Wordle Postgame Report, CATCH up: August 12-14
GAMES OF SKILL AND CHANCE DEP'T.
August 12, LABEL, 4/6
The Wordle Postgame Report is a brief analysis of a game of Wordle, the five-letter-word guessing game now owned by the New York Times. If you do not play Wordle, Indignity encourages you to please skip this item. The existence of the Wordle Postgame Report does not constitute an endorsement of playing Wordle, of not playing Wordle, or of the New York Times.
STILL IN THE B's, I typed in BREAD and hurried off to the kitchen to put the loaf where the cat couldn't get at it. I came back to see yellow on the B, E, and A. An odd-seeming setup: the B somewhere in the middle or end; the EA either not in that order, not in that location, or not paired at all. So unusual it could possibly be—ZEBRA? What a word to find in the Wordle, the most beloved and normal exotic word in the language, the creature that holds the alphabet books together at the end, showing up on turn number two. Black and white stripes capered before my mind's eye, but what I got on the screen was one green B, with the E and A still yellow. The imaginary hoofbeats of victory faded. Oh, but it could still be FABLE. That would be OK. Although it could also be TABLE. Back to an ordinary Wordle coin-flip. FABLE? No, and only the AB turned green, with the L coming up yellow to go with the still-yellow E. Not TABLE, but LABEL. Slap a sticker on it saying "mundane" and file it away.
August 13, HUNKY, 6/6
SOME MEMORY OF yesterday's struggles with the letter L led me to get it into the grid right away, with GLAND as the starter. The result was a yellow N, in a position that ruled out anything ending in the likes of -NT, -NK, or -NE. Trying it up front, in NOISE, kept the N yellow and added nothing new. Now things were getting genuinely weird and thinned out, especially with the vowels. Move the N again, and go all-in on U: UNCUT. Perversely, incredibly, the U and N stayed yellow, and nothing else came through. One more configuration to try: FUNKY. A gray first letter, with the rest green—right structure, wrong answer. What was left for the fifth guess? JUNKY, resembling junk, which this game clearly was. But the J was wrong, too. The game was rattling down a chute of increasingly stupid answers. One more try: HUNKY. Five green letters in a row, a conventionally appealing outcome, and an idiotic one.
August 14, KHAKI, 5/6
TRIED TO GET a bunch of common letters going with WASTE, with only yellow A to show for it. CLAIM made the A green and added a yellow I—a warning that something weird was afoot. The least weird placement for the I seemed to be right in front of the A, as in DIARY, but that stayed yellow too. Something more exotic: ZEBRA let me down two days ago, but maybe OKAPI would do the trick? The terminal I was green, at last, and the K was yellow. I knew this gimmick from playing Quordle: KHAKI. Long ago it was something exotic, now it was one more drab, boring convention.
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