"Wordle," a strangely compelling word game (Part 1)

We just recently had worse as an answer, and now horse.

Can ‘gorse’ be far behind?

They had come to a stream which twisted and tumbled between high rocky banks, and Christopher Robin saw at once how dangerous it was.
“It’s just the place,” he explained, “for an Ambush.”
“What sort of bush?” whispered Pooh to Piglet. “A gorse-bush?”
“My dear Pooh,” said Owl in his superior way, “don’t you know what an Ambush is?”
“Owl,” said Piglet, looking round at him severely, “Pooh’s whisper was a perfectly private whisper, and there was no need——”
“An Ambush,” said Owl, “is a sort of Surprise.”
“So is a gorse-bush sometimes,” said Pooh.
“An Ambush, as I was about to explain to Pooh,” said Piglet, “is a sort of Surprise.”
“If people jump out at you suddenly, that’s an Ambush,” said Owl.
“It’s an Ambush, Pooh, when people jump at you suddenly,” explained Piglet.
Pooh, who now knew what an Ambush was, said that a gorse-bush had sprung at him suddenly one day when he fell off a tree, and he had taken six days to get all the prickles out of himself.
“We are not talking about gorse-bushes,” said Owl a little crossly.
“I am,” said Pooh.

Wordle 626 4/6*

:white_large_square::yellow_square::white_large_square::white_large_square::white_large_square:
:white_large_square::green_square::white_large_square::yellow_square::yellow_square:
:yellow_square::green_square::white_large_square::green_square::green_square:
:green_square::green_square::green_square::green_square::green_square:

TRIAL
POWER
ROUSE
HORSE

Wordle 626 3/6* 3/7/2023

:white_large_square::white_large_square::white_large_square::white_large_square::white_large_square:
:yellow_square::green_square::white_large_square::green_square::green_square:
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PINKY → OK. Time for one of my favorite second guesses…
ROUSE → Oh my. We just had one of these recently, I think it was WORSE, and while it could be GORSE I think I’ll try…
HORSE

Scoredle thinks I should have tried TARES (or, IMHO, the anagram STARE) as the second guess. I really wanted to try a 3-vowel word with that second guess, and it paid off. Plus, Scoredle says that CORSE, DORSE, TORSE and ZORSE(?!) are words

Wordle 626 5/6

:yellow_square::white_large_square::white_large_square::white_large_square::white_large_square:
:yellow_square::white_large_square::white_large_square::white_large_square::white_large_square:
:white_large_square::yellow_square::white_large_square::green_square::white_large_square:
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SLANT
EQUIP
MESSY
GORSE
HORSE

I join that small but sanguine band who tried GORSE before HORSE.

Wordle 626 3/6*

:white_large_square::yellow_square::white_large_square::white_large_square::green_square:
:yellow_square::green_square::white_large_square::white_large_square::green_square:
:green_square::green_square::green_square::green_square::green_square:

CRANE
ROUTE
HORSE

I tried them both looking for WORSE. Not falling for that again.

Awesome, good time to try it on hard (although the only way to lose is one of those STAGE, STAKE, STALE, STARE, STATE, STAVE guessing game ones.)

Wordle 626 3/6*

:white_large_square::yellow_square::yellow_square::green_square::green_square:
:yellow_square::green_square::white_large_square::green_square::green_square:
:green_square::green_square::green_square::green_square::green_square:

AROSE
ROUSE
HORSE
I saw GORSE and HORSE but I thought that ROUSE was a better choice because we just had WORSE recently. Rats!

Wednesday, March 8th

Wordle 627 4/6

:black_large_square::yellow_square::yellow_square::black_large_square::black_large_square:
:yellow_square::yellow_square::black_large_square::yellow_square::yellow_square:
:black_large_square::green_square::black_large_square::black_large_square::yellow_square:
:green_square::green_square::green_square::green_square::green_square:

PLANT
LASER
BEFOG
REGAL

Boy I lucked out with that green E. After 2 I saw both relax and the _LARE (BFG) trap, so I bailed on hard mode to check all three trap letters. The idea was if none of them hit the answer was relax. When the G came back I actually started typing in glare before I realized the green E meant the answer was none of the above.

Wordle 627 4/6

:green_square::yellow_square::white_large_square::white_large_square::white_large_square:
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RATIO
REALM
RELAY
REGAL

…and now thanks to @psychobunny I see that I totally missed relay. Doh! If that had been the answer I would’ve taken a 5.

Wordle 626 2/6

:yellow_square::yellow_square::white_large_square::yellow_square::green_square:
:green_square::green_square::green_square::green_square::green_square:

SHARE
HORSE

Well that was a gimme…could only be one thing! :horse: :slight_smile:

Wordle 627 3/6*

:white_large_square::white_large_square::white_large_square::white_large_square::white_large_square:
:white_large_square::yellow_square::yellow_square::green_square::white_large_square:
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PIOUS
TREAD
REGAL

I managed that without troubling the bottom row of the keyboard.

Wordle 627 4/6*

:yellow_square::yellow_square::yellow_square::yellow_square::white_large_square:
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ALERT
LASER
FERAL
REGAL

Thought I had this in the bag, but the journey turned out longer than expected…

Wordle 627 3/6

:white_large_square::yellow_square::yellow_square::white_large_square::yellow_square:
:white_large_square::yellow_square::green_square::yellow_square::yellow_square:
:green_square::green_square::green_square::green_square::green_square:

CRANE
PAGER (there are a lot of _A_ER words with a P or G - the G helped in this case
REGAL

I did a “Wordle Tree” in hard mode. I played all of the words on another site. I had a spreadsheet where I kept track of guesses and what I picked and used that for future words. I got all of the words but had maybe five close calls. The S_A_E words wasn’t as hard as some others. The TA__Y words were surprisingly difficult.

Wordle 627 4/6

:green_square::yellow_square::white_large_square::white_large_square::yellow_square:
:green_square::green_square::yellow_square::white_large_square::white_large_square:
:green_square::green_square::yellow_square::green_square::white_large_square:
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RAISE
REACT
RELAX
REGAL

:green_square::yellow_square::green_square::yellow_square::white_large_square:
:green_square::green_square::green_square::green_square::green_square:

RAGED
REGAL

Seriously lucky today, randomly picked first word left me with one possible answer, which was trivially easy to pick up on. About 30 seconds start to finish. Not going to see this type of performance again for a while, if ever.

Wordle 627 3/6

:white_large_square::yellow_square::yellow_square::yellow_square::white_large_square: 116
:white_large_square::white_large_square::yellow_square::green_square::green_square: 14
:green_square::green_square::green_square::green_square::green_square:

SLART
CORAL
REGAL

After my starting word gave me lots of info, I came up with just over two dozen legit possible solutions. My second word was one of them, and it knocked things down to 2 possibilities that I could see, and I didn’t think it was going to be RENAL.

Wordle 627 3/6*

:yellow_square::yellow_square::white_large_square::white_large_square::yellow_square:
:green_square::green_square::yellow_square::white_large_square::white_large_square:
:green_square::green_square::green_square::green_square::green_square:

A nice pleasant 3 for today!

Scoredle 3/6*

14,855
:yellow_square::yellow_square::white_large_square::white_large_square::yellow_square: ARISE (242)
:green_square::green_square::yellow_square::white_large_square::white_large_square: REACH (25)
:green_square::green_square::green_square::green_square::green_square: REGAL

I looked at Scoredle’s own guesses and got a laugh:

“What would Scoredle do?
SLATE->LAPEL->FECAL->RENAL->REGAL”

Scoredle might think FECAL is a fine word, but it surely wouldn’t be chosen by the NYT, so I would probably not try that one (unless it was the only word I could think of).