[HN Gopher] Every possible Wordle solution visualized
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Every possible Wordle solution visualized
Author : jonbaer
Score : 277 points
Date : 2023-03-22 03:03 UTC (19 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.perthirtysix.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.perthirtysix.com)
| [deleted]
| blowski wrote:
| Tangent to the Wordle tool posted. Is PerThirtySix a reference to
| FiveThirtyEight? The latter must be one of the most well-known
| brands in the sports analytics space. Or is 36 an important
| number in sports?
| EA wrote:
| Yes. NBA games are 48 minutes in regulation. No one plays the
| full 48 minutes, but a lot of players (starters mainly) do play
| 36 minutes. So, 36 minutes has become a common time period of
| production time used for analytics in the NBA.
| blowski wrote:
| Ah I see, like on this page - https://www.basketball-
| reference.com/leagues/NBA_2021_per_mi.... Thanks!
| clircle wrote:
| I think this visualization would be a lot more informative if it
| was ... just a list of all the five letter words. lol.
|
| I swear, data scientists just visualize things because they can,
| and don't think about what information they want people to take
| away.
| bnralt wrote:
| Do you play Wordle? I actually thought this was interesting,
| since it's something I've often wondered while playing it. "The
| first letter is U and the fourth is E, how big the set of
| possible answers is now?"
| shriracha wrote:
| Maker of the visualization here! Curious how you would use a
| plaintext list of 2309 words to get at some of the questions I
| mentioned on the tool, like "how many words use Y as the only
| vowel?".
| [deleted]
| tremarley wrote:
| Will this be open sourced? I'd love to see a version with more
| than 5 letters & a word list injection
| ghaff wrote:
| There are a ton of variants out there including more letters
| and more words and I'm sure there's Javascript you can download
| whether or not you still can from the Times.
|
| I have to say I played around with a number of these at one
| point but I really ended up coming back to just playing Wordle
| once a day. The multi-word ones in particular really force a
| different playing style.
| madcaptenor wrote:
| This is a nice visualization.
|
| A feature request: I'd like to be able to enter more than one
| "yellow" letter in a given position.
| mk_stjames wrote:
| The word list being checked against isn't quite the same as
| whatever Wordle is using for possible guesses (this is mentioned
| on the page); for example, "DUCKY" is a valid Wordle guess, but
| shown as invalid when entered into this tool.
|
| The original Wordle word list was contained in plaintext in the
| game's javascript (which is what is used for this map), however I
| believe the current version used on NYT is using a different
| list. I don't know that the current set of guessable
| possibilities / the list of words possible to be chosen is known.
| I think some people have mentioned the list may have been
| expanded.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| The important point is that there are 2 lists:
|
| 1. Words that can be entered as valid _guesses_
|
| 2. Words that are ever used as _solutions_ in Wordle
|
| I think this is a great design choice (and IIRC was part of the
| original game). That is, Wordle doesn't want to use really
| obscure or uncommon slang words as the solution, as that would
| make the game less enjoyable (I wouldn't like it so much if the
| solution was a word I'd never heard of). But, when I get stuck
| and can't think of a word that will fit as my next guess,
| sometimes I just go into "mash keyboard mode" so hopefully I'll
| find something that will fit and get more information about the
| solution. More often than not something fits, and I'm usually
| surprised my guess is an actual word.
|
| So, to your point, DUCKY is a valid guess but will never be an
| actual solution in Wordle.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| This is why "which of the possible words is most common?" is
| an important question when solving.
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| I'm still sore over HUNKY.
| ghaff wrote:
| Slangy words seem to be one area where Wordle can be all
| over the map where something may be a valid solution or it
| may not even be a valid guess.
| ghaff wrote:
| There are actually 3 lists if you count the Wordlebot 2.0 [1]
| list:
|
| 1. The words that are solutions in the current game
|
| 2. An approximately 2x size list that is the space Wordlebot
| uses to "play" in. Supposedly it's still common words though
| some seem pretty weird to even a native English speaker (and
| some British slang leaks through as well). For example, titer
| was one of Wordlebot's recommended guesses today which I
| correctly sort of assumed had something to do with titration
| but would probably never have guessed it.
|
| 3. A larger pool of words that Wordle will let you enter as
| guesses
|
| [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/17/upshot/wordle-
| wordlebot-n...
| sokoloff wrote:
| I think the design choice is key to the game, but for a
| different explanation. "Be liberal in what you accept" ->
| don't reject a valid but obscure word as a guess, because
| people who know it's a word will be rightly annoyed that the
| game is kneecapping their play.
| cheesegradient wrote:
| Squaredle [1] accepts many obscure words as bonus words
| that don't count toward the canonical maximum word score
| but do serve as a tiebreaker for the leaderboard.
|
| [1] https://squaredle.app/
| HPsquared wrote:
| NYT's Spelling Bee game is an example of the opposite case.
| It's a little bit like Wordle (you're given a set of
| letters and need to make words), but it doesn't accept
| obscure words. So I'm constantly coming up with words that
| fit the letters nicely and get rejected. It drains away a
| lot of the enjoyment.
| xhkkffbf wrote:
| I think the NYT's argument is that allowing obscure words
| drains excitement from those who don't know the word.
| They can't get a perfect score. So they have a choice of
| annoying you or annoying them and they chose to play to a
| broad base.
| mortenjorck wrote:
| While I had kind of intuited this (I've developed my strategy
| over time to always favor the more common word when choosing
| among multiple possibilities), I didn't realize some of the
| places where Wordle cuts its solution set. Specifically, I
| somehow never noticed that solutions are never s-suffixed
| plural, but you can clearly see it in the visualization if
| you try entering a word with four letters.
| carlmr wrote:
| >I somehow never noticed that solutions are never
| s-suffixed plural
|
| This is something I noticed that improved my wordle scores
| a lot.
| noduerme wrote:
| First I'd heard of it. Although looking back, I've tested
| lots of plurals and can't recall one ever being right.
| Sort of degrades the game to have an unwritten rule like
| that.
| tragomaskhalos wrote:
| This is an important feature in fact, as otherwise the
| space of possible solutions grows to include nearly all
| 4-letter nouns (and verbs) +'s', and this is too large. I
| believe that regular pasts in -ed are also excluded for the
| same reason.
|
| The iPhone app on the other hand includes -s plurals in its
| solution set, which makes for a markedly inferior game (it
| also has an error in its use of the yellow indication,
| which also impacts negatively)
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > otherwise the space of possible solutions grows to
| include nearly all 4-letter nouns (and verbs) +'s', and
| this is too large. I believe that regular pasts in -ed
| are also excluded for the same reason.
|
| Regular pasts in -ed would pretty much restrict you to
| four-letter verbs that are spelled with a silent E (
| _kite ~ kited_ ); that will be a much smaller class of
| words than the ones that get excluded by the "s"
| suffixes.
|
| There is a weird tangential observation we can make here,
| which is that the plural suffix _-s_ , the verbal suffix
| _-s_ , and the verbal suffix _-t_ all behave exactly the
| same way - they are ordinarily zero syllables matching
| the voicing of the consonant that precedes them, but when
| that preceding consonant is similar to the consonant of
| the suffix, they grow an epenthetic vowel (becoming one
| syllable instead of zero) and become voiced - but the
| _-s_ suffixes are only spelled with their epenthetic
| vowel when it exists (compare _mats_ versus _masses_ ),
| while the _-t_ suffix is spelled with its vowel whether
| the vowel exists or not (compare _mopped_ versus _modded_
| ).
| ghaff wrote:
| Wordle seems to favor base words generally but it doesn't
| seem to be as rigid about it as with plurals ending in an
| "s" (which I don't think I've ever seen one of).
|
| ADDED: Looking at the visualization tool there are a few
| past tenses. A couple of them seem to be of the form like
| PLIED where singular is actually 3-letter word ending in
| Y.
| q845712 wrote:
| I clicked on the 'z's and noticed the same for "WHIZZ"
|
| I guess the article does say: > Note that these words only
| represent the list Wordle uses for possible solutions; there
| are many more guessable 5-letter words.
| fsckboy wrote:
| what you say is somewhat correct, but this site says that these
| are the valid answers, not including the valid guesses, so
| DUCKY wouldn't be expected here.
|
| personally, I'd prefer a tool that included all balid guesses
| and wouldn't lead me so precisely to answers. there's small c
| cheating and big C Cheating :)
|
| the tweaks introduced by the Times, etc., yes.
| TylerE wrote:
| Wordle has been trivially cheatable from day one using any of
| the gazillion scrabble solvers out there. Treat unknown
| positions as wildcards.
| samtho wrote:
| At the risk of sounding like your fourth grade teacher,
| you're only cheating yourself.
|
| I would argue that using a dictionary is a tactic and one
| to better help you better play the game by introducing you
| to the idea of a decision tree. You can ask Wordlebot how
| you did and see how it approaches the problem with all the
| knowledge short of knowing the actual word.
| adrianmonk wrote:
| It depends on whether you play for the love of puzzles or
| the love of words.
|
| If the appeal is puzzle solving, then you may want to use
| a dictionary as part of exploring a puzzle solving
| technique.
|
| If the appeal is words, then you may enjoy plumbing the
| depths of what words you know, why you know them, and how
| they are put together.
| TylerE wrote:
| Obviously. I'm not saying I do itZ I was just confused
| why GP thought being able to cheat at wordle is somehow
| new.
| fsckboy wrote:
| i wasn't thinking it was new, so wasn't trying to say
| that, i was talking about what constitutes cheating by
| degrees.
| ghaff wrote:
| I did use Word Hippo as a bit of a crutch sometimes when
| I was starting out and got stuck but haven't looked at it
| in many months.
| charles_f wrote:
| Since we're talking about wordle dictionary there, I find it
| relevant to plug this in - the best words to solve wordle
| https://www.fev.al/posts/wordle/
| sarthak927 wrote:
| This is super interesting. I worked on something similar, but
| got different two words begin with and was able to secure
| approximate 95% accuracy when I simulated for all. You can
| check it out here & let me know what you think.
|
| https://github.com/sarthakagrawal927/PlayWordle/
| RexM wrote:
| I really like this visualization of the possible words with the
| known information.
|
| It's possible to have two yellow letters in the same position,
| but it doesn't look like it's possible to represent that with
| this.
| jameshart wrote:
| Also no way to inform it that you have seen a yellow+green for
| a repeated letter.
| keyle wrote:
| I still play Wordle daily with my folks. Gets the juices flowing
| and gets daily conversations started.
|
| Anyway, HORSE was used like 3 days apart. I was shocked, and
| annoyed.
|
| See, if I were to write Wordle, which arguably I did too (see
| http://curdle.me) but I digress, I'd make an array of all words,
| randomize it, store that, match one per day and call it done.
| Years worth of fun.
|
| But that doesn't appear to be what NYT is doing, they pick a
| random word every day? Which means that my evil plan of starting
| every single day with the same word might never get a N1 or I
| might get it more than once in a year!
| brokensegue wrote:
| You are mistaken
| https://wordfinder.yourdictionary.com/wordle/answers/
|
| Wordle answers are now hand picked each day by an editor.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| My impression of that announcement was that the editor
| sometimes handpicks a word, but it's still mostly random.
| keyle wrote:
| You are correct, I think what has happened is I confused
| WORSE and HORSE and must have used HORSE when it was
| incorrect but remembered it as the solution. Thanks for the
| correction!
| graderjs wrote:
| I love how E is common in every position except the first.
|
| I discovered something interesting with ChatGPT. It finds the
| following really hard:
|
| _Can you make me 5 words, where each word has the letter E, as
| follows:_
|
| _E---- -E--- --E-- ---E- ----E_
|
| ChatGPT3.5:
|
| Eager
|
| Exile
|
| Cheese
|
| Temple
|
| Embrace
|
| I tried it with ChatGPT4 too, but got similar fail results, but
| history is currently down and I hit my "25 messages in 3 hours"
| cap.
| yreg wrote:
| GPT 4: Elope Defer Mover
| Aisle Plume
|
| If you think about it, it's pretty cool that we are at the
| stage where GPT _not_ being able to satisfy such request
| correctly is 'interesting'.
| jstx1 wrote:
| ChatGPT is surprisingly bad at Wordle - ask for 5 letter words
| with some constraints and it regularly returns 6+ letter words.
| nashashmi wrote:
| Too much logic required here. Change to "...guess five letter
| word Where e is the first letter. Do it again where e is the
| second letter." And so on.
| ar9av wrote:
| Very nice. I think the NYT has been tweaking the word list a bit.
| I know they've removed a few words, but don't know if they've
| added any. I don't know how much the list has drifted over time.
| jerome-jh wrote:
| At least "xenon" is missing.
| lifefeed wrote:
| Does Wordle not allow plurals or past tense? DARES and CARES
| aren't in this visualization, neither are DARED or CARED.
|
| I know those simple words don't come up often, but I don't know
| if they're actually not allowed.
| jtokoph wrote:
| I believe they are not possible
| [deleted]
| prof-dr-ir wrote:
| It looks beautiful, but am I the only one who is irked by the
| fact that the lines cannot be joined at will?
|
| For example, if I type PO_N_ there are two allowed words (POINT
| and POUND) but this particular visualization does not distinguish
| them from POIND and POUNT.
| xkgt wrote:
| actually if you hover over 3rd character, the visualization
| prunes the irrelevant path.
| macintux wrote:
| One downside to using my iPad for most of my daily content
| consumption is the number of features I'll never discover on
| interesting sites like this.
| oliwary wrote:
| Cool! I love this kind of intuitive exploratory visualizations.
|
| I wonder how it could be done for my 5x5 letter wordle variant
| https://squareword.org. Technically you would need 25 small
| alphabets, one for each letter. But that seems tricky to fit on a
| screen in such a visually pleasing way. Will have to look into if
| there would be a better way :)
| TuringTest wrote:
| Some advice: you may want to improve the instructions of the
| game. There's no clear indication of what to do when the first
| 5-letter word has been typed - it merely bumps the word if you
| type more letters, or shows a cryptic message "Type your guess
| on the keyboard to begin!" if the square is clicked.
|
| As for visualizations, you may want to take a look at
| mathematical relations [1]. Each cell is a variable with the
| alphabet as its domain (which is pruned as you guess correct
| values), and the words are 5-arity relations between rows and
| columns. You may represent the local relations surrounding the
| cell pointed by the mouse.
|
| [1]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relation_(mathematics)#Represe...
| dragontamer wrote:
| I know everyone has their "Starting Word" by this point, but this
| graphic seems very good at discovering good starting words.
|
| "SLATE" seems to have a huge number of solutions on each letter:
| 300+ words available on S----, 400+ words available on ----E. The
| smallest is -L----, which has 200 words, still a good size all
| else considered.
|
| I'm not too sure on how to evaluate the "best starting word", but
| maybe I'll try "SLATE" next time I play Wordle.
|
| EDIT: Some people are interested in "two starting words". Seems
| like "ROBIN" hits a lot of words that SLATE misses. -O--- in the
| 2nd letter was the most common letter+position after the letters
| S L A T and E were banned. "CHILD" also seems like another good
| followup word after SLATE.
| crazydoggers wrote:
| Some MIT researchers actually had found that SALET performed 1%
| better as a starting word. [1] However NYT recently updated the
| permissible word list, and TARSE is currently the statistically
| best starting word.
|
| 1. https://mitsloan.mit.edu/ideas-made-to-matter/how-
| algorithm-...
| Hnrobert42 wrote:
| From this I concluded the best starting word is FEAST. Each
| column has a high likelihood of being correct. And damn if I
| didn't get today's Wordle on the second guess with this
| strategy. Anecdotal data FTW!
| ghaff wrote:
| Wordlebot likes SLATE and LEAST a bit better.
|
| But, yeah, mix of common consonants and vowels.
|
| I also think I've found that mixing things up because your
| usual word did really well the day before doesn't really seem
| to be a good strategy because if the solution is a lot
| different, just eliminating some of the most common letters
| is still pretty effective.
| madcaptenor wrote:
| Is there some tendency for a starting word that does well
| one day to do poorly the next day? I know Original Wordle
| was randomized so there wouldn't be, but now that there's
| editing there might be.
| ghaff wrote:
| I don't know. I'll sometimes mix things up a bit if, say,
| I get 4 letters out of SLATE on a day. (I sometimes will
| use CRANE which is still very high on the starting words
| list.) At the same time though, even if SLATE were to
| come up empty the next day, that's a lot of negative
| information.
| layer8 wrote:
| If you want to cover the ten most frequent solution letters
| with the first two words, here is some inspiration:
| https://new.wordsmith.org/anagram/anagram.cgi?anagram=eraotl...
| macintux wrote:
| I've been picking different starting words each day, and
| Wordlebot is very polite when it tells me I'm being an idiot.
|
| "THROW is a decent opening word, and a distinctive one!"
| ggop wrote:
| https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/upshot/wordle-bot.h...
| suggests SLATE as well. This is a bot that analyses your game
| and suggests possible answers at each step.
| wodenokoto wrote:
| If the author is reading: zero probability and near zero have
| indistinguishable colors.
|
| That should be considered an error. Any letter that isn't
| impossible should be clearly labelled as possible. Right now you
| get lines pointing to semingly black letters, which looks like a
| mistake in the visualization.
| shriracha wrote:
| Author here! This is great feedback that I just implemented.
| Thanks.
| [deleted]
| shriracha wrote:
| Maker of the visualization here! Super cool to see all of the
| great feedback here. Thanks for checking it out.
| mym1990 wrote:
| Is the site inspired by FiveThirtyEight or Nate Silver in
| general? Very nifty, highly performant, and takes me back to
| when FiveThirtyEight was just a small stats blog.
| shriracha wrote:
| Thank you! My friend and I started this project pretty early
| on during COVID. FiveThirtyEight was definitely a design
| influence, along with pudding.cool, some NYT pieces, and
| others. There are some things on the data side that
| FiveThirtyEight does sports which I'm not a fan of, like
| their emphasis on "all in one" metrics to measure
| performance, but overall they definitely do a great job with
| their presentation.
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