Wordle Postgame Report CATCH-Up, February 1–5, 2023

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.

February 1, 2023, SCOLD, 2/6

I THOUGHT ABOUT starting with CAPER, like the stunt, then I thought about CAPON, then I thought about CAPER like the food item and went with that. Yellow C, nothing else. I decided to move it over only a little. Still a lot of game to go, best to work through it methodically. SC- would make sense to try. Should it take an I? I thought of SKINK, but that repeated a letter and had a K instead of the C. I thought of SKIFF, but that also repeated a letter and also had a K instead of the C. R and E were out, so SCORE wouldn't work. SCO-what, then? SCOLD would test a nice assortment of letters. Good intermediate step toward finding the answer, I thought. It went green from end to end. I could already picture the WordleBot, ever judgmental, telling me I'd won it on pure dumb luck.

February 2, 2023, SHIRK, 4/6

I WASN'T FEELING especially creative, so I went with PRICE to open, a word that had been rattling around in my middle rounds before. Yellow R, green I. I guessed the I was going to be the pivot of a single-syllable word and swung the R around to the other side, in SKIRT. That was right about the R, and right about the S, while the K came up yellow. Only one missing letter, and the other four could lock in place: S-blank-I-R-K. SMIRK or SHIRK, then. I played the M; it was the H. Normal results for no real effort.

February 3, 2023, TASTY, 4/6

I THOUGHT ABOUT using GRAVE to start, but it had already been an answer, so from a nearby mental shelf I picked GRAND, and I got a yellow A. I moved it over for the very satisfying letter-testing word PASTE, which came up green on the AST part. With the E out, that meant -ASTY. Here was the endgame, quick and simple; unhesitatingly, I played an H. H was wrong. That left repeating the T, and a lingering bitterness.

February 4, 2023, UNLIT, 4/6

WORDLE HAD ALREADY lowered itself to using TIBIA as an answer, so why not open with FEMUR? It got a yellow U. I slid it over with DOUBT, and it stayed yellow, with a green T showing up to anchor the end. I could try moving the U to the front, with UN- something, but the first thing that came to mind was UNCUT, and the second U wouldn't work. It felt more satisfying to keep marching the U steadily from right to left, taking a chance on a Q, with QUILT. No to Q, and yellow on the -UIL-. It was an UN- word after all: UNLIT. A boring negative, not worth all the groping around in the dark for.

February 5, 2023, DANCE, 5/6

OTHER PEOPLE WERE broadcasting the color grids for their two-round wins in my peripheral vision as soon as I looked at the internet, but I had insulated myself from being influenced by that fact, thanks to having already scribbled down GAMUT as a starter yesterday. The A was green. I kept not thinking about what other people were doing and played WAVER, adding a yellow E to the grid. So much for a two-round win. I played LAPSE and turned the E green, but the other three squares stayed gray. The blank-A-blank-blank-E pattern looked like I'd built a double chute, but it was the opposite of one: I couldn't think of any workable words to shovel into it at all. What consonant combination would fit in those third and fourth spaces? Or was there some vowel combination with the A? BADGE was already out. CABLE, also out. GAFFE, likewise. CADRE, ditto. The word-chute was in my brain, and it had no bottom. Finally I realized CACHE would fit. It wasn't right—the first C turned yellow, and nothing else hit—but it was something. The C went somewhere in the double-wide gap. With what for a partner? An N, and a D at the front of the word. The green boxes belatedly did their little victory jig.

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