Variations on Wordle for wordies.

[Secret Chief]

Will that continue to be the case?

For me probably. In two words I get all the vowels in and some of the commonest letters in English words.

I often get the answer in 3 or 4 guesses. If it takes more it's usually pot luck which of several words fit the information I've gleaned. I never waste a line guessing a word containing letters that I know are not in the answer.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

Will that continue to be the case?

For me probably.

^ again, remarkable

 

[Secret Chief]

^ again, remarkable

In what way?

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

By the was, references to general letter frequency are nice, but be aware that The New York Times uses a curated list of words. So, for example ...

Tracy Bennett, who joined The Times as an associate puzzle editor in 2020, will be the editor of Wordle. The game will have a Times-curated word list and will be programmed and tested like the Spelling Bee and the Crossword.​

​

Wordle’s gameplay will stay the same, and answers will be drawn from the same basic dictionary of answer words, with some editorial adjustments to ensure that the game stays focused on vocabulary that’s fun, accessible, lively and varied.​

​

The answer list will consist of five-letter words that fit those criteria, with the exception of plural forms of three- or four-letter words that end in “ES” or “S.” That is, the answer will never be FOXES or SPOTS, but it might be GEESE or FUNGI. As the game is currently designed, FOXES or SPOTS can be used as a guess word to help narrow down the answer, but FOXES or SPOTS will not be the answer.​

​

While the answer list is curated, the much larger dictionary of English words that are valid guesses will not be curated. What solvers choose to use as guess words is their private choice. [source]​

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

In what way?

I supplied two articled that suggest a better choice - one from the New York Times and one fro MIT - and that information appears to have had zero effect. I suspect that there are reams of scientific discourse addressing this kind of persistence.

 

[Secret Chief]

I supplied two articled that suggest a better choice - one from the New York Times and one fro MIT - and that information appears to have had zero effect. I suspect that there are reams of scientific discourse addressing this kind of persistence.

I think regularly getting the answer in 3 or 4 guesses is about as good as one can get. The Wordle analyser agreed. Don't you?

 

[Alien826]

Good idea, and it's already been done.

Not surprised. Incidentally, my approach to programming at work and all kinds of tasks in life generally, is to reduce the amount of work to a minimum. So, a good program would have the user inputs at the least possible level. Unsurprisingly, the ultimate is a program that does everything with no inputs required at all. And a method of say housework that requires no work. So my perfect wordle program would do the whole thing for me. Actually, a more real life example for me would be to solve the puzzle to its ultimate level once, with or without a program, at which point I would lose interest.

Yes, you're more into semantics than typographics, the latter being the games that focus on the appearance and arrangement of letters and words but not their meanings. I enjoy both, like, what is the longest word that can be made with just letters on the left side of the keyboard (STEWARDESS) or using just the top row of letters (TYPEWRITER).

This may give more insight into my mind. When I saw TYPEWRITER, I was reminded of two things. First the fact that originally the typewriter was the person using the machine, not the machine itself. Then I remembered that the keyboard was set up to limit the input speed of the user, as the old machines could only function at a fairly slow speed of key pressing. And we're still stuck with it, even though a different setup would improve input speed. Incidentally, was the word typewriter embedded in the first line a coincidence, or did someone with a very clever and subtle mind do it deliberately? Can I look that up? How?

And then there's anagrams.

Once I worked in an office where we had our names on our desks using moveable letters on a frame. One day we acme in to find that someone had played an anagram game with them. Mine now read NIFFTY GROIN. The best was a girl's whose name I won't quote, but it had been rearranged to ENSLAVE MY CLIT.

And our bidding systems are complex.

Yah. I understand your system, but there's no way I could hold all that in my head in order to play the game. How do you handle the rule that bidding systems must be disclosed to the opponents?

 

[Secret Chief]

Huzzah!

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

^ remarkable

Not really. I gave you my reasons for wanting to continue as before. It seems that you rejected them.

Nevertheless, I'll make my choices according to my values and preferences. Originality is important to me, and as another poster suggested, I don't expect to significantly improve my outcome stats with any change. What I'm doing is comfortable and pleasing to me, and what you are suggesting would be the opposite. I'd be trading something more valuable for something less valuable. You'll just have to trust me that I know what I like.

I supplied two articled that suggest a better choice - one from the New York Times and one fro MIT - and that information appears to have had zero effect.

You wrote: "* While 3.87 strikes me as being fairly good, the spreadsheet gives us one readily available advantage in that, before any particular guess, we are able to search our history to see if the word has been used by the NYT over the course of that history."

I'm already doing better than that. I just calculated it using these numbers:

[2(55)+3(321)+4(415)+5(130)+6(8)]/(55+321+415+130+8)=3.69

But those are only the successes. 55+321+415+130+8 is 929 out of 939 games, so ten losses (failed to solve the puzzle in 6). I'm not sure how to factor that in. I suppose that I could assign 7 to half and 8 to half. That brings the average up, but still an acceptable one to me:

[2(55)+3(321)+4(415)+5(130)+6(8)+7(5)+8(5)]/(55+321+415+130+8+5+5)=3.73

These scores depend on more than just choosing initial words. The choice of subsequent words is also an element in one's success or failure. I've shared some of my strategies. Changing my starting words means changing a lot more than that - strategies developed over thousands of games (I shared the link to the site with unlimited plays, and I have over 8000 there).

The point is that I wasn't influenced by your links because I'm enjoying the game as I play it now, and have a lot invested in my current strategy. You found that remarkable and made references to psychology as if the behavior were pathological: "I suspect that there are reams of scientific discourse addressing this kind of persistence."

Was that appropriate? Why make it personal? Were you offended that I didn't take your advice?

How do you handle the rule that bidding systems must be disclosed to the opponents?

We have convention cards filled out that the opponents can consult at the table, and also, we alert bids with unusual meanigs, and the opponents are free to ask what a bid means during and after the bidding.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

Not really. I gave you my reasons for wanting to continue as before. It seems that you rejected them.

No, I responded to it. You didn't like the response, and I'm OK with that ...

 

[Alien826]

We have convention cards filled out that the opponents can consult at the table, and also, we alert bids with unusual meanigs, and the opponents are free to ask what a bid means during and after the bidding.

Oh yes, it's coming back to me. (I last played bridge at least 30 years ago). As I recall, they have to ask the partner of the bidder "what did you understand that bid to mean?" rather than asking the bidder "what did you mean by that bid?". Is that still the case?

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

Oh yes, it's coming back to me. (I last played bridge at least 30 years ago). As I recall, they have to ask the partner of the bidder "what did you understand that bid to mean?" rather than asking the bidder "what did you mean by that bid?". Is that still the case?

Yes. We never explain the meaning of our bids. The partner only explains their understanding of it when asked by the opponents. For instance, if an unethical player is asked about their one spade opening bid, they might use the opportunity to describe their hand to their partner: "It shows 17 high-card points with six spades led by the AQJ, four small hearts, a singleton K of diamonds, and ace-third of clubs (AQJ975-9752-K-A65)." However, their partner would likely give a different answer: "An opening hand or better with 5+ spades."

The partner is also responsible for alerting alertable bids. They simply say "alert" or display the Alert card from the bidding box (since we no longer bid out loud), but only provide an explanation if the opponents request it.

A bidding box typically contains four suit bids and one notrump bid for each of the seven levels, ranging from 1C to 7NT, along with X and XX for double and redouble, several pass cards, and the Stop and Alert cards. The Stop card has been removed by the American Contract Bridge League but is apparently still used in Sweden; a Swedish visitor to our bridge club recently inquired about the Stop card's absence from our bidding boxes.

This system was implemented years ago to prevent players from overhearing the bidding at adjacent tables, which could affect the hands they would soon play themselves.

Were you aware that in duplicate bridge, we don't shuffle the cards so that multiple tables can play the exact same hands? Instead, we draw them from a holder (see photo), play without combining cards from different hands and without reshuffling, return them to the container, and pass them to the next table:

 

[Alien826]

OK join me in a trip down memory lane. I was introduced to bridge when a friend named Bill taught three of us (we all worked together) to play. None of us could play previously. We would meet at each other's houses in turn. The host would supply beer and chips. He taught us what we later found was a variation on Acol, which we named "Billcol". That was a lot of fun. One of us moved on to club bridge. One day he asked me to stand in for him as he couldn't make the meeting for some reason. I foolishly agreed and it was a frightening experience that I try to forget.

Later, my second wife played and we had met with another couple who were more advanced that we were, but we managed to give them some competition and they never complained.

Since then, we went our separate ways and that was the end of my bridge, though she tells me she still plays with a group in retirement.

Yes. We never explain the meaning of our bids. The partner only explains their understanding of it when asked by the opponents. For instance, if an unethical player is asked about their one spade opening bid, they might use the opportunity to describe their hand to their partner: "It shows 17 high-card points with six spades led by the AQJ, four small hearts, a singleton K of diamonds, and ace-third of clubs (AQJ975-9752-K-A65)." However, their partner would likely give a different answer: "An opening hand or better with 5+ spades."

Funny.

The partner is also responsible for alerting alertable bids. They simply say "alert" or display the Alert card from the bidding box (since we no longer bid out loud), but only provide an explanation if the opponents request it.

A bidding box typically contains four suit bids and one notrump bid for each of the seven levels, ranging from 1C to 7NT, along with X and XX for double and redouble, several pass cards, and the Stop and Alert cards. The Stop card has been removed by the American Contract Bridge League but is apparently still used in Sweden; a Swedish visitor to our bridge club recently inquired about the Stop card's absence from our bidding boxes.

That's interesting. We used to say "stop" for what I think you mean by "alert", that is a bid that is not the expected next level, like 3NT after 1NT, and all bids were verbal. I guess that has been introduced to stop what we used to call "intoned bids". You can communicate a lot with tone of voice and it's not always intentional. There were also bidding shields to eliminate facial expressions, are they still used?

This system was implemented years ago to prevent players from overhearing the bidding at adjacent tables, which could affect the hands they would soon play themselves.

I wrote the previous part before I read this.

Were you aware that in duplicate bridge, we don't shuffle the cards so that multiple tables can play the exact same hands? Instead, we draw them from a holder (see photo), play without combining cards from different hands and without reshuffling, return them to the container, and pass them to the next table:

I've played duplicate with another group that I'd forgotten about until now. We used to stack the cards after playing them next to the player's seat, and the players would move round the tables rather than move the cards.

View attachment 96828 View attachment 96829

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

We used to say "stop" for what I think you mean by "alert", that is a bid that is not the expected next level, like 3NT after 1NT

Stop and Alert are different. Before bidding boxes, we used to say, "Skip bid, please wait," which was asking the next bidder to wait ten seconds before acting following a jump bid, which is what you described.

Alert means that a bid doesn't have the commonest meaning, which is usually natural. Thus, if partner opens 1C, we respond 1S with 5 spades and 11 high card points (HCPs) and opener rebids 1NT, a 2D bid there is artificial and asks partner to describe her majors suits (spades and hearts) more and says nothing about diamonds, so the bid must be alerted.

Here's the convention if you'd like to look at it. It's very useful for hands where responder has a 5-card major. In an auction that begins 1m-1M (that means an opening bid in either minor and a response in either major. 1C/D-1H/S only promises 4 cards in the major for responder, and we are looking for 8+-card major suit fits, which are difficult to uncover when opener has 3 cards in responder's 5-card major without a convention like this. Moreover, responder and opener may have 4 hearts each if the bidding has proceeded 1m-1S when responder has 5+ spades and 4 hearts:

New Minor Forcing Bridge Convention - Bidding and Responses

Here's a hand from the link. The partnership has a 5-3 spade fit and a 4-4 heart fit. How shall they know that? The 2C rebid by responder is the New Minor Forcing convention (partner opener opened in clubs, so 2D is the alertable bid; had opener opened 1D, NMF is invoked by bidding 2D, the unbid or new minor) and asks opener to bid hearts if he has four, and failing that, to bid spades with three.

This hand should be played in hearts. Why? Because when one has a choice between a 5-3 fit (spades in this case) and a 4-4 fit (hearts), 4-4 is the better contract. Why? Because missing 5 cards in each suit, the opponents' cards are most likely divided 3-2, meaning it takes three rounds of trumps to pull them all. Playing in hearts, we have a trump left both in hand and dummy, which opens up the possibility of a strip-and-end play and also allows discarding on the spades. We can't do either of those if we play this in 4S.

This is an amazing game. The degree to which bridge theory has evolved is mind boggling. I'm glad you had enough interest in it to discuss bridge here.

There were also bidding shields to eliminate facial expressions, are they still used?

I've never seen or heard of those, but at the highest levels of competition, diagonal table dividers are used to prevent partners from seeing one another: Bridge Screen (Divider): Duplicate

 

[Alien826]

Stop and Alert are different. Before bidding boxes, we used to say, "Skip bid, please wait," which was asking the next bidder to wait ten seconds before acting following a jump bid, which is what you described.

Alert means that a bid doesn't have the commonest meaning, which is usually natural. Thus, if partner opens 1C, we respond 1S with 5 spades and 11 high card points (HCPs) and opener rebids 1NT, a 2D bid there is artificial and asks partner to describe her majors suits (spades and hearts) more and says nothing about diamonds, so the bid must be alerted.

Here's the convention if you'd like to look at it. It's very useful for hands where responder has a 5-card major. In an auction that begins 1m-1M (that means an opening bid in either minor and a response in either major. 1C/D-1H/S only promises 4 cards in the major for responder, and we are looking for 8+-card major suit fits, which are difficult to uncover when opener has 3 cards in responder's 5-card major without a convention like this. Moreover, responder and opener may have 4 hearts each if the bidding has proceeded 1m-1S when responder has 5+ spades and 4 hearts:

New Minor Forcing Bridge Convention - Bidding and Responses

Here's a hand from the link. The partnership has a 5-3 spade fit and a 4-4 heart fit. How shall they know that? The 2C rebid by responder is the New Minor Forcing convention (partner opener opened in clubs, so 2D is the alertable bid; had opener opened 1D, NMF is invoked by bidding 2D, the unbid or new minor) and asks opener to bid hearts if he has four, and failing that, to bid spades with three.

This hand should be played in hearts. Why? Because when one has a choice between a 5-3 fit (spades in this case) and a 4-4 fit (hearts), 4-4 is the better contract. Why? Because missing 5 cards in each suit, the opponents' cards are most likely divided 3-2, meaning it takes three rounds of trumps to pull them all. Playing in hearts, we have a trump left both in hand and dummy, which opens up the possibility of a strip-and-end play and also allows discarding on the spades. We can't do either of those if we play this in 4S.

View attachment 96869

Very interesting. I've spent some time on your summary and the link and I have no questions about the convention.

This is an amazing game. The degree to which bridge theory has evolved is mind boggling. I'm glad you had enough interest in it to discuss bridge here.

Indeed. I used to say there were only two card games worth playing, bridge and poker, depending on whether you want to gamble or not. An exaggeration, as there obviously are other games with merit, but I do feel these are the best.

Yes, I've enjoyed our discussion.

Talking about gambling games, we used to play something called "brag", which is poker stripped of most of the skill. You deal three cards, no exchanges, and betting continues until all but two players have folded. Incidentally there being only three cards reverse the value of straight and flush. The only variation is the ability to play "blind" where you leave your cards face down so nobody knows what you have including yourself. To bet a against a "blind" player you have to bet double.

I've never seen or heard of those, but at the highest levels of competition, diagonal table dividers are used to prevent partners from seeing one another: Bridge Screen (Divider): Duplicate

My knowledge of this comes from one sentence a long time ago. These are probably what referred to.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

Something new and elegant for its symmetry and (near) certainty. This is octordly, an 8-puzzle variant of Wordle. After my usual initial LATER and PIOUS, 7 answers were sure things and 1 a guess between two possibilities.

LUMPY was the only possible 5-letter word with an initial L and a P and U out of position, and no A, E, I, or O. Then MELON became certain with the uncovering of its M from LUMPY.

But the third puzzle involved a guess, since both EMBED and EMCEE work for that yellow MEM followed by a green E.

I would have tried board 5 next, but it involved another guess: BREAK and BRAKE, and my goal is to avoid guessing when not necessary, so I moved to board 8, where only USHER worked, and proceeded leftward. By the time I got to the leftmost puzzle, the central E of BREAK was there to remove the guess there as well.

For my own possible future reference and for others who may be interested, these are the list of variants and other games I play most days:

Wordle - The New York Times (nytimes.com) 1
dordle by zaratustra (itch.io) 2
Quordle 4
Octordle (britannica.com) 8
Sedecordle - Daily 16
Thirty-two Wordles (sectordle.com) 32
64ordle - Play Online (wordly.org) 64

Add-ons:
WordPlay: The Wordle Unlimited Practice Game 1
Octordle Game - 8 Words Wordle (octordly.com) 8
Sedecordle Game - 16 Words Wordle 16

Waffle - daily word game (wafflegame.net) (thanks to @9-10ths_Penguin)
The Missing Letter: A Daily Crossword Puzzle - Merriam-Webster
Tightrope, a Daily Trivia Game | Britannica