[ledauphin]

One of the things noted by the OP is that you can get stuck in a rut if you don't do more info-gathering than just the first word.

I would recommend not even trying to guess the word on attempt 2 - much better almost always to guess 5 totally different letters.

[peeters]

Hard mode is so much more fun (which disallows this strategy). It changes it up much more each day and is more challenging.