I always use the same two words first, unless the Wordle is obvious after my first guess. My first two words are adieu ( yeah, I know) and story, which incorporate all the vowels and a lot of the most common letters.

If I get , say, the last four letters and there are several letters that could be first letter, Ill think of a word that uses most of those first letter possibilities and see which one turns green. Hope that makes sense.

I don't play in hard mode. Also, my second word choice depends on how many hits I got on the 1st. If I only get 1 or 2 letters and/or none are in the right spot, I always go for as much new info as possible, which in my weird mind requires trying 5 new letters.

Makes sense in my head anyway. 😆

I use the same three words. If I get enough green or even yellow with the first or second word, I will give it a try. My three first words contain all the vowels and consonants that are used frequently.

I have often gotten it in 3 and once in awhile a 2 and even a couple of times gotten a 1.

My words are reach, point and sulky. Sometimes I do them in different order.

i always pick a new word. I try to pick something I don’t recall every using. This is not a strategy and often the word isn’t smart, it’s just how I like to play.

My game will not let me not enter a word that does t i clude all letters thet have previously come up yellow or green. I think ther’s becaise I’m in hsrd mode.

I don't play in the hard mode,

I also use the 2 same words first unless the first word has enough letters to give me a big hint. My two words are "crane" and "south". The reason is to get at least 4 vowels and the others have consonants thar often used.

I pick a word that has some relation to the day. CLOUD,HAPPY,BACON ... and it must have neutral or pleasant meaning. If I get a green or yellow letters I include them in the second word and try to keep going like that. If I'm totally stumped after line 4, then on Line 5 I will skip the yellow & green and just use up some letters in a random word, eliminating letters. I like the process, not trying to win. Sometimes it's more fun to work down to line 6 rather than to "win" on line 2. I will do almost anything to avoid using a word like ROACH or SATAN, ha ha.

I use the same first three words every single time. I'm not interested in making it difficult, since it's just for fun.

They use every single vowel and the most common consonants.

DARES

POINT

LUCKY

I use SLATE and IRONY has my opening words with pretty good luck? I'm going to try out some of the above words and see what happens.

This is so interesting! I didn't know there was a hard mode...a different more difficult word, I presume? I do the same as FOAS and HU, pick a word from thin air...something that just comes to me. Then use the letters I've gotten in my second guess.

@rob333 (zone 7b), so if you used DARES first and you got _A_ES, would you still put in POINT for your 2nd guess, or would you try letters that could obviously make a word with the AE&S? Like I might guess DATES or MALES or PALES. Would you try that or stick with POINT?

Off to investigate hard mode.

Thanks everyone.

Yes, I would put in the second word. Let's just say I always get the word. It might take me multiple tries, and that's my objective, how few tries can I do it. I don't need it harder than that.

I have enough hard things in my life. Maybe someday I'll need for it to be harder mode.

Well, I finally found the Hard mode and discovered it already how I solve the puzzles.

Nice!

I start with the same 3 words to hit the common letters and all vowels: stare, cloud and pinky. I don't solve in hard mode.

But if you want to see someone who starts with a random word each day and solves in hard mode, look up Rangsk on youtube -- or I find him on FB. He also solves a lot of other puzzles such as sudokus and starstruck games and such. I've learned a lot from watching him work the puzzles. He's not as good with crosswords as he is with logic-type puzzles. He also got me back into globle and now I've added wordgrid to my list of daily puzzles which I find a lot of fun. I had no idea that there were sudokus with other challenges built into them like thermals and such. Lots of mind stretching!

I do play in hard mode and it isn’t so much ’harder’ imo. It does not allow you to enter a word containing a letter you have already used that was incorrect. I also have several words that are my common starter words…STONE, STORE STORE, CLEAR, TRADE, and a few others, depending on how I feel, or what might hit me if it’s close to a holiday.

I didn't know there was a "hard" mode. I play from the newspaper's website, not the games app.

" But I see some people get 2 letters right, but their second guess shows no correct letters, which means they didn’t try to incorporate the correct letters in their 2nd guess. which would mean you would never get the answer in 2 guesses. So why do people do it that way? "

If the letters I got in the first play are so common as to be unhelpful (like E and R), I may use a totally unrelated word in the second play to try to get more letters to help me narrow it down more. I'll also do that sometimes if I have secured a partial word that is so common that I could run out of guesses trying to get the missing letter - like [blank]-[blank]-a-c-k.

Whenever I've gotten a Wordle in 2, it's been sheer luck of choosing an opening word that left me with just one or two options.

I start with STARE and QUOIN to get all the vowels and common consonants. Then I consider the letters I have got right, and rearrange them if necessary, keeping in mind how words are constructed and what letter combinations are possible and which are not.

If there are many possibilities, I will use a word which uses as many of the most common remaining consonants to eliminate those which are left. If necessary I will repeat this process to eliminate more of the unused letters.

I have a 98% success rate, over 15 "Beat the Bot"s, 25 Wordles in 2, and the vast majority of my wins are 4 or fewer guesses. I also enjoy the new "Wordle in 1" game.

I start with the same word, SLATE, and my second word depends on the result of the first, and, frankly, on my whim!

A while back my wife screamed, ”Argh, it was one of my starting words and I didn’t use it today!” I went to play and put in ”steak.” It was the only 1 I’ve ever gotten. I was a little annoyed as it felt like cheating.

I didn't know there was a hard mode, either!

I start with a word that has at least 2 vowels, preferably 3, and go from there. I have several different ones I use. Then I start trying common consonants. Typing in a word that you KNOW isn’t right makes no sense to me.

A big help to me is the record I keep every day of my starter word and the answer. I have records of the past 3 years or so. (If I computerized it, it would be a tremendous help, I think, but my OCD mind would consider that cheating.)

“ I also have to remember to use US spelling.”

Floral, there is Wordle UK.

https://wordleunlimited.org/wordle-uk/

My strategy is similar to others here, and I use the same most commonly used letters every time : tries/tires/rites, rates/tares/stare. After that, I go to words with l, n, o, a or i, and I always use the letters I guessed correctly.

I actually got it on the second guess today 😀

Thanks Roxsolid, I didn't know that. I do the NYT wordle along with the free games so I'm used to the spellings now. But I do sometimes have trouble with Connections when it's stuff like baseball positions, sports people or US phrases. It's good for me to learn though.

Floral, I do an Australian cryptic crossword and have to remember to use non-US spellings, as well as pronunciations, on top of knowing about cricket and soccer. I picked up the puzzle page from the Sunday Independent last week in Dublin to work on. Still working!