Python Wordle helper

Mon 07 August 2023 Python python / wordle

Overview

• installation: see https://arrizza.com/setup-common

Summary

This module finds the best initial 5-letter words to use in Wordle. It reports 3 words that have the highest probable hits for each character position. This helps to ensure that of all possible word solutions in Wordle, these 3 words will show the most likely characters in those words and the most likely positions of those characters in those words.

These three words will have all the vowels and the most likely consonants in the 5-letter solutions used in Wordle solutions.

In short, this simply increases the odds of getting more clues for you to use when playing Wordle.

Note: file valid-wordle-words.txt comes from https://gist.github.com/dracos for that content see copyright and licensing there

• See Quick Start for information on using scripts.

• See xplat-utils submodule for information on the submodule.

• run

./doit

Typical output:

word rank 1) pares: 12036
word rank 2) monty:  7046
word rank 3) build:  5286

Optional words with none of these letters: ['b', 'd', 'l', 'm', 'n', 'p', 'r', 's', 't']
  --> chawk
  --> chowk
  --> whack
     main rc=0
     doit overall rc=0

Typical results

I have used these in 230 trials of Wordle.

The Guess Distribution was:

• Guessed in 1: no words, i.e. none of the Wordle solutions was "pares", etc.
• Guessed in 2: only 1 time, i.e. guessed correctly after entering "pares" only
• Guessed in 3: 25 times which is 10% of the time. This is higher than using other guess words in the past.
• Guessed in 4: 115 times. This is the most likely scenario.
• Guessed in 5: 73 times. This is the second most likely scenario
• Guessed in 6: 14 times.
• Failed to guess: 2 times. This occurred only when there were similar words that differed only by 1 letter e.g. I knew 4 of the letters and the correct for them, but the fifth one had 3 or more possible letters: "sweet", "sleet" "sheet" "skeet".

Note I also use these in Quorde (a variant of Wordle), in which you guess 4 words at once! Using these words and methods I usually get them all in the 9 guesses you are allowed.

How to use

Enter the first word, e.g. "pares". Wordle will report the character hits and whether they are in right position. I usually get 2 or 3 letters from this first word. A few times, there is a likely word that fits. It may be worth the chance to use that guess now, but that is very, very rare.

Enter the second word, e.g. "monty". At this point, there can be 3 or 4 letters from the first and this guess. The remaining two letters can be a typical combination e.g. "ch" or "sh" or "ck". These combinations along with the current guesses may be enough to make it worth the chance to use that. The more common, every-day word is the more likely correctly guess.

Enter the third word, e.g. "build". At this point, all 6 vowels and the top 9 constants in 5-letter English words have been guessed. It is likely that you will have 4 or even 5 letters guessed and a couple of them in the correct position. The remaining letters can, again, be typical consonant combinations.

If you don't have any good guesses, try "whack" that adds another 4 consonants to the list. And the "wh" and "ck" combination is common as well.

• if there is a vowel in position 2, then the first letter is very likely a consonant
• if there is a vowel in position 3, then it there is likely a 2-letter consonant combination preceding it, and likely a 2-letter consonant combination in position 4 & 5.
• if there is only one vowel in the word, it may be duplicated in other positions.

• if you only have 1 or 2 letters guessed, it is useful to come up with a word that uses as many of the remaining consonants as possible. Try to minimize the number of vowels since you will know that they aren't used at this point.

  • consider trying "whack"
  • "ch", "tch", "sh", "ck", "tr", "wh", "sl", are common consonant combinations
  • "ai" are common vowel combinations.
  • "er", "el" are common letter combinations.
  • "w", "wh" are commonly in position 1
  • "e", "ck", "sh", "ch", "tch" are common at the end of the word

• If you get stuck, check out these common failure points:

  • multiple repetition of consonants e.g. "puppy", "motto", "mommy"