Ramblin' with Roger

I have played just over 1000 games on Wordle, and I’m surprised. On Wordle World, a Facebook group, somebody asked about our stories regarding the game. Mine is pretty straightforward. I heard about it for months, and as is my general wont, I avoid things that everybody else does. It took me about 3/4 of a year before I played one game. I liked it so much that I’ve participated every day ever since.

Early on, I used a formula to maximize the number of letters I could check. It was TUBES, FLING, WORDY, CHAMP. This uses 20 letters and only misses the K and the more obscure letters JQVXZ. The good news is that it got me a win most of the time, but the bad news is that I was getting lots of 5s or 6s, only rarely a 4. Once, I muffed it all together.

Somehow, probably with the help of my daughter, I ended up using AROSE and TULIP regularly, and it’s been a boom. I’ve only muffed it once since then, on JUDGE, which I played too cavalierly; my last choice was FUDGE.

I still start with AROSE. If I have at least one green or two yellow letters, I try to play it in what they call the hard mode, meaning I have to play the green letter where it shows up and use the yellow letter. If I have only one yellow letter, I might go to TULIP. Regardless, I tend to use the letters in TULIP early on.

Wordle 1,250 3/6 AROSE 94

THINE 2

NICHE

The system

My current streak of over 700 words is helped by the fact that I compare notes after the game with a guy named Matthew. After making a particular choice, I tend to put the number of possibilities left, which has helped me hone my guesses for future games, thanks to the sometimes sanctimonious WordleBot.

I’m trying to reach the streak of a participant on Wordle World named Nola, who had a 938-game streak snapped on September 29. We were neck-and-neck before I muffed JUDGE. She is very encouraging.

Sometimes, I get lucky.

Wordle 1,241 2/6 AROSE 39

STOIC

And other times, I get there by a thread.

Wordle 1,232 6/6 AROSE 39

SPOIL 5

STOOP 3

SWOOP 2

SCOOP 1

SNOOP

When I get an E and R, my go-word is LITER. One day, it will be the answer.

Wordle 1,240 3/6 AROSE 158

LITER 3

INNER

A useful hint: YOWZA is not a word in the Wordle dictionary. 

Quordle

For Quordle, I do use TUBES FLING WORDY CHAMP. It works most of the time, though I just went down when I muffed it at 5 a.m. I’ve given up the other multiples, such as Octordle, mostly for time. Interestingly, I hit 500 on Quordle on Thanksgiving, the same day I did my 1000th Wordle.

Connections

My wife and I play New York Times Connections together. We’re much better at it that way than trying to do it separately. We’ve become so proficient at it that we have tried to find all four groups of four words before typing in the first one, attempting to ascertain which one would be purple,  the most difficult.

When we do this, we tend to avoid misleading terms. Recently, a category looked like headwear, and I assumed that CAP was one of the four. When we created all four groupings, we realized that CAP had to go with Cover, Plug, and Seal, which were THINGS THAT PREVENT LEAKS. The fourth piece of headwear with Beret, Derby, and Pillbox was Snapback,  a word I was unfamiliar with, though I wear such caps about half the year. Understandably, 50% of players put CAP in the wrong category. Oh, and the Times sells a Connections snapback cap; of course, they do.