Defend The Indefensible: Wordle

re todays purple (#369) i had 3/4 early (jeter gave me a good guess, found deputy and silver) and then spent about 30 seconds looking for some variation on the word "poo" to close it out

don't think I can properly see the last 3 spoiler tag text

Said out loud by me earlier: what the fuck is a Derek Jeter? I'm fine with the article in there. Figured it was as likely to be a donut or a burger as anything else.

Yeah I only got that group by elimination and I really wish all of these puzzles would stop using fiercely US-centric sports examples all the damn time.

i understand the complaints, but . . . it *is* an american newspaper based in nyc (where derek jeter played for 20 years)

i mean if the sydney morning herald runs a puzzle featuring the late shane warne that's honestly to be expected?

i do wonder what proportion of the nyt games subscriptions are international tho. i'm sure they'll be happy to adjust if it means more money

Yeah thats a fair point.

tbf jeter having worn no. 2 is kinda deep lore! probably would have been better to use him as a CAPTAIN

I get that NYC thing and am only ribbing, really. Fwiw though, Shane Warne *did* transcend Australia though - he played against other international teams, played in the IPL etc etc.

They 100% should have inverted the colors on the Connections today

yesterday too. baseball and fish more niche than hair and phrases, imo.

*basketball

I sort of have a hack for Wordle? I guess ADIEU and then CRONY and I get it in three more often than not

This isn't my personal strategy but a friend of mine always starts with "RAINY" and "MOUSE" which is surely the cuetest strategy of them all.

That is adorable. NOISE KRAUT is my go to.

RAISE or ARISE for #1 depending on mood, then YOUTH OR YOUNG depending on what the first one gives.

First 5 letter word I think of ftw, ymmv but I’m never doing strategy on the 30 second word puzzle

I am team STARE / POUND / MILKY (if necessary)

for quordle etc i use TRAMP/LOUSE/DINGY but the stare/pound/milky sequence looks good, will try

Switching games -- I usually dispatch WordAll pretty quickly but it totally defeated me today.

Todays connections was impossible and I only got it by getting one by complete chance.
How is "crime" included in "measured by degrees"? I guessed the right words for the wrong reason on that one, ha.

It was fine, like it always is

murder in the first degree

Ohhhh.

are you talking about tomorrow's connections? how did you get it

I dunno, its already the 17th here is why I guess? Doesnt it tick over for y'all at midnight or something?

yes, but for me midnight is not for another 7 hours. I would ask why you are doing puzzles at midnight but I understand, if I were awake I would do them then too

it's based on your own time zone. so i think you could get it earlier if you changed the clock on your device.

Oh lol it isnt midnight here, its 10AM monday!

I guess you are in Australia? The world clock is so weird

I'm not going to change the clock on my computer but thank you jaymc. I value you a lot as a poster btw

Connections for me is a lesser puzzle, it's fun to do it but I don't care about solving it that much and don't care about spoilers.

Regarding Wordle, wins says they are never doing strategy on a 30 second word puzzle, but I think it is not just a 30 second word puzzle. It is fascinating to me. We know we can choose each word to eliminate as many other words as possible, using as many vowels and consonants as we think are necessary.

But in the end it comes down to what you chose and what the other remaining words are, and if you want to take a chance between two or three of four words or post a word that eliminates all but one

In the process there is good luck and bad luck, but there is also a lot of strategy involved in how many choices it takes you to solve it.

I find myself sometimes choosing between two words at the end, like today between wring and grind. Sometimes I choose the right word, today I chose the wrong one

wouldn't say connections is a great puzzle but it seems pretty difficult to construct and has been interesting much longer than i'd have thought possible

also i enjoy when they (she?) place the boxes in an order that, while wrong, references something entirely different

I have gotten the right combo for the wrong reason on multiple occasions!

yeah I start with the first 5-letter word that comes into my head, seems like a reasonable strategy. If you always do the same words at the start then you're highly unlikely to get it in 2 which is one of life's rare pleasures for me

like today I was looking at a piece of paper so I entered paper and got the first and last green which made prior a shoo-in

I tried creaming my own Connections puzzle yesterday, and it wasn't easy.to make one that I thought was suitably challenging, with decent amounts of red herrings.

also i enjoy when they (she?) place the boxes in an order that, while wrong, references something entirely different

Or the top 4 words create a phrase. Recently it was smash, that, like, button. Or is that what you meant?

i’m kind of annoyed at my wordle hack now because it’s made it too easy!

I try to use a different starting word every day for wordle, it makes it more interesting I think, though obviously it hurts my stats, but I don't really care about that too much

I thought that ADIEU was the most common first word, but not the most effective. Or at least that's what the bot told me.

sometimes I just ask my daughter for a 5 letter word. It's not ideal when she says "mommy", but that's just an additional challenge.

i’m sure that’s true, but it also seems like any reasonably diverse set of two words with popular letters in it is going to provide a similar shortcut

xpost lol

I started playing SLATE every day because that was supposedly the best starting word according to the bot, but now it's TRACE:

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/10/upshot/wordle-wordlebot-starting-word.html

If you already have two vowels from your first guess, wouldn't ruling out a 3rd (along with Y) be a bit of a wasted guess? Obviously 5-letter words can have more than 3 vowels but I usually only follow up ADIEU with STORY or STONY if I don't get 2 vowels right.

trust the process

I try to use a different starting word every day for wordle, it makes it more interesting I think, though obviously it hurts my stats, but I don't really care about that too much

Wins is Derek Jeter's dad.

I mean id barely heard of him but I inferred that he was #2 based on the fact that that was very obviously the connection

Cool, cool. I get it most days too. Didn't get that one and felt injured that it was outside my frame of cultural reference so wanted to whine about it.

what is a good second word with TRACE? With CRANE there is TOILS

or PILOT

MOGUL?

SPOIL

Yeah, SPOIL seems good. Also thought about LIONS or LOINS, but those will never be the actual word.

LOINS (or NOILS) best, according to this

https://github.com/alex1770/wordle/blob/e298e35fbc044a8137da235a8940748770cefd2c/twowords-nyt20220316-best11099.txt