Advertisem*nt
SKIP ADVERTIsem*nT
You have a preview view of this article while we are checking your access. When we have confirmed access, the full article content will load.
Supported by
SKIP ADVERTIsem*nT
GAMEPLAY
What the data tells us about how people play the game.
The internet is full of advice about the best first guess to use for Wordle, the New York Times game in which players have to figure out the five-letter word of the day in six tries.
Even Bill Gates is willing to tell you his strategy.
We would never tell you how to play — by all means, you do you — but a look at The Times’s user data from June 15 to Aug. 22 revealed that if you don’t have a favorite starting word, you’re in good company. Most of the other players don’t either.
Among the tens of millions of people who played the game during that time, only 28 percent of players with more than 10 games under their belts used the same starting word consistently. (“Consistent” was defined as using the same word 90 percent of the time.)
The favorite starting word among players during that time was ADIEU, the French word for “farewell.” It was used by an average of 5 percent of users each day, which still included millions of people. And even after a June 22 CNET article discouraged using ADIEU — because its abundance of vowels may interfere with the chance of getting some good consonants — it was still one of the top five guesses.
Image
Advertisem*nt
SKIP ADVERTIsem*nT
