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[Orodruin]

I was wondering what word choices were used to be so efficient

I mean, my usual seed word is SUITE followed by ROYAL as this covers all vowels as well as a number of very common consonants. It didn't leave many more options ...

 

[jack action]

I mean, my usual seed word is SUITE followed by ROYAL as this covers all vowels as well as a number of very common consonants. It didn't leave many more options ...

Yes, this is what I call luck. It happens. Statistically, you should have been the only one in this group for this puzzle.

If the NYT average is 3.8 and we have 9 players (so far), then with your 2, the average of the others should be $\frac{3.8 * 9 - 2}{8} = 4.025$ and their average is 3.375. I'm just wondering if they have a special technique or if they were just a little less lucky than you.

@gmax137 still required a little bit of luck with choosing the correct answer between 5 possible answers. Unless he knew something I don't know, like previous answers maybe?

 

[Orodruin]

Yes, this is what I call luck. It happens. Statistically, you should have been the only one in this group for this puzzle.

Not really luck as it was bound to happen at some point. It just happened today.

If the NYT average is 3.8 and we have 9 players (so far), then with your 2, the average of the others should be $\frac{3.8 * 9 - 2}{8} = 4.025$ and their average is 3.375. I'm just wondering if they have a special technique or if they were just a little less lucky than you.

That’s gambler’s fallacy though … Just because I solved it in 2 doesn’t mean anyone here is less likely to solve it fast.

@gmax137 still required a little bit of luck with choosing the correct answer between 5 possible answers. Unless he knew something I don't know, like previous answers maybe?

Many people here take previous solutions into account. Iirc some may even use others’ solutions posted here as additional information but don’t quote me on that. I would dare a guess that people here take things a bit further than the average Wordle solver.

 

[fresh_42]

Wordle 1,125 4/6

 

[Orodruin]

Wordle 1 125 4/6

 

[gmax137]

@gmax137 still required a little bit of luck with choosing the correct answer between 5 possible answers. Unless he knew something I don't know, like previous answers maybe?

No, I don't have any lists, I don't have the list of all "allowed" words, nor the list of possible answers, nor the list of previous answers. I use seed words that pop into my head when I start each puzzle. From my first two guesses on 7/17:
SPLIT
THING
I get that the "I" is the third letter. And "T" is either 2nd or 4th. It seemed to me, that lots of words end in "ITE," I considered that before pondering for "*TI**" words. As mentioned above, I "saw" QUITE and thought "it's about time for 'QU' to make a showing."

My solving technique is kind of like crossword, or Wheel of Fortune: Once I have a letter or two I let my mind fill in the blanks.

 

[jack action]

Not really luck as it was bound to happen at some point. It just happened today.

That's what luck is. No matter, what word you choose as your first guess, it is bound to happen that it will be the answer. Though, there are no techniques that will increase your chances of making this happen. (Except maybe using a word that wasn't a previous answer, but the odds will still be low.)

No, I don't have any lists, I don't have the list of all "allowed" words, nor the list of possible answers, nor the list of previous answers. I use seed words that pop into my head when I start each puzzle. From my first two guesses on 7/17:
SPLIT
THING
I get that the "I" is the third letter. And "T" is either 2nd or 4th. It seemed to me, that lots of words end in "ITE," I considered that before pondering for "*TI**" words. As mentioned above, I "saw" QUITE and thought "it's about time for 'QU' to make a showing."

My solving technique is kind of like crossword, or Wheel of Fortune: Once I have a letter or two I let my mind fill in the blanks.

That is so weird because I was doing it without lists before and my thinking would have been different for similar reasons to yours:

I agree that from your guesses, thinking it ends in ITE may seem a logical guess ... but it was still erroneous to assume it was: there were actually more guesses NOT ending in ITE. And the fact that words with QU are so rare, I would prefer another guess. This is why I chose UNITE over QUITE with only those two possibilities. In your case, I would have chosen WRITE over QUITE. (Assuming I would have thought of it, of course.)

But even not knowing how many answers are possible, I would have probably taken a "lost" guess to identify the other missing letters, like CRATE (I get the most popular vowels, a new position for T, and two popular consonants) which in this case would have made QUITE a lot more obvious (actually, the only possible answer).

In the end, you must admit that selecting correctly a word from a list of five words - even if you didn't know how many there were - is being a little bit lucky. You have better odds guessing that the next card pulled from a deck of cards will be a figure (J, Q, K).

 

[Orodruin]

That's what luck is. No matter, what word you choose as your first guess, it is bound to happen that it will be the answer. Though, there are no techniques that will increase your chances of making this happen. (Except maybe using a word that wasn't a previous answer, but the odds will still be low.)

On a single isolated play yes. On the whole no. If I keep using the same word over and over, once all words are used it will have been solved in one exactly once. There is no variation here and therefore no luck. It is not a lottery where I can keep losing time after time even if I use the same numbers.

And the fact that words with QU are so rare, I would prefer another guess. This is why I chose UNITE over QUITE with only those two pos

This is another fallacy. Once you know it is one of those two, neither word is more or less probable than the other.

 

[Mister T]

Wordle 1,125 4/6






So far, no one has done any better (or any worse) than 4/6!

I wasted a move.

 

[Orodruin]

Wordle 1,125 4/6






So far, no one has done any better (or any worse) than 4/6!

I wasted a move.

The solution was the first word that popped into my mind after my two seeds. After some thinking I decided on a different word that was more informative if wrong …

 

[OmCheeto]

Wordle 1,125 3/6

So far, no one has done any better (or any worse) than 4/6!

This was all luck as I had 4 words to choose from after my second guess.

Likewise for game #1124. I had 3 words after the second guess and just happened to pick the correct one.

 

[sbrothy]

Wordle 1.125 4/6*

Spoiler

 

[jack action]

Wordle 1,125 4/6

[ROATE]
[FIDOS] (I should have gone with FINDS which was a better choice, especially in this case)
[CUBBY]

On a single isolated play yes. On the whole no. If I keep using the same word over and over, once all words are used it will have been solved in one exactly once.

You will never be able to say: «I got it on the first try, I knew it!» Unless there is only one word left that hasn't been played and it is yours. So getting it on the first try with thousands of possibilities - even just a dozen - cannot be any other thing than luck. There are no techniques to use for this to happen, so you cannot compare yourself to other people solving the same puzzle in 3-4 guesses and conclude your solving method is better than theirs.

And the fact that words with QU are so rare, I would prefer another guess. This is why I chose UNITE over QUITE with only those two poss

This is another fallacy. Once you know it is one of those two, neither word is more or less probable than the other.

I know but I was discussing how one selects the next guess without referring to a list where we all use this type of thinking:

I "saw" QUITE and thought "it's about time for 'QU' to make a showing."

I'm just amazed how we can react so differently while looking at the same thing, even though none of our reasoning is better.

So when you are stuck between 2 equivalent choices, you can throw a quarter in the air, pick the first one on the list, or you can revert to your old habits. Any way will yield the same odds, but you still have to pick one.

@Orodruin , how do you make a selection between 2 equivalent choices?

 

[kuruman]

Wordle 1,125 3/6

 

[Orodruin]

You will never be able to say: «I got it on the first try, I knew it!» Unless there is only one word left that hasn't been played and it is yours. So getting it on the first try with thousands of possibilities - even just a dozen - cannot be any other thing than luck. There are no techniques to use for this to happen, so you cannot compare yourself to other people solving the same puzzle in 3-4 guesses and conclude your solving method is better than theirs.

This is not what I argued. I argued that the long term is not stochastic. Over a course of all solutions, you will get it on one try exactly once. There is no variance to that. Each particular game may be stochastic, but they are (anti)correlated in such a way that total variance is zero.

 

[Orodruin]

@Orodruin , how do you make a selection between 2 equivalent choices?

You pick one of them. Neither is a better or worse choice.

 

[kuruman]

Yesterday, I got a score of 2. That is the best I could hope for since my seed word has already appeared and I do not plan to change it. I already had _ _ _ TE which produced 5 remaining candidates,
BRUTE
BUTTE
FORTE
QUITE
WHITE

I chose QUITE because it guarantees discrimination among the remaining candidates.
If it is is not QUITE and
it shows U in the right place, the answer is BUTTE
it shows U but not in the right place, the answer is BRUTE
it shows no new letters, the answer is FORTE
it shows I in position 3, the answer is WHITE

It was luck in the sense that (a) I could find a word that discriminated among all candidates, (b) that word was one of the candidates and (c) that word was the day's target word. All three had to come together to enable a solution in 2. Usually, I consider myself lucky if only (a) comes to pass.

 

[jack action]

You pick one of them.

I know you do.

UNITE or QUITE, pick one right now.

You got it?

OK then.

Tell me which one you chose and how you came to choose that word.

 

[gmax137]

Wordle 1,125 5/6

 

[kuruman]

So when you are stuck between 2 equivalent choices, you can throw a quarter in the air, pick the first one on the list, or you can revert to your old habits. Any way will yield the same odds, but you still have to pick one.

I have come across that dilemma quite a few times and I am sure it will happen again. When it does, I look for an excuse not to flip a coin. The guideline I use is to pick the word that is more frequently used. The assumption is that the puzzle-maker is not out to get anybody. So I would pick GUILT over GUILD. I have not kept statistics but this method of choosing seems to work more often than not for the time being. I also look for "seasonal" words, e.g. I would choose BIRTH over BIRCH around Christmas and DRINK over DRIFT around New Year's eve. Fortunately, TRUST has already been used and I will not be faced with the quandary of choosing it over TRUMP (or not) on Election Day.

 

[gmax137]

The assumption is that the puzzle-maker is not out to get anybody. So I would pick GUILT over GUILD.

I would probably make the same pick, but if both words are on the list, there's really no reason to pick one over the other. It would be like betting on RED rather than BLACK in roulette because "R" is a more common letter.

 

[kuruman]

I would probably make the same pick, but if both words are on the list, there's really no reason to pick one over the other.

Unless the puzzle-maker, who decides on the daily choice, is a human who introduces his/her/their bias. Deducing that bias might be worthwhile. Why give up and accept coin-tossing if you can tilt the odds to your favor?

It would be like betting on RED rather than BLACK in roulette because "R" is a more common letter.

Regarding casino odds, I remember reading the Eudaemonic Pie several decades ago. It was amazing what those people did given the technology of the time. Truly a source of inspiration.

 

[dwarde]

The word isn't even in my 1984 American Heritage Dictionary.
Wordle 1,125 5/6

 

[fresh_42]

The word isn't even in my 1984 American Heritage Dictionary.
Wordle 1,125 5/6

Yes, that s****. They sometimes have words that aren't words. I use online dictionaries and in this case, I proposed rexdy and then xerdy waiting for suggestions of my obvious misspelling. (I use this method because my English vocabulary is significantly smaller than my German one.) As the actual solution came up as the only left possibility, I had to give it a try.

 

[gmax137]

Unless the puzzle-maker, who decides on the daily choice, is a human

I don't think that it is a human choice. Maybe someone here still has the original java script? I remember looking at it briefly when Wordle was a new thing, and I seem to recall a kind of randomizer (but that could easily be faulty memory on my part). Since NYT took it over, I don't think the script is available online.

 

[kuruman]

The word isn't even in my 1984 American Heritage Dictionary.

Perhaps the word wasn't mainstreamed until after the movie in the spoiler popularized it.

Spoiler

Revenge of the Nerds

 

[kuruman]

I don't think that it is a human choice. Maybe someone here still has the original java script? I remember looking at it briefly when Wordle was a new thing, and I seem to recall a kind of randomizer (but that could easily be faulty memory on my part). Since NYT took it over, I don't think the script is available online.

See here.

 

[fresh_42]

See here.

That explains why words like e.g. "queer" or similar do not occur.

 

[fresh_42]

Wordle 1,126 3/6





Not bad for a zero first.

 

[Orodruin]

Wordle 1 126 4/6

UNITE or QUITE, pick one right now.

You got it?

OK then.

Tell me which one you chose and how you came to choose that word.

That is post-hoc and would therefore not mean much. I had a 1/2 on the third guess above. I just picked one at random. It was wrong.

 

[jack action]

That is post-hoc and would therefore not mean much. I had a 1/2 on the third guess above. I just picked one at random. It was wrong.

You don't understand what I'm trying to do here. The choices are irrelevant. The game Wordle is irrelevant as well. All we know is that the choices are equivalent. Let me ask it again:

• HEAD or TAIL?
• BLACK or WHITE?
• ITALIAN or BANANA?

Give me an answer to each of these questions then tell me how you came up with making that choice. If you say you "picked one at random", how did you do it? A coin toss? You took the first one? Did you go alphabetically?

How did you make the final decision and why?

Let me help you (WARNING: The following may influence your choice!):

• TAIL - I have never seen a double-headed coin but I know they exist and I never heard of a double-tailed coin, so I always choose tail even if no coin is involved;
• BLACK - I always preferred the darker things;
• BANANA - I find that word funny.

Now that everyone knows that, one could ask me "BLACK or BANANA?" And I would answer BLACK because the word is shorter.

This is how I picked my words. There's a reason behind every choice we make. There must be, no matter how senseless this reason may be. Even with "picking at random" we must choose a method to decide for us and there is a reason for selecting that method.

 

[gmax137]

See here.

I stand corrected!

 

[gmax137]

There's a reason behind every choice we make.

Sometimes I listen to Wigner's friend.

 

[OmCheeto]

I got tired of the 50/50/90* rule, so I ended up leaving coin flip decisions to my spreadsheet:

=RANDBETWEEN(1,2)​

*Given a 50/50 chance of making the correct choice, Om will get it wrong 90% of the time.

 

[fresh_42]

I got tired of the 50/50/90* rule, so I ended up leaving coin flip decisions to my spreadsheet:

=RANDBETWEEN(1,2)​

*Given a 50/50 chance of making the correct choice, Om will get it wrong 90% of the time.

We have a song here about a pathological gambler. It is about a fixation on the number 17 at a roulette table ruining his life. I can't tell how many rounds my friend had spent betting on 17. It was a few. No luck at all, of course. You bet, 17 fell the moment he had left the table!