Keeping the streak alive
The same two words start my day, every day.
The first word is “curio” and the second is “stead.”
If you are among the millions of people who play Wordle, you know about this.
Wordle is The New York Times game that gives a player six chances to guess a five-letter word. It’s interactive in such a way that after each guess, the game shows you which letters are in the winning word and give hints about where the letters would fall. The key to success is a good starting word. A friend uses “adieu”, among the most popular starters because it contains four of the five vowels.
After months of trial and error, I’ve happened upon a better approach: two words that include not only all five of the vowels, but also the most commonly occurring consonants: s, t, c and r.
That takes me to line three, where I don’t try to guess the final word, but rather enter words that will suggest where the vowels belong.
The game keeps track of winning streaks. This morning mine was 27. That “adieu” friend was up in the high hundreds, show-off.
I’ve been playing for about year now, and the routine is baked into my mornings. Make the coffee, walk the dog, pour the coffee, head upstairs to my desk, check my email and then sign into the Times.
There are two other games to conquer before I get to Wordle. I do the mini crossword puzzle, with a goal of solving it in less than a minute. I rarely do. Then the utterly vexing Connections, in which a player finds common themes among 16 words, grouping them into fours. If the options are about sports teams, hip-hop bands, new TV shows or video games, I flunk. My current winning streak stands at two.
After that I open Wordle. My heart races a bit because I have a personal stake in extending my streak. Also, I link my mental acuity to my ability to solve the puzzle in fewer than six guesses. Often, I solve it in five. Occasionally in four, and one boast-worthy time in three.
Players post their guesses on social media, avoiding spoilers by blocking out the words. Some players have solved it in two. When I told a friend my starter words, she remembered a time when the winning word was “curio.” Had I been playing that day, I’d have won it in one guess.
The English language has 2,315 five-letter words that are fair game for Wordle. That supplies about six years and three months’ worth of games before Wordle runs out. The Times says Wordle will end in October of 2027. Players are wondering if it will be replaced by a six-letter version. I’m hoping so.
I’ve come to look forward to my little morning puzzle ritual, as delicious as hot coffee and as challenging as remembering my ever-changing email password.
Occasionally, if I’m up and out of the house early, I’ll forget to play. And when I sign on the next day I’ll see that I have two games waiting, and I have to get caught up.
First, knock down yesterday’s puzzle. I pull my chair closer to my desk, rub my hands to ready them for the task, and type my first word, and then the second. More often than you’d expect, only one letter from those two words is right, often an “e” or an “o.” This will be a tough one.
As my coffee cools down my brain warms up; I begin my guesses. I must extend the winning streak to 28, or reset the clock to zero. No way.