These three Wordle starters almost guarantee a winning streak

Take a look at WardleYou can have everything you need. My two-step strategyI started with TRAIN, then tried CLOSE as my second words. This led me to a streak of close to 100 wins before I lost it for a month. VAULT was wrong. Oops. It was my fault.

I decided to go back to Wordle to draw again and try a three-word strategy. I usually get a decent amount exact letters from guessing TRAIN and CLOSE for the first two words. All I have to do is shuffle them in the right places. Sometimes, that doesn’t happen. I stare blankly at the grid with only four guesses and don’t know what to do.

TRAIN and CLOSE are the starting words of my sentences. They contain all 10 most commonly used letters from the Concise Oxford English Dictionary. According to Reader’s Digest. That was a great idea. But, where do I go from here, if it doesn’t bring me anything? I experimented with WHELM for a time, thinking that W, H, L and M were all good consonants. It worked okay, but not great. I was warned.

“UMPED” is the buzzword

For the past month, however, I have been using this strategy.

1. First word… train
2. The second word… CLOSE. Sometimes CLOSE gets me nothing but those letters are uppercase letters that I can’t skip.
3. The third word…UMPED. Yes, “UMPED” it is. I don’t like to use the E, but UMPED gave me the last five major vowels and three capital consonants. Now, I can try an E in a location where it is most common.

Mark “X” on the spot

Once I have guessed those three words, I have plenty of letters to play with. Wordle will usually arrange the letters so that Wordle can find the answer.

At this point, I think I can write the possible words. However, I prefer to use the Wordle grid with the ‘X’ because I don’t know which letter it is. I think I know the word ends in “ER”, and somewhere there’s a letter D. So I could type DXER, and then try to figure out what it is. (“scuba diver?”)

I often backspace and try out different words, making sure to not hit ENTER accidentally. Writing enough words with Xes triggers my imagination. (Remember, the blank space between the X and the letter X can be used to make any letter you wish.

Last resort…or cheating?

I have a suggestion for you if you are struggling to believe and don’t want your streak to end. It is cheating, though, it is true.

sites like Solve crosswords It allows you specify any word length (five letters in Wordle), and then you can enter any letters. The site then displays the words that meet your criteria.

This is only useful if at least two letters are in the same place. However, you can play with it if there are letters and you don’t know where.

New Wordle Rules

New York Times Wordle bought it from creator Josh WardleHe appointed one of his editors to manage the word list in January. If you think words have become more difficult, you are probably right. (“INANE,” the answer for November 13, felt especially like my answer from the New York Times.)

The Times also explained how plurals work within the game. The game won’t use simple plurals such as “FOXES”, or “SPOTS”, because these words only add an S/ES to one word. However, they can use plural forms like GEESE. This is all great and all, but sometimes I guess with a simple plural such as LIONS. Even though it’s not the correct answer, I still try to locate letter locations. Wordle is fun! You can play it however you like to find the answer. Guess as many words as you can.

Wordle will continue to be my contact on a daily basis. It gives me a nice little brain boost and it sure is satisfying seeing all those green letters flip when your guess is right.

Even though I don’t use it all the time, it’s so helpful to have it in my pocket when I’m stumped. I hope you find it helpful.