Winning Wordle
> <i>(2) What is a winning strategy I can memorize?</i><p>> <i>Q: What simple strategy guarantees a win within 6 guesses?</i><p>I've seen a lot of analyses of Wordle that pose this question, and I feel like these are not people who play Wordle (not unlikely - these are seemingly people more interested in analysing the game from a statistical standpoint than simply playing directly).<p>But while the answer to this question is interesting enough, it's not <i>that</i> interesting. People I've spoken to who play have zero interest in winning in 5 or 6 guesses - in fact most would consider a score of 6/6 a loss (or at least a relatively bad score), unless it was a particularly tricky word.<p>> <i>(1) If I win in two guesses, am I good or lucky?</i><p><i>Q: What first guess maximizes the number of guaranteed wins on the second guess?</i><p><i>Q: What first guess maximizes the number of expected wins on the second guess?</i><p>> <i>The probability of winning in two guesses is about 2%, so the answer is: mostly lucky.</i><p>These - and the follow-ups I was hoping for for 3, 4 & 5 guesses respectively - are much more interesting questions.<p>* Yes I can just clone this and edit to find these things out (& probably will later this week) but I'm just commenting on my confusion around why there's so much focus on the least interesting part of a problem.