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Wordle Postgame Report, weekend CATCH up, November 4-6

GAMES OF SKILL AND CHANCE DEP'T.

Tom Scocca

Nov 7, 2022 — 2 min read

FUHAI, April 4, 2018 -- This PHOTO taken on April 2, 2018 shows icicles on a wind-driven iceberg ashore Ulunggur Lake in Fuhai County, northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. In spring, the frozen surface of Ulunggur Lake began to thaw, leaving fractured ice under the sway of strong winds. Blown by the winds towards the lakeshore, the ice blocks then accumulate and form icebergs that stretch for over ten kilometers. (Xinhua/Hu Huhu via Getty Images)

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, not playing Wordle, or of the New York Times.

November 4, PHOTO, 4/6

ONCE MORE THE opener came up all gray, this time with LANKY. TROVE supplied a yellow T and a green O. The center was in place. Swinging the T around to the other side of it, with SHOUT, didn't turn it green, but it brought up a green H. Something-HOT-something. The beginning couldn't be SH- or TH-, so what did that leave? CHOT-? No. It had to be PH-, PHOT—the answer snapped into view.

November 5, DREAM, 2/6

IT TOOK A little while to think of an opener I hadn't used that also felt like I wanted to use it. Finally I settled on PRANK. Green R, yellow A. Most likely a consonant blend with something-R to begin, then, followed by a vowel combination with something-A. What would fit? Nice, common, not-yet-used letters: D with the R, E with the A, and then at the end a D again? No, better yet, an M. Green D...green R...green E...green A...green M. What the perfect game would go like, if you imagined it.

November 6, STALE, 3/6

THE FIRST OPENER that came to mind was TOPAZ, but it would have been ridiculous to play a Z, so I let it mutate into TOPIC, and got a yellow T. Move the T to the end, or just over one space? I tried the latter, with STEAM, and the work got suddenly much more productive: green S and T, yellow E and A. As good as four greens: S T A _ E. Here was an obvious chute in the act of forming: was it STAKE, STALE, STATE, or who knows what else? I could try to methodically plug the chute right away, and settle for trying to win in the fourth round or later. But STALE was such a good and satisfying answer. How many chute-prevention plays had I made lately? They were tiresome and boring. I played the word; it all turned green.

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