Wordle Lovers - Play the NYT Daily Game

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kuruman said:
...

View attachment 351575
Have I ever mentioned, that I love graphs.

From my analysis, everyone has improved, except for one person.....
hmmmm.....
My only logical conclusion, is that my science experiment, must be better than everyone else's.
Yah! That's the ticket.
Getting worse in this game is better!

1727478031800.png
 
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It was the first thing that came to mind after my seed word. Unfortunately I have been trying to get away from "the first thing that comes to mind" and played it last. :smile: :smile:
Wordle 1,197 5/6

🟨🟩🟨⬜⬜
⬜🟩🟩🟩⬜
⬜🟩🟩🟩⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
 
Wordle 1,198 4/6

⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ [CLASH] 229 left - my seed word was not too helpful this time.
🟨🟨⬛⬛🟨 [IRONE] filter - 13 left
🟨⬛⬛🟨⬛ [DAVIT] filter - 3 left: RIDER WEIRD WIDER
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 [RIDER] WEIRD was weird and WIDER was too blah; RIDER is the only option left for a human to choose.
 
jack action said:
Wordle 1,198 4/6

⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ [CLASH] 229 left - my seed word was not too helpful this time.
🟨🟨⬛⬛🟨 [IRONE] filter - 13 left
🟨⬛⬛🟨⬛ [DAVIT] filter - 3 left: RIDER WEIRD WIDER
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 [RIDER] WEIRD was weird and WIDER was too blah; RIDER is the only option left for a human to choose.
Regarding the "weirder" words I'd expect (as I don't keep track like you do) that most of the "ordinary" words were used by now. Although, now that I write it out I can see the error in my thinking. Why would the "ordinary" words be used first?
 
Wordle 1,198 3/6

⬜⬜⬜⬜🟦
🟦🟧⬜🟧🟧
🟧🟧🟧🟧🟧
sbrothy said:
Regarding the "weirder" words I'd expect (as I don't keep track like you do) that most of the "ordinary" words were used by now. Although, now that I write it out I can see the error in my thinking. Why would the "ordinary" words be used first?
I think that separating words as "weird" and "blah" is not a reliable criterion. I looked at the list of used words and I picked the first 5 that I would place in each category according to my sense of usage frequency in spoken English. Of course a thorough job would require one to go through the entire list. I am not inclined to do that at this point.

"Weird" "Blah"
ADOBE ABOUT
AORTA ANGRY
ASKEW AWAKE
BEGET BELOW
BIOME BEING
 
kuruman said:
Wordle 1,198 3/6

⬜⬜⬜⬜🟦
🟦🟧⬜🟧🟧
🟧🟧🟧🟧🟧

I think that separating words as "weird" and "blah" is not a reliable criterion. I looked at the list of used words and I picked the first 5 that I would place in each category according to my sense of usage frequency in spoken English. Of course a thorough job would require one to go through the entire list. I am not inclined to do that at this point.

"Weird" "Blah"
ADOBE ABOUT
AORTA ANGRY
ASKEW AWAKE
BEGET BELOW
BIOME BEING
Yes, as I wrote I saw my fallacy as I wrote it but had too much inertia to stop. I'm not surprised there's more than one thing wrong with my "argument".

EDIT: Oh, you weren't addressing me. Nvm.
EDIT2: Also, just for the record: There's nothing wrong with my "fallacy". Don't believe what you hear! o0)
 
Last edited:
sbrothy said:
Yes, as I wrote I saw my fallacy as I wrote it but had too much inertia to stop. I'm not surprised there's more than one thing wrong with my "argument".

EDIT: Oh, you weren't addressing me. Nvm.
EDIT2: Also, just for the record: There's nothing wrong with my "fallacy". Don't believe what you hear! o0)
I was merely augmenting your argument. My subjective opinion is that @jack action's quest for finding and applying word selection criteria that are subjective to some generic "human" is, well . . . subjective.

Too many wheels within wheels to help one choose one of two possible words.
 
When you are left with a choice where all values have equal weight, you still have to pick one. Flipping a coin is just as good as any for a purely random process. I play Wordle on 2 other platforms where it is clear that the words are chosen at random. I don't use the criteria of "most likely chosen by a human" on those platforms. I usually choose the first word on the list provided by my program.

However, it is my theory that human intervention plays a role in the word selection for NYT Wordle. I'm testing that theory and sharing my results. It seems to give good results up until now and certainly better than always picking the first one at the top of the list.
 
I’ve said this before but I’m gonna hazard another iteration:

We might be overthinking this…?

:biggrin:
 
Wordle 1,198 2/6

⬜⬜⬜🟨⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

that was weird
 
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kuruman said:
Wordle 1,198 3/6

⬜⬜⬜⬜🟦
🟦🟧⬜🟧🟧
🟧🟧🟧🟧🟧

I think that separating words as "weird" and "blah" is not a reliable criterion. I looked at the list of used words and I picked the first 5 that I would place in each category according to my sense of usage frequency in spoken English. Of course a thorough job would require one to go through the entire list. I am not inclined to do that at this point.

"Weird" "Blah"
ADOBE ABOUT
AORTA ANGRY
ASKEW AWAKE
BEGET BELOW
BIOME BEING
I'm pretty sure you're right that "blah" is not a valid criterion for anything at all!

EDIT: Oh, you said "reliable". Well, I think my point still stands.

:smile:
 
Wordle 1,199 2/6

🟩🟩⬛⬛⬛ [CLASH] 8 left - CLIFF CLINK CLOUD CLOUT CLOVE CLUED CLUMP CLUNG
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 [CLOUD]

If the word selection is purely random, this is luck. But I still don't feel it is.

Looking at the word list, I could see that CLOUD was the most probable answer. CLIFF and CLOVE would have been among my second choices, but the rest of the list doesn't give you that cozy feeling that CLOUD does.

If I was wrong, CLOUD was not filtering everything but I could have made it in 4 at worst. The filter word proposed by the program was UNION which was not better than CLOUD at filtering the list. (If not worst.)

I felt like I had no choice but CLOUD. I didn't even check the other words to see if they were better filters. (I checked it now, they're not.)
 
jack action said:
However, it is my theory that human intervention plays a role in the word selection for NYT Wordle. I'm testing that theory and sharing my results. It seems to give good results up until now and certainly better than always picking the first one at the top of the list.
Sounds like an interesting theory but I think it's a bit flawed because the "human" that presumably makes the word choice is very unlikely to have been faced with the same 2-3 choices that you are faced with when you solve the puzzle. It looks like this "human" is actually you. You make the choice but you shift the credit or blame to some other person for it.

You say you test your theory. That's as it should be but what is your testing protocol? In my mind a good test would be to make a prediction and see it borne out by data collection. You could use your theory to that effect for the NYT Wordle and the other versions. Here is one protocol that I thought of.

Initialization
  • Go through the list of candidate words and assign a priori weights of +1, or -1 to each depending on whether they are, respectively, "More likely" or "Less likely" to be the answer according to your criteria of likelihood.
  • Initialize the running total (RT) to zero. This will be modified daily as the data collection proceeds.
Data collection
  • Use your favorite method of solving the daily puzzle.
  • Use filters to bring the number of candidates down to ##n\leq 3.##

When ##n=2##,
  • If (+1, -1), choose the word with +1. If correct add +1 to RT (Running Total); if incorrect add (-1) to RT.
  • If (-1, -1) or (+1, +1), choose randomly. If correct add +½ to RT; if incorrect add (-½) to RT.

When ##n=3##,
  • If (+1, -1,-1), choose the word with +1. If correct add +2 to RT; if incorrect add (-1) to RT.
  • If (+1, +1,-1), choose randomly one of the +1 words. If correct add ##(+\frac{1}{3})## to RT; if incorrect add ##(\text{-}\frac{2}{3})## to RT.
  • If (-1, -1,-1) or (+1, +1, +1), choose randomly. If correct add +⅓ to RT; if incorrect add (-⅓) to RT.
After a sizable number of daily RT entries the RT should be close to zero when the selection is random (assuming that I figured out the weights correctly.) It will be positive if you have guessed the underlying human intervention mechanism correctly and negative if you have not.

To @sbrothy : If the idea crosses your mind that we are overthinking this, you're probably right ##~\dots~## but it's fun to do so.
 
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@kuruman You have no clue how much I wanted to do such a protocol!

I wanted to sort the possible answers in order of importance, giving each of the answers a numerical value. I do not have enough time to do so.

kuruman said:
Sounds like an interesting theory but I think it's a bit flawed because the "human" that presumably makes the word choice is very unlikely to have been faced with the same 2-3 choices that you are faced with when you solve the puzzle.
It doesn't matter. No matter which list of words I have, I still rank them overall, comparing them to all possible words. If I have:
  • HEAVEN
  • HELL
  • BANANA
My order is HEAVEN, BANANA, HELL. But if I get:
  • HEAVEN
  • ANGEL
  • BANANA
Then my order is ANGEL, HEAVEN, BANANA. But if I get:
  • BRUTE
  • CORRUPT
  • BANANA
I switch to BANANA, BRUTE, and CORRUPT as my most likely words.

If the chosen word is BANANA, then only the last scenario will work. But if my sorting criteria - even if only in my mind - are similar to the one from the Wordle editor, HEAVEN and ANGEL will already have been chosen and thus never appear on my possible choices for a solution (I track past solutions). Of course, not having a list per se means that as the solutions appear, my sorting order evolves as well. I would love to put that in an algorithm just to understand how my mind works. But time is a factor and I must prioritize the projects I select and how I execute them.