Wordle Bulletin # 604 (February 13, 2023) –“Coin Flip, not Skill!”

Strategy
My strategy is built to ensure I solve 95% of the puzzles in 4 guesses or less. It is not built to always shoot for the lowest score possible. The score depends a lot on the seed word. Wordle is a game of luck and skill. My goal is to score an average solve rate of 4 guesses. My aspirational goal is 3.5 average and <5% 5/6 guesses.

My current performance vs. the goals:
I started using the current set of seed and 2nd words on 12/9/2022. My performance since then is summarized below. Due to relatively small sample size, it is too soon to draw any statistically valid conclusions.

No. of puzzles solved: 65
Average: 3.43 (aspirational target 3.5 or less) 😊
% Puzzles solved in 4 guesses or less: 95.4% (Goal >/= 95%) 😊
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Statistical Facts:
Typical Wordle Word Construct: 2 Vowels and one compound consonant (example KN or TCH)/paired consonant (example PP); seen with >50% frequency.
10 Most frequent consonants (in declining order): R, T, L, S, N, C, H, P, D, and G/M
6 Vowels (in declining order): E, A, O, I, U, Y
10 Most frequent letters (in declining order): E, A, R, O, T, L, I, S, N, and C
Frequency of the 5 vowels in the five positions: 15%, 49%, 54%, 35% and 24% respectively.
Position of the letter “Y”: About 80% of all the “Ys” in Wordle are found in the 5th position.
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Today’s Wordle:
Target Word: USAGE
# Of Guesses: 3.6 WordleBot average per Marc McLaren*, 4 for WordleGuru. ☹

Seed Word: ALERT (Top 3 consonants and top 2 vowels) — No change; this is my go-to Seed word.
What we learned from the Seed Word:
— Letter(s) with their position (s): None
— Letter(s) without their position (s): 2 (A and E)

Typical or atypical target word? — A-Typical
— # of Vowels: (Typical 2); 3 (U, A and E)
— # of Compound/paired consonants: (Typical 1); 0 compound /paired consonants

2nd word: SYNCH; Since the seed word revealed 2 vowels (A and E), I didn’t need to search for additional vowels. I used SYNCH instead of my “go-to” 2nd word (SONIC), since SYNCH has 4 consonants. At this stage only three possible words — PAUSE, USAGE and PASSE. In reality only two words, since PASSE is not that common of a word. So, it came down to a “coin toss” — PAUSE led in terms of frequency, whereas USAGE led in terms of usage (no pun intended). I went with frequency and lost the coin toss. ☹☹

# Of Possible Solutions after the 1st word: Too many
# Of Possible Solutions after the 2nd word: 3 (only 2 regular)
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EnotE© (Eliminate-not-Enumerate) Strategy deployment: Did not need it today.
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Final thoughts: Wordle is a game of luck and skill. Sometimes luck favors the game and sometimes it favors the player. Luck was not in my corner today. ☹ _______________________________________________________________
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Wordle bulletins can also be found on the website — Wordle Guru — Wordle in 3 guesses or bust!

I write Rhyming Prose (Prose that rhymes). My work in this area can be found on my website, Rhyming Prose — … when a poem won’t do it!

I have also started writing free-verse poems, haiku poems and songs. My work in this area can be found on my website, Budding Poets Corner — Poet Laureates of Tomorrow
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To my followers: thank you from the bottom of my heart for your interest in my blogs.

To my future followers: If you like the bulletins, please follow-me. Please look for other posts related to Wordle Strategy. There are several on the EnotE© strategy (Eliminate Not Enumerate) strategy.

To all: If you have a “burning question” re Wordle, such as what is the frequency of letters (in position four) that precede “E” in the fifth position, please send an email to me at Wordle.ultimateguru@gmail.com. Thank you.
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© 2023 Ashok Gupta All rights reserved.
EnotE © (Eliminate not Enumerate) is copyrighted by Ashok Gupta
Wordle and WordleBot are trademarks owned by the New York Times.

*The WordleBot score I refer to comes from Tom’s Guide by Marc McLaren. Marc writes his post at around 7 AM U.K. time.
https: //www.tomsguide.com/news/what-is-todays-wordle-answer#section-previous-wordle-answers