Can Wordle Be Hacked?
Lessons Learned in an Attempt by Grant Sanderson from 3Blue1Brown
Programming is about problem solving. Wordle, the latest craze in word games has had coders cracking their knuckles to gain an advantage. Developed by Josh Wardle, a player has six chances to guess a five-letter word. If a letter is in the word, but not in the right place, it gets a gold signature. A correct letter in the correct place is marked green.
With its simplicity, Wordle calls out for strategies or preferred words that players can use to efficiently get to the right answer. Words like ADIEU use one of the precious guesses to eliminate four vowels, while words like GRIND use common letters and account for the possibility of using words that start with RE or DE or end in ING, ER, or ED.
But can Wordle be hacked? Is there an algorithm that can defeat the game?
Grant Sanderson from 3Blue1Brown took a crack at it. By incorporating information theory and reverse-engineering the coding for Wordle, he was able to come up with a solid idea for the best opening words to use. By combining the best word choices with optimal second-word choices, he came up with the CRATE and TRACE as being the best common words to start a Wordle game.
The following video takes us through his logic and his process . . . and, for programmers, he opens up by talking about a useful lesson in coding. Your code can always be refined, as he learned when accounting for words with duplicate letters.
