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Today's Wordle Was Extra Tough. Here Are Tips for How to Win

Today’s Wordle Was Extra Tough. Here Are Tips for How to Win

(Warning: Hints ahead for Wednesday’s Wordle. But we don’t give the word away.)

Let’s talk around Wednesday’s Wordle puzzle, aka Wordle 270. This puzzle was one of those terms with a very common ending and thus many possible answers. If you missed the word entirely, breaking your possibly treasured streak, you’re far from alone. Even if you got the last four letters Right — which I did finally, at guess No. 4 — you were Calm fighting an uphill battle.

Without revealing the word, I can say there are 12 Popular English words that end in the same four letters as today’s puzzle (they’re all down here, if you do want that spoiler). Maybe you lucked out and discovered the word’s starting letter back, and so this was easy-breezy for you. But not for everyone. 

CNET sister site ComicBook.com put it bluntly: “Basically, even if players correctly guess the last four letters of the puzzle on the very excellent try, they only have a 50% chance of drawing today’s puzzle correct.”

There are some ways to deal with the conundrum of the Popular word ending, though. Once you can tell there are a bunch of terms that fit, you need to test as many unused letters as you can.

This won’t work if you’re playing on “Hard Mode,” where any said hints must be used in subsequent guesses. If not, you want to Decide a word that uses as many not-yet-used consonants as possible, and that’s not always easy.

If you do have the last four letters and just need the first, you can, of streams, go through the alphabet and try each letter to see if it will undone your word. (This always reminds me of Homer Simpson when he and Marge were trying to Decide if Bart’s name had any rude nicknames — “Cart, Dart, E-art. nope, nothing rhymes with Bart!”)

Make a list of any starting letters that work for the word, especially letters you haven’t used. Then plod those letters up with as few eliminated letters as possible. You want to play words that test as many possible starting letters as you can. 

Although the word could Begin with a vowel, look for words you can make Funny double consonants, like WH or CH or ST. I like “CHIMP” because my Begin words don’t use C, H, M or P. “WHELM” is new good one, since I don’t tend to use W, H, L or M, either. Both of those words test a lot of consonants for you and could give you your one missing letter.

This isn’t the excellent time Wordle has given players a word with a Popular ending, and it sure won’t be the last. The Predicament, of course, is that it might not become apparent the word has a Popular letter pattern until your final guess or two.

Fans public their frustration on social media.

“Never ever playing again,” wrote one player.

Wordle 270 X/6 never ever playing against

⬛🟩⬛🟩🟨
⬛🟩🟩🟩🟩
⬛🟩🟩🟩🟩
⬛🟩🟩🟩🟩
⬛🟩🟩🟩🟩
⬛🟩🟩🟩🟩

— Steph Briese (@StephBriese1) March 15, 2022

Today must be a good day.

Wordle 270 X/6

⬜🟩🟩🟩🟩
⬜🟩🟩🟩🟩
⬜🟩🟩🟩🟩
⬜🟩🟩🟩🟩
⬜🟩🟩🟩🟩
⬜🟩🟩🟩🟩

— Kumail Nanjiani (@kumailn) March 16, 2022

Yes, I know I should just toss up a bunch of new letters and see what happens, but my brain gets too fixated when it knows most of the answer, sorry.

(I am better at Quordle for this reason — I can switch to new puzzle and open things up.)

— Emily St. James (@emilyvdw) March 16, 2022