Dieter B
There are thousands of five-letter words in the English dictionary, but it only takes one to win Wordle. Whether it's your first time playing, or you're a seasoned wordler who plays at midnight when a new word is released, these tips will help you develop a strategy or improve on the one you've already created.
If you're a pun purist, you can avoid the following tips and rely entirely on your instincts. For all the others who are tired of seeing gray boxes, here are some tips that may be useful to you.
Table of contents
Top Tips and Tricks to Win at Wordle Online
To make it simple, here's how to play Wordle online:
- Click on this link.
- You have six tries to guess the five-letter wordle of the day.
- Type your answer and submit your word by pressing the "enter" key on Wordle's keyboard.
- The color of the tiles will change once you submit your word. A yellow tile indicates that you have chosen the correct letter but it is in the wrong place. The green tile indicates that you have chosen the correct letter in the correct place. The gray tile indicates that the letter you have chosen is not included in the word at all.
You can also opt for the wordle alternatives listed in our article, to find other versions of the game.
1. There is nothing more important than your seed Wordle.
Seriously, if you get this wrong, you might as well give up. Some people like to use a different starting word every game, but that's like running a marathon with your legs tied: it's unnecessary masochism.
Wordle only gives you six tries to guess the answer, and if you get the seed word wrong, you enter a world of letter-based pain. We have a separate article on Wordle's best starting words, so all I'll say here is that it should contain at least two vowels and two of the most common consonants.
I use STARE, which is close to the statistically ideal starting word for Wordle and which I am now used to. Some people prefer SOARE or ADIEU depending on the number of vowels, but the important thing is to choose one and stick to it. NYT's brilliant new WordleBot tool recognizes the importance of a good seed word, but prefers CRANE.
In addition to giving you a better chance of finding green and yellow letters the first time around, a good seed word will familiarize you with the patterns that tend to develop from those letters. If you change words every time, you'll get lost in the dark when you could use a flashlight.
2. Your streak is more important than your score – protect it.
So many people are wrong about this. I don't think I'm particularly good at Wordle (my average over those 306 games is just under 4), but my unofficial streak (including games on Wordle Archive) is currently 228 - which I bet, is rather high.
Anyway, I protected my series as carefully as Link protects Zelda and I did that by being ultra careful whenever I was faced with a difficult word. As soon as I suspect there might be a WATCH situation (see below), I play it safe and use guessing to narrow down the options, even though it might hurt my score.
Yes, it's exciting to get a 3/6 or even a 2/6, but is that high score worth chasing compared to the low score you'll get from losing a streak of 60 games? Not at all. Talking about that…
3. Hard mode is a boring mode
I know, I know: some would say that winning 306 games of Wordle doesn't count for anything if you're not on hard mode. And they may be right. But in another (more precise) way, they are wrong.
A puzzle should reward strategy or knowledge, not luck. Of course, luck plays a part in every Wordle game, but on hard mode it can guarantee you losing your streak, and that's just plain frustrating.
Why ? Take a word like WATCH, the answer to game 265 above. Even if you chose CATCH as your first answer, which gives you four out of five letters from the start, you can't be sure of winning just because of your genius. Indeed, there are more than five other possible answers: HATCH, BATCH, PATCH, LATCH and MATCH, as well as WATCH itself. In hard mode, there would be absolutely nothing you could do to increase your chances of winning; no clever strategy or inspired thinking. You can only guess and hope.
In standard mode, on the other hand, you can do what I described above and play a word that narrows the options. It's strategy rather than luck, and it's surely more in keeping with the spirit of the game.
Discover: Fsolver - Find Crossword & Crossword Solutions Quickly & Cémantix: what is this game and how to find the word of the day?
4. Play Wordle Archive while you still can
The New York Times has barely touched Wordle since it bought it last month for a " small six-figure sum“, but he just requested the closure of one of Wordle's unofficial archives. Luckily, this site is still available via the Web Archive, so chances are you'll still be able to play it that way.
This archive brings together all the previous Wordles, allowing latecomers like me to complete the puzzles they missed – and that's essential for refining your strategy.
There's nothing like experience to improve your game and you'll get plenty of that playing old Wordles. Plus, since you can complete the puzzles more than once (there's a reset button) and in any order (you can select by number), it's a great way to try out new words. starting points and new strategies.
But be careful: puzzles 1, 48, 54, 78, 106 and 126 are difficult. And if you're interested, the 78 is the one I failed.
5. Play your vowels early
Although your seed word must contain at least two vowels, sometimes you get lucky on the first try and all the vowels turn gray. If this happens, be sure to play at least two more on the second try. Vowels are crucial to understanding word structure, so turning them yellow (or excluding them) early on is key.
E is the most common vowel in Wordle, followed by A, O, I, and U. Use them in that order for the best chance of success.
6. Play Common Consonants Early
Yes, there may be a J or an X in Wordle's answer - but it probably isn't. Play the R, T, L, S and N instead, as these are the most common consonants in Wordle and most answers contain at least one of them.
7. Think about combinations
A good starting Wordle will allow you to solve part of the riddle of the day, but clever use of combinations will help you win consistently.
This is because some letters regularly go together in English, but others do not. For example, CH, ST, and ER are much more likely to be next to each other than MP or GH and much, much more likely than FJ or VY.
8. Think about the positioning of the letters
As above, some letters are much more likely to appear at the beginning or end of a word than others.
S is the most frequent start letter among Wordle answers, appearing in 365 of 2 solutions, while E is the most frequent end letter (309 answers). Play a word with these two letters in the right positions and you immediately increase your chances of winning. In fact, that's why my seed word is STARE.
You can of course go much further in complexity. For example, vowels are much more frequent in the three central positions than at the beginning or at the end. Vowels are also much more likely to occur next to a consonant than another vowel. So if you have a green vowel in the middle of a word and a yellow consonant somewhere else, try placing them next to each other if you can.
These rules don't always work, but keeping them in mind will increase your success rate.
9. Take your time
If I had a dollar for every time I accidentally played a letter somewhere I already knew it couldn't be, I'd be as rich as Wordle creator Josh Wardle. It's outright slack and usually indicates that I'm playing too fast. Always check each line before hitting the enter key and you'll be much less likely to make this mistake.
And while I'm at it, slow down in general. There is no time limit on Wordle, other than the need to finish it before midnight, so if you get stuck, take a break and try again later.
10. Do not repeat letters
Repeated letters are present in many Wordle answers, but you should avoid playing around with them until you are sure the answers are correct.
11. Start with the same word each time.
Although the success rate is not guaranteed, starting with the same word every time can give you a basic strategy for each game. You may end up finding the right word on the first try. The Redditors, TikTokers and YouTubers have even done statistical analysis on letter frequency, so you can use their data as a resource.
How to cheat on Wordle
This is a method if you want to maintain the illusion that you are not cheating. It's like Wordle's blood doping equivalent. Essentially, using a Solver like Fsolver, you'll find a detailed list of suggestions for the Wordle Answer of the Day.
Be sure to set the number of letters to five, then enter whatever green letters you have and place them in the correct positions. Press the "Enter" key and you will get the possible solutions to the riddle of the day.
Conclusion: The Wordle Phenomenon
Launched in the fall of 2021, Wordle was designed by Josh Wardle, a computer scientist in his thirties who wanted to entertain his wife, faithful to the word games of the New York Times. The object of the game is simple: find a five-letter word in six attempts. Letters that are well placed are shown in one color and those that are not in another. In short, it's the same principle as Motus, except that there is only one word to guess per day.
Wordle's hard mode adds a rule that makes the game slightly harder. Once players have found a correct letter in a word – yellow or green – those letters must be used in their next guesses. "It limits your ability to search for other information," Sanderson said. This may help you solve your game in fewer tries, but significantly reduces the word list.
Mr Sanderson adds that hard mode is indeed harder, but it forces you to stare at the keyboard longer and not go back over letters you've already used. And when you share your wins, your hard mode score comes with an asterisk to prove you tried to go the extra mile.
See also: Brain Out Answers: Answers for all levels 1 to 223
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