Wordle in a Minute - 13th December 2024

Sometimes #Wordle doesn't just require luck, or even word knowledge - maybe a little ... strategy?

[VaughanMcAlley]

“This could be lots of things… BOXER”
Good Hard Mode playing though!

[roiporat]

Mark’s opening word sequence currently:

BEGIN NIGHT SMALL BLACK BLIND MOLES THERE CLOCK SHOPS WEEDS FANCY

Theme: The 5-letter words from Dylan Thomas’ radio drama, Under Milk Wood, in order

…the undertaker and the fancy WOMAN…

[HaldaneSmith]

Wordle by the Numbers - Boxer
Standard mode failure rate: 29.3%
Standard mode average guesses: 5.3
Hard mode failure rate: 29.1%
Hard mode average guesses: 5.5

Standard / Hard
12/13/2024 Boxer 29.3% 5.3 / 29.1% 5.5
12/12/2024 Vying 13.6% 4.8 / 9.2% 4.8
12/11/2024 Plumb 3.2% 4.1 / 1.6% 4.0
12/10/2024 Patio 1.3% 3.6 / <1% 3.5
12/09/2024 Flung 2.5% 4.1 / 1.1% 4.1
12/08/2024 Hyena 3.6% 4.0 / 1.4% 3.9
12/07/2024 Hilly 4.2% 4.1 / 2.9% 4.0

Boxer is the 2nd hardest Wordle in the last six months, and the third hardest in the last 8 months.

The hardest Wordles in the last six months based on standard-mode miss rate:

10/15/2024 Corer 44.2% 5.7 / 44.0% 5.9
12/13/2024 Boxer 29.3% 5.3 / 29.1% 5.5
10/09/2024 Mommy 20.6% 5.0 / 15.9% 5.0
10/19/2024 Fiber 19.8% 5.0 / 19.5% 5.0
10/06/2024 Lager 18.0% 4.6 / 14.2% 4.4
10/26/2024 Wreak 15.0% 4.9 / 11.5% 5.0
06/18/2024 Cover 14.2% 4.4 / 10.8% 4.4
11/14/2024 Uvula 13.7% 4.8 / 3.8% 4.6
12/12/2024 Vying 13.6% 4.8 / 9.2% 4.8
09/29/2024 Rider 13.0% 4.6 / 11.6% 4.7
10/11/2024 Gusty 12.3% 4.7 / 11.2% 4.8
11/13/2024 Primp 12.0% 4.5 / 8.7% 4.5
10/28/2024 Bawdy 10.3% 4.7 / 6.4% 4.7
07/12/2024 Jiffy 10.0% 4.9 / 6.3% 4.7
07/10/2024 Gaunt 10% 4.6 / 10.0% 4.4

Free tip: when the -o-er pattern is found, the guesses Mower and Cover can eliminate 14 of the 24 matching words. Of the 10 misses, only a few have not been previous answers (I think): Sober, Roger, Poser.

<1% presumably means <0.5%. Wordlebot uses <1% for small values, but it also uses values of 0.5% to 0.9%.

Me (6): talEs > dinER > mOwER > cOvER > rOgER > BOXER
Hard-mode streak: 51

Data is from Wordlebot.

[Mzrc]

Finally lost my streak on this one. Somewhere around 18 months.

Had the o e and r from the second guess. Ended with foyer and joker thinking they’d be it. Oh well, rip streak.

[TheGameAdventurer]

Bower was a really smart guess to try out two options

[HaldaneSmith]

The Shrinking Wordle-verse

Words left after Fancy - 840
After Stoup - 81
After Hover - 8 (Bower, Lower, Mower, Rower, Boxer, Joker, Roger, Dozer)
After Bower - 1
After Boxer - 0

Skill: 91/99
Luck: 33/99

Data is from Wordlebot.

[emilywilliams]

I have a streak of three … FAILS on this one! Two friends of mine also failed, and one said, send me a link to your one-minute guy! Well done, Mark. You demonstrated (again) a way of thinking through options that can help mitigate a HMH situation!

[jbchesskid]

1:36 Mark does his best boxer impression

[gxdxr]

Fair to say the second half of 2024 has been way harder than the first?

[jvx]

omg, I lost my streak on this one and you come out with BOXER first thing! Well done to you, Mark! 👏👏👏
I tried MOVER, FOYER, COWER, LOSER, and POKER, oy!

[Kuddochan]

I feel like _o_er words in general tend to lead to problems because there are so many options. At least this one was a word you could actually think of unlike corer though.

[garyblackwoodpoker]

Punched the air on the tube when you got it, the streak lives on!!!

[CarmenBoyesBeeTheBee]

Seriously. This man is astounding. Who thinks like this. Wow!!!❤😮❤

[SimonSideburns]

This one lost me my 100% winning percentage. My first ever loss. I was quite unhappy, yesterday, but onwards and upwards they say.

[randomjunk]

My run was GHOST, LONER, POKER, MOVER, CODER, BOXER.

Two days in a row squeaking out of a HMH on 6

[Moolers]

Lost another streak here. It was only 12 days, but it's still frustrating because ever since my 312 day record streak, I've been struggling to get past 30. Has it actually gotten harder?

[Railbird_]

My thought process was to use the less likely letters first because the more common words have probably been the answer before at this point.
CLASP - OUTER - MOVER - BOXER

[kathrynbolle]

Lost my streak on this one. I had the same pattern and just had to guess. Boxer never crossed my mind, unfortunately.

[jon]

Two tough days in a row, both got lucky 6's! The first day I had a 50/50 for dying and vying, and thought dying was too morbid to be right. Phew! Yesterday, I don't know how many words were left but I thought my streak was finally over and took a knockout blow with Boxer.. phew again! then

[rueme]

Yet another heart attack you gave me with that music!