I have already shared A simple winning strategy for playing Wordleis a popular online game invented by Josh Wardle that runs daily on the New York Times site. Essentially, I start with TRAIN and CLOSE, then look at the correct letters and try words that use them in different places. If I have to imagine a word that could be successful, I use X to spell out the correct letters I know so far. So far, this strategy has still worked.
And now there’s a new tool you can use. I call it the Wordle Player Cheat Sheet. With the help of the great minds at the Oxford English Dictionary, I’ve compiled a list that ranks every letter of the alphabet in order of how often they’re used in English words. As you might expect, E and A are the best letters to throw into Wordle’s guesses. J and Q are not.
We also asked our readers and friends to share their Wordle strategies, so hopefully you can find some tips here to refresh your gameplay.
Become a champion
“Previously I used TRAIN as my first guess, but now the first two words are always NOISE and TRULY. If the word isn’t obvious, then I use CHAMP. From these three words I get the 15 most common letters that contain all six vowels. If I’m still not sure, I use DEBUG to get three more consonants.” —Dan Hughes
Use yesterday’s winners
“I always start with the winning phrase from the previous day: continuity!”Mark Hirsch
Random Method
“For a long time, I used two starter words with a lot of vowels and common letters, which always resulted in a solid four-line winner, and sometimes a three-line winner. But then I branched out and threw in some random words, and still got a solid four-line winner, and sometimes a three-line and a couple of two-line winners.” —Susan C. Young
Another random vote
“There’s very little strategy. My wardle (and quadle) play is random free-for-all. I win a wardle with four guesses almost every time. I use whatever starter word comes to mind. I use a second random word to try to get more hits.” —Debbie Ash Hoover
The Importance of A and R
“Also, I always type in the correct answer with an ‘X’ in the places I’m not sure. A visual person like me can often see the correct answer right away. Also, if ‘a’ and ‘r’ are typed in the wrong place, I almost always move them to the third and fourth place, so they can be spelled ‘are’ or ‘ard’ or whatever. If you haven’t typed them in correctly already, they’re almost always there.” —Christine Eberhardt Miner
Learn the vowels
“My strategy is to start with the audio and target the four vowels.”Vanessa Bloy
Have I mentioned vowels?
“ALOUD or OCEAN are my go-tos.”Julie Jansen-Pelletier
“Staring” at the puzzle
“I stopped playing, but the first word I used was always ‘STARE.'”Scott Lerman
Use a straw
“(My first word is) STRAW…” —Stefan Myslicki
