do you have a wordle strategy?

I confess I was not into Wordle when it first came out. I kept seeing these weird green and yellow boxes all over Twitter and it just seemed like the next big trend. But then a friend told me it was a word game and that I might like it. I tried it out and I am hooked. I try to play every day; sometimes I forget and then I end up playing at 11 o’clock at night, but at least I played that day!

Wordle is a web-based game where you have six attempts to guess a five-letter word. I love word games and puzzles. I like using my brain and I like to think I am keeping my brain healthy by concentrating and solving problems. Everyone knows that puzzles are good for your brain. They help boost your brainpower and improve cognition. I love knowing that I am sharpening my wits while doing something fun.

My question is, do you have a Wordle strategy? Because I do.

I usually play the same couple of words on the first guess – either STARE or EARTH. If neither of those words have any letters in the Wordle, then I will guess another word with different vowels – sometimes CLOUD or HOUND. I try to use words with a lot of vowels so I can figure out what vowels are in the Wordle. I actually find this strategy kind of funny because if I were ever on the game show Wheel of Fortune, I would never buy a vowel. I am usually the person yelling at the contestants who buy all the vowels after one spin. But when you only have six attempts to guess a word, anything helps.

Note that I do not play in Hard Mode – I am not that competitive.

Even if I know some of the letters in the Wordle, sometimes I will play a completely different word just to eliminate or confirm letters. This works well when I know four out of the five letters and there are multiple different letters that could be the 5th. I will guess a word that has various letters that that 5th letter could be in the hopes that one of those tiles will turn yellow.

My final strategy is that if I am completely stumped, I will just start typing out words using the letters I have left in the hopes that one of those combinations will be a word I recognize. I have had to look some words up in the dictionary because I think to myself, “That’s not how you spell that.” And I am usually wrong (looking at you NATAL).

I’ve found that the hardest part for me is thinking up five-letter words. I find myself thinking up words to guess but they are four-letter or six-letter words. I spend half my time trying to think up a word that has five letters in it. But I still enjoy playing Wordle.