These three Wordle starter words almost guarantee a winning streak

I think about Wordle a little too much. My two-step strategy to start with TRAIN and then try CLOSE as my second word took me on a streak of almost 100 wins before I busted it a month ago. I guessed VAULT instead of FAULT. oops my mistake.

So I went back to the Wordle drawing board, deciding I needed to try a three-word strategy. Usually knowing TRAIN and CLOSE as my first two words gives me a decent number of correct letters that I just have to shuffle in the right places. But sometimes it doesn’t. Then I’m staring blankly at a grid with four guesses left and zero idea what to do.

TRAIN and CLOSE, my opening words, use all 10 of the 10 most commonly used letters in the Concise Oxford English Dictionary, according to Reader’s Digest. That’s pretty good, I thought. But where do I go from there if it brings me nothing? I tried WHELM for a while, thinking W, H, L and M were good consonants to get out of the way. It works well, but not great. I was displeased.

Pumped up for ‘UMPED’

But for the past month, I’ve been using this strategy:

1. First word…TRAIN
2. Second word…CLOSE (sometimes CLOSE doesn’t give me anything, but these are big letters I can’t miss)
3. Third word…UMPED. Yes, “UMPED” is a word. I hate re-using the E, but UMPED gives me the last of the five main vowels, three capital consonants, and I try the E in a place where it occurs frequently.

“X” marks the spot

Once I know those three words, I almost always have a decent amount of letters to play with. Now you usually just rearrange the letters to find the Wordle answer.

At this point I suppose I could just write down the possible words, but I like to enter possibilities into the Wordle grid by using an “X” where I don’t know the letter. Maybe I know the word ends in “ER” and there’s a D somewhere. So I might write DXXER and then try to figure it out from there. (“DIVING?”)

I go back a lot and try different words, being careful not to accidentally hit ENTER. But typing enough words with Xes usually stirs something in my brain. (Remember that the X is just a space, so use any letter there you want.)

Last resort… or scam?

If you’re just incredibly stuck and don’t want to lose your streak, I have a suggestion. But to be honest, I consider it a scam.

Sites like Crossword Solver allow you to choose any word length (five letters for Wordle) and then type in whatever letters you have. The site then provides words that meet those requirements.

This only really helps if you know what position at least two letters are in, although you can fool around with it if you have letters and don’t know their location.

New Wordle Rules

New York Times buy Wordle from creator Josh Wardle back in January and has now put one of its editors in charge of the word list. So if you think words have gotten harder, you’re probably right. (“INANE,” the Nov. 13 response, struck me as particularly a response to the New York Times.)

The Times also explained once again how plurals work in the game. The game will not use simple plurals, such as “FOXES” or “SPOTS”, words that simply add an S or ES to a singular word. But they can use a plural like GEESE. That’s all well and good, but sometimes I’ll just guess a plural, like LIONS, knowing that’s not the answer, but trying to figure out some letter placements. That’s the fun of Wordle, play it however you want to get the answer. Guess what you can.

I will continue to check in daily on Wordle. It gives me a nice little brain boost and it’s definitely satisfying to see all those green letters flip when you guess right.

And while I don’t always use my three-word method, it’s satisfying to have it in my back pocket when I’m really confused. Hope it helps you too.