Is Getting WORDLE On Second Try Just Luck? What Are The Most Likely Letters?

 

How much of WORDLE is luck?  [This is a fairly long and detailed post.  But before you ditch it for something more interesting to you, I'd recommend scrolling to the end.]

Here are my stats (end of February).  The streak break was when I used my laptop instead of my phone.  Now I just use the phone.  The Sixes were fairly recent.  In both cases I goofed.  In one I used a letter I already knew was not in the word.  In the other case though I should have thought a bit more before trying out a word.  That left me with several possible first letters and not enough rounds.  I lucked out in round six.  If I'd have chosen the other possible word, I'd have gone over the Wordle cliff.  

A discussion with my daughter was the catalyst for this post.  I've got eight right guesses in round 2. (One more since then.) While luck plays a role, I would argue that strategy lowers the odds so that a second row pick isn't purely luck.  (But mostly)

So after February ended, I pulled up all the words for February 

If you look for patterns you can probably find what you're looking for.  How many days in a row do they use one or more letters from the previous day's word?   February 11 and 12 they had two words in a row that began with UL!  And they had had U's in the previous two days.  The lesson:  don't assume anything can't happen.  

THE DISTRIBUTION OF LETTERS (for February 2022)

Vowels

• A = 12 times in 11 different words
• E = 12 times in 12 different words
• I  = 9  times in 7 different words
• O =12 times in 12 different words
• U = 5 times in 5 different words
• Y = 1 time in 1  word

Here are some more observations about the vowels (Remember this is just February 2022):

WORDS WITH JUST ONE VOWEL - 6/28

WORDS WITH TWO DIFFERENT VOWELS - 19/28

WORDS WITH THE SAME VOWEL USED TWICE - 2/28 (ELDER and VIVID)

WORDS WITH THREE VOWELS - 1/28 (ONE DOUBLE) (AROMA)

IF A WORD HAD ONLY ONE VOWEL - IT WAS ALWAYS THE MIDDLE LETTER

VOWEL IS FIRST LETTER - 6/28   (A=2  E=1  I=0  O=1  U=2)

CONSONANTS (FROM MOST TO LEAST FREQUENT)

• L=  All three L's in 4th spot were words with LL at the end.(SKILL, SWILL, SPILL)
• T =  Note:   FIRST AND LAST = 1 (TACIT)
• H = Note:  2 TH..., 2 SH... 2 CH....words

• C = 7
• D = 5
• K = 5
• M= 4
• N = 4
• P = 3
• V = 3 (Twice in VIVID)
• M = 3
• B  = 2
• F = 2
• G = 1
• W = 1
• J, Q, X, Z = 0

THOUGHTS

1. This was just for February, a short month.  It doesn't mean these letter frequencies will hold up into other months.  But they might be pretty close.
2. I was surprised by L and R.  But on reflection, it makes sense for them to show up often in five letter words.  They form consonant clusters.  That's a term I learned when I taught English as a foreign language.  It just means two consonants together.  BR, BL, CR, CL, DR, FR, FL, GR, GL etc.  They also work as the first letter in a consonant cluster with many letters:  scaRF, chaLK, fauLT, smaRT, etc.  
3. Words that have the same letter twice are tricky.  They aren't frequent, but in February it happened three times with vowels and a number of times with consonants. So remember that possibility.  They're tricky because once you get a green one, you think you're done with that letter.  And because to check you have to get the second one in the right spot, otherwise you'll think it's the one you already found. Would a blue square for a letter used twice be helpful?  Yes, but what happens when it's in the right place and would normally be green?  Something to think about.  Did the original inventors rule that out or just not think about it?
4. Sometimes you get stuck with three or four correct letters and with LOTS of letters that could fit, but not enough rounds to try them all.  That's when using a strategy is really important.
5. Wordle doesn't seem to pick plurals (CRABS, FORKS) or 3rd person verbs (JUMPS, FLIES). I think there'd be a lot more S's if they did.  

Strategies

1. First word should be mostly or all words made up of the most common vowels and consonants.  Words like ROAST, LATER, TRIAL, STEAR, etc.  This helps in two ways:
1. Increases your odds of getting one or more correct letters
2. It eliminates frequent letters, thus improving the odds when picking the next words
2. Second word will, of course, depend on the first word results.  You want to go for another word with as many frequent letters as possible.
1. If the first word gives you one green letter, that's really helpful.  More green or yellow letters is useful.  You can use the letters a couple of ways:
1. Think of words with the green letters in the right spot.  If you can only think of one or two, then try one of them as your next word.  It might be the right word or it might force you to think of more possible words.  Ideally you will eliminate common letters or change some yellow to green.
2. If you can think of lots of such words, then try to use the most common letters again to 
1. figure out which letters are in the word or NOT in the word.  If you pick your words well, you'll find that a lot of words won't work because you've already eliminated one or more important letters. 
2. For example:
   
   
   If the T were yellow, I might just go for a totally different word with as many unused common letters as possible. Or keep the T in the word to try to make it green.   But with a GREEN T, I made a list of words ending in T.
   
   
   MOIST   COUNT   CLOUT  MOUNT  FOUNT  FLINT  STINT
   BLUNT   UNLIT   BUILT   SCOUT  JOINT   POINT  SWIFT (but not ERUPT because E and R were eliminated in HEART)
   
   
   Then I counted the letters: N9, O8, I8,  U7, L5, S4,  C3, M2, B2, J1, P1, W1
   Then I picked the word that had the most frequent letters.
   
   But there are 8 Os and you have no O, you say.  If you look, all the words with O also had U or an I.  UNLIT got rid of ALL the words I'd guessed at. Got rid of words with L and I, words without U or N, and words where U or N were in the wrong place.  So I had to think of new words - ones with a U in the 3rd or 4th spot. The closest word I had was SCOUT.  But N is the second letter.  So my next word was
   
   

   

   
   

   I was lucky that they hadn't picked another word I hadn't thought of. 

   You don't want to get in the position where you have three or four green letters but there are ten possible letters for the missing space(s).  You don't want to find yourself picking for row 4 with green - -OWN at the end.  Your options would be:

   BLOWN, BROWN, CLOWN, CROWN, FLOWN, 

   FROWN, DROWN, GROWN, SHOWN

   This is why you want to confirm or eliminate Rs and Ls early. 
3. Try to be clever or go for broke?
1. Should you try to guess the word on the second try or use a longer term strategy. like the one above?    If you can only think of 1-3 words that work with the letters you've discovered in round one, go for it.  Ideally one of the possible words will help eliminate all or at least most of the others.  
2. Should you keep a GREEN letter where it is?  In the HEART case I did because there were so many possible words and I could get a word that might eliminate all the others.  And it could be the right word.  If it's yellow, keep it to find its proper spot, or at least eliminate ones where it doesn't fit.   But sometimes it's better to cast your net for as many letters as you can, and you already know where the GREEN letter goes.  

Does this sort of strategy eliminate all the fun?  I guess it depends on how you define fun.  Just finding the right words without thinking too much is great fun.  But for me, going beyond the sixth row is to be avoided as much as possible.  And so far I've only gotten to row 6 twice.  And both times got the WHEW that goes with it.

So to answer the title question about luck or skill, I'd say it's a combination of both.  

You can increase your odds by using the most common letters - either finding out they are in the word, or eliminating them (and many possible words that have them.)

According to wordmom, there are 6445 five letter words in the English Scrabble dictionary.  I don't know how many are plurals or 3rd person singular verbs, but for ease, let's say there are 6000 words you could choose from.  Your odds are one chance out of 6000.  Way better than most lotteries.  But not anything I'd bet money on.  Wordmom also lets you do other interesting searches.

"Five letter words with S - 1745

Five letter words with T - 1630

Five letter words with E = 2960

Five letter words with A = 2845

Five letter words with L = 1760"

Getting rid of the letter E cuts your odds in half almost.  And getting rid of A does almost as much.  If you get rid of words with all those letters, you improve your odds greatly.  

I haven't made a list of March words yet, but I'd like to just to see if it changes the most used letters significantly.  I suspect not.  

When I Google "good luck happens" it gets me to  “Luck Is What Happens When Preparation Meets Opportunity,"  That's a little moralistic for my taste, but I do think that doing a little exploration can increase your odds in WORDLE.  

Doing posts like this is why my todo lists never get done.  But it's fun to figure things out.  

I'd note that my Chilean friend says there's a Spanish version and I guess a lot of other languages have it too.  What about languages like Thai or Hebrew where the vowels can go above or below the consonant?  Or Chinese that use characters?  I'll let someone else check that out.