This strategy can crack Wordle—almost every time

Instead of stressing over guessing the right word, researchers from Binghamton University in New York focussed on narrowing down the search for the word.

The strategy solves the puzzle 99% of the time | Photo: The New York Times

New Delhi: It is often argued that mathematics is hardly of any use in daily life. But a new study suggests otherwise — it can at least help you crack Wordle. Researchers from Binghamton University in New York have come up with a strategy that can solve the popular The New York Times puzzle 99 per cent of the time.

The daily word game, which makes many scratch their heads, involves solving a five-letter word, within six guesses. To start, you can enter any letter and the game would then give feedback.

If the box turns grey, it means the letter is not part of the word. Yellow shows that you have guessed the latter right, but it’s in the wrong place. Green, meanwhile, indicates that the letter is there in the word and in the right box.

Now, the most common strategy to guess the right word is by filling in commonly used vowels. But in the study, published in the Northeast Journal of Complex Systems earlier this year, researchers used a different strategy.  

Instead of stressing over guessing the right word, researchers, led by Assistant Professor Congyu “Peter” Wu, focussed on narrowing down the search for the word. For this, the researchers harnessed the power of mathematics — specifically, Shannon Entropy, a concept used to measure uncertainty.

The team aimed to gather more and more information on the right word by making strategic guesses.

“Let’s say you’re at a certain guess. The previous guesses will eliminate a whole bunch of options, and based on the remaining options, guessing some words will send you into a trajectory where information gain is speedier,” said Wu.

The strategy

To solve the puzzle through the mathematical method, the player is required to run a script or programme separately and provide it with Wordle’s colour-coded feedback. The programme would then give the next best guess to reveal more information about the correct word.

For the study, researchers first calculated the number of feedback patterns that the game could produce. They then ranked all 12,972 valid five-letter words in Wordle’s dictionary, on the basis of the information they could offer.

The began with the word ‘tares’, since it contains common letters. After recording the feedback, the solver then updates the list of probable words and gives the next best word.

During the study, this method solved the puzzle in just four guesses, and the success rate turned out to be 99 per cent.