or in) helps not just with them, but with letters like G or P which often appear adjacent to one of them. ---
**Author:** ![N9IWP](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/n9iwp/32/3154_2.png) [@N9IWP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/N9IWP)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2022, 12:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-wordle-approach/957372/52 "2022-01-22T12:34:31Z")
According to this, the best start is TRACE, the second word depends on the result: 60% chance of getting it in 3 > **[Can You Design The Perfect Wedding?](https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/can-you-design-the-perfect-wedding/)** > > Welcome to The Riddler. Every week, I offer up problems related to the things we hold dear around here: math, logic and probability. Two puzzles are presented e… Brian ---
**Author:** ![SoToasty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sotoasty/32/2803_2.png) [@SoToasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SoToasty)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2022, 1:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-wordle-approach/957372/53 "2022-01-22T13:32:22Z")
Not an approach, but I searched for wordle in Google this morning (I don’t have it bookmarked.). When the search came up, there were 6 square white boxes where the Google logo is. It quickly filled in with COLUMN (With the O in green and the L in yellow), followed by GOALIE with the G O L and E colored, and then an all green GOOGLE. ---
**Author:** ![Bullitt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bullitt/32/5725_2.png) [@Bullitt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bullitt)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2022, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-wordle-approach/957372/54 "2022-01-22T23:41:47Z")
> [@N9IWP](#): > > According to this, the best start is TRACE, the second word depends on the result: > 60% chance of getting it in 3 > [Can You Design The Perfect Wedding? | FiveThirtyEight](https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/can-you-design-the-perfect-wedding/) > > Brian Hmmm I wonder why. Because C is lower on the frequency list than several other letters, like O, N, S, and L. From most to least frequent, generally\*, it’s this list: E A R I O T N S L C U D P M H G B F Y W K V X Z J Q I find it interesting that J is less frequent that Z is. That list also aligns with the freebies you get on Wheel of Fortune: R S T L N E. \*— I say generally because there are different lists, like > each letter’s frequency > the most frequent words, and the letters that are in them ---
**Author:** ![N9IWP](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/n9iwp/32/3154_2.png) [@N9IWP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/N9IWP)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2022, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-wordle-approach/957372/55 "2022-01-23T01:34:03Z")
The list of Wordle answers is not the same as the list of 5 letter words (I think), much less all words. Brian ---
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2022, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-wordle-approach/957372/56 "2022-01-23T02:08:07Z")
> [@N9IWP](#): > > The list of Wordle answers is not the same as the list of 5 letter words (I think), much less all words. Correct. The list of Wordle answers is known and the analysis is done on that. Also there are no plurals in Wordle so presumably fewer S’s than in a full list of possible five letter English words. I have lately been starting with IRATE which gives information about three vowels and two common consonants. ---
**Author:** ![zimaane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a3d4f5/32.png) [@zimaane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zimaane)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2022, 3:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-wordle-approach/957372/57 "2022-01-23T03:59:06Z")
Lots of five letter words where C is second to last. ---
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2022, 4:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-wordle-approach/957372/58 "2022-01-23T04:01:11Z")
Yeah, CK and CY. I’ve noticed, but it’s probably confirmation bias, that there are a lot of words that end in Y ---
**Author:** ![Bullitt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bullitt/32/5725_2.png) [@Bullitt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bullitt)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2022, 9:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-wordle-approach/957372/59 "2022-01-23T09:24:13Z")
Wordle 218 3/6 🟨🟩⬛⬛⬛ ⬛⬛🟨⬛⬛ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2022, 9:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-wordle-approach/957372/60 "2022-01-23T09:55:16Z")
I always start with AUDIO because it gives me information about four out of five vowels. Second turn, I take whatever vowels I have a hit on and incorporate them into a word that also includes E. From there I just try words with the information I have, trying to eliminate as many letters as possible with every guess. I’m 11/11 so far. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-wordle-approach/957372.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-wordle-approach/957372.md?page=4)