Is it just me, or has Wordle been awfully tough lately? (This one was a stumper.) I've had a couple days lately where I really thought I would run out of guesses before solving it. I've already shared my easy winning strategy for playing Wordle. Essentially, I begin with TRAIN and CLOSE, then look at any correct letters and try a word that uses them in numerous spots. When I need to picture possible winning words, I utilize Xs to spell out the correct letters I know so far. So far, the strategy is still working.
And now there's a new tool you can use. I call it my Wordle player cheat sheet. With help from the big brains at the Oxford English Dictionary, I've put together a list ranking all the letters in the alphabet, listed in the order they're most used in English words. So as you might have guessed, E and A are great letters to throw into a Wordle guess. J and Q, not so much.
I also asked readers and friends to share their Wordle strategies. Hope you'll find some tips to freshen up your game play here.
Be a CHAMP
"I used to use TRAIN as my first guess; now my first two words are always NOISE and TRULY. If the word isn't apparent, I next use CHAMP. Those three words give me 15 letters that are most common, including all 6 vowels. If I'm still totally lost, I go with DEBUG, giving me three more consonants." --Dan Hughes
Use yesterday's winner
"I always start with the previous day's winning word. Continuity!" --Marc Hirsh
The random method
"For a long time I used two starter words that gave a lot of vowels and common letters, which always made me a solid four-line winner and sometimes three. But then I branched out and just tossed in random words. Still made me a solid four line winner, sometimes three and a couple of twos." --Susan C. Young
Another vote for random
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