[phphphphp]

Sorry, can you explain what you mean here: I play hard mode and I always get the word within 6 guesses — and I’m no savant, I’m an idiot, and I don’t cheat — no looking at the word list. The same is true for my friends who play on hard mode: no cheating, always finish. Why is luck required for hard mode?

[twobitshifter]

I lost this week on FOYER without repeated letters, there are plenty of words with ER endings and O as a second letter. —- VOICE LONER TOWER JOKER POSER HOMER ——-

The last two were unlikely to be the word, but I try to finish in only a few minutes and those popped to my head before foyer. But I could have guessed BOXER or DOPER or some other words I’m sure. When I’ve lost it’s usually because I have 3 letters and guessing only 2 new letters at a time doesn’t let you eliminate the other options fast enough.

[mostertoaster]

Yeah this was the exact one I was thinking.

Our wordle slack group lots of people lost on foyer.

I had started with some random word with lots of consonants (all black result), so when I got to having just o e and r, I only had two clear possibilities I could see left with three guesses.

[kilbuz]

LOVER BOXER POWER CODER... broke my steak of 90...

[thxg]

Wordle works with a 12k-word dictionary, which is very much comprehensive (that includes "words" like "grrrl"). However, the hidden/secret words are picked from a much smaller set of 2k reasonable words (i.e., frequent ones, and that most people would describe as English words).

There are two reasons that you always win within 6 guesses:

1. It has been shown [1] that in hard mode you can always solve wordle in 6 guesses (but not always in 5) if you assume that the hidden word is "reasonable", i.e., taken from the 2k-word list. However, if you know 12k 5-letter English words and if you don't assume that the hidden word is "reasonable", then you will sometimes need 7 guesses.

2. Even then, the average number of guesses that you need is much lower, at 3.5 guesses (or 4.5 using all 12k words). So if you play optimally or close to it, it is only in very rare cases (the worst case) that you will need the full 6 or 7 guesses.

So, surprisingly, the game is easier if you are not a "savant", or to be more precise, if you are not a computer :-).

[1] http://sonorouschocolate.com/notes/index.php?title=The_best_...

[jeffbee]

That's luck, which is fine. But there is not an optimal strategy which if followed always result in a win for the actual Wordle games. Some of them require at least 7 guesses in hard mode.