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@freemo I've given up on your 'adieu' start, it wasn't informative enough for me. Consonants are pretty important too, turns out. ;)
@trinsec consonant are important, but they occur with much less frequency. First word establishes vowels, second word establishes consonants and position of vowels.
@freemo See, and that's where I do a mix. First word has 4 consonants and a common vowel. If any, the second word will have 2 vowels and then the next common consonants. So I found today's word in 4 turns. The 3rd was right word but wrong vowel, so the 4th had the leftover vowel heh. Could've been the other way around there too.
@trinsec That sounds like a horrible strategy to me to be honest. Words usually have 2 - 3 vowels. So covering all the vowels from the get go will target the most letters without you need to cover them in the second attempt. Not to mention the fact that you can have the same vowel twice, so it is really important to eliminate all or most of the vowels early on.
Keep in mind this strategy has allowed me to win every single time, usually by the 3rd or 4th try.
@freemo But if you start with adieu, you basically kinda just repeat letters in the 2nd word unless you choose a word with only 'o' (and y) in it as vowels. And then you haven't hit the useful consonants yet.
@trinsec Repeat letters in the second word? Do you mean the letters that match or the ones that eliminate? You **Want** to repeat letters, if they are the letters that match.
The second word i will use all the clues from the first, and add in an o and sometimes y. I never use a word that doesnt have a chance of being the correct word.
@freemo If you only have 'one letter in wrong spot' from the first word, you might as well make a second word that contains none of those letters to have a bigger hit chance on the remaining letters to find. The chance of you hitting it rich at the second word this way you might as well go buy a lot from the lottery. :P
@trinsec I disagree, if you only have one letter in the wrong spot in the first word you should 1) use one space to narrow dwn the correct position of the letter, 2) use the other spaces to find new letters.
I've hit the correct answer on my second try a few times with only slight hints off te first try
@freemo Meh, you do you. And if you disagree more, look at the shape of my today's wordle as answer. ;)
@trinsec My tactic is to consistently win, I have never lost :)
@freemo Well, _of course_ one's tactic is almost never to lose! Psaw!
@trinsec The point is the "Shape" of the result isnt important so much as if it leads you to win.
My tactic isnt just to discover the most common letters early as well as their position, but its just as useful when a letter doesnt land. So even if it seems like a lot of letters miss early on by the 4th or so try there is are very few viable letter combinations left. Thats why you will sometimes see me matching on just one or two letters and then solve it right away.
@freemo I know the shape doesn't matter.. just my today's shape is the answer to you in our disagreement, lol. Only today's shape, mind you. Check my last post about wordle.. :P
And yes, actually, your description is actually coincidentally what my today's shape shows as well, rofl. Except those weren't repeat letters on the first 2, just 2 wildly different words with useful consonants that led me to the right word.
@trinsec Think of it like this, with my tactic after the second guess I know of all the vowels which are present (including y), I know the exact position of at least one vowel, and I have determined if 3 or 4 of the most common consonants exist and perhaps the exact position of one of them.
Thats pretty wide coverage, especially considering words have 2 to 3 vowels in them. Thats usually enough to setup a win in the next answer or two.
@freemo Except in the English language, I find it's more likely that words have 1 to 2 vowels in those 5-letter words. Not 2 to 3.
@trinsec english words rarely have long sequences of consonants.. its usually a pattern of CVCVC (motor, robot, tutor, rotor,
etc), or CVVCV/CVCCV with y ending words (Poopy, loopy, Cocky, wacky, etc), or CVVCC, which is usually 'es' or 'ed ending. Most of the exception to this are double letters that make single consonant sounds (sh, ch, wh).but even those tend to have 2 vowels minimum (shoot, where, cheat).
In fact single vowel in a word is not very common at all for a 5 letter word.
@trinsec notice all of those are the exception i mentioned, namely two letters with one sound namely "rk" and "ck" here. In my setup you know exactly which vowels are present after 2 turns and know 4 out of 5 of them by the first turn. o by the second turn you already know if you are in a single vowel situation, even if that means you only know a single letter (not a bad thing). So basically in the single vowel case you know early on that you have either "sh", "ck", "rk", "wh", or "kn" somewhere in your word. Since you probably know where your single vowel is at in the word you can usually figure out what double-letter consonant you have since "ck", and "rk" only appear at the end, "wh" and "kn" are only at the begining, and sh is the only wild card.
So yea even in the rare case of a single vowel my strategy usually is very revealing even after the first guess and particularly by the second.
@freemo Just to hook up to 'two letters with one sound'... rk is one sound? 'r' 'k'... huh? The 'ck' I can see it, that's just pronounced as 'k' basically.. but r and k?
@trinsec
Ok might not be two letters with one sound, but point is pairs of consonants have only a few common ones.. you will never see most combos like there is no "jk" or "bk", etc. There are like half a dozen really common 2 letter consonants combos and other combos are pretty rare (like cl exists but only in a very small number of words like clocks)
@freemo I dunnooooooo.. there's still a fair amount. ;)
https://www.thefreedictionary.com/words-that-start-with-cl#w5
@trinsec
The main takeaway here is that once you nail down the vowels, even before you know what the consonants are you have huge hints for thr consonants. For example i try to get all the vowels and r, d, s in the first two words. With adieu i cover the vowels at the start along with d, one of the most common consonants. So right after the first word i know not just most vowels but also if an "ed" ending is possible. Next word i rule out s, r, y and o when possible so i know if its plural already and likely the position of a vowel. After that you have enough hints to guess the solution or close to it because even if its one vowel i can guess well enough based on the position what are likely consonants as mentioned before
@freemo Ok, say, today's word. Adieu. If I only know the 'u' and it's in the wrong spot, it honestly isn't telling me that much yet.
What's your 2nd word for this to tackle?
@trinsec
Cough would be my next as it gets in the final vowel, a new position on the u, and all the consonants are common ones you find it lots of words.
@freemo I went with 'marks' as that's all common enough consonants and vowel. Then 'towel' based on what I got from the first word, all letters are different. The W and R gave me a huge clue which led me to solve this.
@trinsec
Marks was your second guess after adieu?
@freemo No, I didn't use adieu at all. ;) I did the different approach since adieu didn't really work out for me in previous words.
Yea the consonants in marks is fine. But only a single vowel in the first word seems like a really poor tactic imo
@trinsec
Andit actually told you a lot. It told you it doesnt have an "ed" ending, it also tells you u, and maybe o are the only vowels. Eliminating vowels is just as helpful as matching them
@freemo Verbs and plurals are words too, though.
Marks, harks, barks, larks, rocks, socks, mocks, ticks tocks.