I like many puzzles, primarily word based puzzles like the New York Times Crossword Puzzle and Spelling Bee games. As I’ve mentioned before, my favorite word puzzle is the game Wordle. Each day a five letter word is issued and you have six chances to guess that word. There are various rules and I choose to play the “hard” version meaning that once you establish a letter is part of the solution, you must use it in your next word guess. Scores are kept and accumulated and here is a summary of mine to date:

I have missed only three Wordle puzzles (once I started and got distracted through a busy day and did not return before midnight to complete and twice I reached the end of six guesses without finding the correct word) which I guess is not too bad. I learned that the standard is to complete the game in about four shots which is sometimes referred to as “Par.” Like in a golf hole, one less is a Birdie, one more is a Bogie and so on. As you can see, so far the majority of my tries are Par or better.

About a hundred tries ago I changed my starting word from ADIEU to AROSE because I was told this was the starting word of New York Times Crossword Puzzle editor Will Shortz, who I think is a genius. It is not the most popular starting word but I discovered this is basically a bit of luck anyway. Some starting words help you on some puzzle words but stymie you on others. All a matter of luck and your second guess is the real challenge in this game. As you can see that second guess has given me the answer eleven times so far and that ain’t bad. Of course the best second guess is based entirely by what your first word teaches you.

The other thing I love is the Wordlebot program that reviews your guesses and logic used that helps you sharpen your game going forward. I highly recommend you study that analysis to sharpen your skills.

When you play Wordle the above summary is displayed on the screen. I know I am not the most adroit player in this game but would love to hear comparisons from how you are doing. And if you have not yet played it, I highly recommend you give it a try! Enjoy National Puzzle Day by playing Wordle!